Hi.
Here are discussing about this if you are interested:
My entire argument rested on the fact that it is a iconic piece of art. A particular drawing of Mickey Mouse is a piece of art. A particular animation of Mickey Mouse is a piece of art. Mickey Mouse itself is not a piece of art.
Clearly, Suzanne and Mickey Mouse are not the same kind of thing. The Utah Teapot and Suzanne are the same kind of thing. Maybe if the Utah Teapot and Suzanne get their own TV show, that distinction is gonna break down, until then it stands.
If you fuck around with a piece of art, a new and distinct piece of art is created. Sometimes, the new piece is even better than the original, like in this case:
Creating another version of Suzanne is fine, but replacing the original with it would be… immoral. There’s lots of valid technical arguments, but they’re all irrelevant when it comes to an iconic piece of art.
Now Suzanne is ART ???..
She is part of a toolbox, lets not call everything Art,
Dont mimic Andrew Warhall who called daily stuff like plastic bags Art.
And who played with logos to call them art (abused coca cola logo).
It opsets people who do make real art, ea painting or sculpture it can take weeks.
If Suzanne is art i should consider the following daily object Art as well.
Hammer, screwdriver, electric wire, scissors, nail, painting tools, keybord mouse, usb stick, plain a4 paper…
So i question what is wrong in things to be named “tools” ?
Suzanne is a tool, to quickly test for example cycles materials, of modifiers, or other parts within Blender.
As artist i deeply respect my painting and my stone sculpting tools and pens,
But i refuse to call them art; they may look appealing but they are my tools.
People calling things Art to often these days, we rather “like” then disprove and question originality.
Also there is nothing wrong in changing - updating tools, i have changed pencils and pens so often.
When i see a better shaped pencil i prefer it.
(Suzanne should be updated to be a watertight model, tris or quads not that important)
Just chiming in to echo support for an updated Suzanne. If there are technical reasons to update the model, it shouldn’t be left as is just because of nostalgia (i.e. iconic piece of art). Watertight and topologically ideal model would be great for a go-to test model in Blender.
Not that the current version of Suzanne isn’t noteworthy. Could have a “Suzanne 2.0” with the original Suzanne, but that might be unnecessary clutter. Would be nice instead to have a link to the original in the downloads or something for historical purposes.
Suzanne is art.
However, I don’t think it is art that is so special, so powerful, so moving it cannot stand updating. The monkey head is somewhat of a mascot for Blender… and like most mascots, there is nothing wrong with updating it whilst keeping the primary form.
There is nothing sacred about Suzanne’s topology or, let’s face it, any artistic purpose to the exact layout of vertices & faces. Changing the topology os a mesh whilst keeping form is so standard in 3D workflows, I am actually a little surprised there is any real argument about this.
If the old Suzanne is taken out I will have to come up with a new first topology assignment for students which now is to fix Suzanne’s mesh in 30 minutes… Have I been teaching them to deface art all this time!
Practically speaking as soon as we had Cycles render, and definitely after cycles SSS and volumes the original Suzanne was no longer a viable test object. I feel the original purpose was to have an organic form for testing renders and materials, although I see that some people feel otherwise. Do we know who the original designer was and is it someone who’s still around to ask what his or her thoughts might be?
Philistines! Well, should I be surprised to find people with a severe lack of artistic integrity on a CG forum? I guess not!
Sure, “fix” the topology of Suzanne! Glue some arms on the Venus of Milo! Make Greedo shoot first! At your own peril!
@Razorblade: If you invoke Andy Warhol just to contrast his work with your boring and limited view of what “art” really is, at least spell his name right.
I think what needs to be mentioned when working with topology is that there are cases where you want edgeloops to be stopped and cases where edge-loop flow is quite difficult to get right without a triangle or Ngon thrown into the mix. In my experience, a triangle or Ngon will subdivide a lot better and a lot more smoothly than the genuinely nasty things such as 6-sided poles.
Anyway, I have no idea why, after more than ten years, we now have a raging flamewar over Suzanne (sigh, the internet at work).
I used to come to this thread to check news about Blender development and new features… Is this an extended April’s fools joke or you’re really destroying the thread with a pointless discussion about a 3D model…?
:spin:
Attachments
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)
In January–February 2002 it was clear that NaN could not survive and would close the doors in March. Nevertheless, they put out one more release, 2.25. As a sort-of easter egg, a last personal tag, the artists and developers decided to add a 3D model of a chimpanzee head. It was created by Willem-Paul van Overbruggen (SLiD3), who named it Suzanne after the orangutan in the Kevin Smith film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
If you think the suzzanne model is not good enough, rather than change it why not be creative and make a new unique model. If you see yourself as an artist then do something artistic
What is art?
90-ties style old wart
Traditions are set in stone
That will not stick
With scissors and a comb
all rigged on a bone
To pick
Right Click is select
No!
Left Click is intellect!
Watertight Monkeys
Visiting a museum
Walking happily
on the subdivided linoleum
Quads and Tris
Argument is Bliss
Old and New
The majority
and the chosen few
Look at this topology
Is it clean?
No!
You are so mean!
This is just an eulogy
A valueless artifact of
Internet archaeology
What is art?
I could answer it
If I was smart
Well if the previous arguments were more creative, then this would be a better read. However, it doesn’t detract from the notion that is pointless in any case. 
I think a good compromise would be to add a simple checkbox to the add suzanne operator (to switch between the old and new versions).
We can have the new version be the default, but people wanting the classic one can still have it easily.
oh God! Put that new suzanne on blendswap and whoever wants, can set it to be default startup.
I really can’t understand how this topic can grow such a long debate!
And please everybody, don’t try to teach others what Art is. :no:
I would prefer it, if I could define my own Suzanne meshes in Blender directly and share it through the Blender Cloud.
It could be the idea of treating a simple primitive object as if it’s something sacred (Though I know it’s dates back to the NaN days and I can see why people might be opposed due to its significance in Blender’s history).
However, that is why I proposed the idea of a checkbox so people can get an updated version that brings no drastic changes to her shape other than it becoming a closed mesh with better topology. I would also note that once Blender got something that was loudly resisted by some (Ngons, vertical layout, ect…), many of them ended up going silent once they started using it (because then they found that the thing they opposed actually improved the Blender software).
Can I rent Suzanne for a date?
let’s hire utah teapot for blender 2.8, and keep good old suzanne as an easter-egg for those of us “who know”
Even classic works of art get touched up occasionally by restoration artists. The purpose of Suzanne (whether it was the original intended purpose or not) has become to use it as a testing model that is more topologically interesting than a cube or sphere, akin to the Stanford Bunny, the Utah Teapot, the Stanford Dragon, etc. These others have been updated, iterated, and optimized over the years by various parties, I don’t see anything that would make Suzanne exempt from this other than the Blender community’s weird penchant for “tradition”. Old versions of Blender aren’t going anywhere. Holding back a change that only has positive utilitarian results just because it hurts your feelings somehow is silly.
If the never version has some improvements like the mesh - then why not update it as well.
Nobody really uses her for anything serious work like the UV sphere primitive and such.