Can modern Blender art come even close

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21

In the most loving way possible :wink:

I’d certainly be very worried if Cycles could not keep up with POV from 16 years ago. That would be very problematic. My point though was, from a purely technical position, this isn’t a particularly good example of what Blender and Cycles can and cannot compete with. As other have said, the image holds it’s own - but I don’t think it holds it’s own from a technological standpoint, but rather an artistic one.

22

Have to agree mostly… and in that respect even most of the featured stuff on e.g. ArtStation is not as good. Still, technically speaking 90% of the Cycles gallery blows the 2000-era pov-ray render out of the water.

23

These type of threads always seem to want to imply that blender is somehow lacking compared to program X. Even the title is contentious and loaded with half buried scorn.

So is it really some alchemy in a piece of software that’s responsible for this excellent image?

This render mimics creative photography, specifically the way it can be a stylised riff on reality. We are all used to seeing arty camera work used to convey mood and atmosphere and the artist has replicated this convincingly.

So what do I like about this render?

  • Composition is great, it just is – in too many ways to go into.
  • The grainy feel, motion blur and slight posterisation of the surfaces mimics the classic exposure response of photographic film.
  • The hot red and amber lights among the cold monochrome green-greys. This is masterful use of limited palette and a classic painterly art technique.
  • The overall wet and rainy feel achieved by the mix of reflection and atmospheric perspective.
  • Most of all the way that pieces of drama are created by areas of contrast and silhouette against subtle and muted backdrops. The overall effect feels like a moment frozen in time and space (trying hard not to channel Roy Batty here).

It’s these things that make this image great, not a bunch of algorithms for putting pixels on an image buffer. A render engine couldn’t understand any of the factors I’ve highlighted. They have to be imported by a human visual sense that understands the cues of perception both consciously and intuitively.

So yeah, tools are great and they provide essential function but they don’t and can’t create images like this. It’s the artist every time.

Are you suggesting this render is superior to anything done in Blender just because you personally happen to like it so much? That’s highly subjective and a bit of a tough sell don’t you think for anyone who has a favourite blender render they prefer over this one?

24

I think one thing that we may be up against with threads like these is not quite knowing what makes a great image, and how we use tools to accomplish this.

That said, and this is important, the tools we use can and do limit how effectively we can communicate our ideas. No matter your background in art and composition, this scene

[ATTACH=CONFIG]460390[/ATTACH]
(Renderman 21, http://www.cgrecord.net/2016/02/pixar-renderman-21.html)

will simply never be as compelling without Mie scatter approximation, or at least some lighting technique to fake it. Getting that level of detail and knowing how to configure the raytracer in order to give the type of visceral experience that the artist had in mind is what we do. The Mona Lisa wasn’t painted with sticks and mud, but rather the highest quality materials and tools available at the time. Speculating whether da Vinci could create a masterpiece using only primitive tools is beside the point.

We cannot deny the importance of traditional ideas like composition, balance, harmony, tension and dissonance. However, the tools available to us do impact the art we create, and we have to come to terms with this. In my view there is no duality here. There is no “left brain/right brain” nonsense.

Creative problems are solved technically, and technical problems are solved creatively. Placing a wedge between art and science is a disservice to both.

25

I admire technical excellence in the use of a tool…a lasting impression that inspires and moves people requires something entirely different

26

Really, the artist is the only limit…

27

It’s easy to say that when we have access to the tool set which we do. Go back 30 years. Yes, great art can and was created in the early days, but the nature of what kind of experiences were possible to create for an audience were greatly limited.

You can’t hardly say the artist is the only limitation when any given application lacks certain features. It’s like blaming the artist for not depicting the color of the sky in a world where blue pigment doesn’t exist.

Yes. That artist could create plenty of great work in spite of this, but without blue paint they are limited in the kind of visceral experiences possible. This is just so obvious.

28

To further this, I will also note that the phrase “it’s the artist not the tool” was often used in Blender’s early days as an attempt to block development of technologies like GI and Ngons. This was compounded with other tenuous arguments such as “GI is for lazy lighters” and “Ngons are for lazy modelers” (and if you think that isn’t enough, there were some who even wondered if Blender should have raytracing).

If not for developers who ignored those arguments, Blender would still be struggling to find any relevance in 3D today. Having better tools allows the artist to focus more on the vision than technicalities, and that extra time can be used to bang out more detail and push the work further (and indeed, the critics of such technologies more or less went silent once they were actually in Blender).

29

funny you never hear “volumes are for lazy people who don’t want to make billboard sprites”

30

HAHA ! :smiley: and Gimp is for Lazy people who don’t want to hand code pixels with a notepad!..