that and ordinary objects too…good point
i think the article has it’s good points, but it seems to be saying that all renders are bad… which they aren’t. i might be interpreting it wrong though 
Elitist? Huh? Maybe if you secretly think that all your renders “suck”.
Its just a general “Don’t do this if you want to succeed” rant. It’s not supposed to be a tutorial.
I don’t agree with all of it necessarily, but I don’t think it’s elitist in any way.
Its the wording of the article that when I read it felt elitist, in a way dismissve of art that didn’t fit the author’s rather narrow view of things. I am not alone in getting this impression because some people in the cgtalk thread also got the same impression. this is how I saw it as elitist. each of my numbered points corresponds to the original authors numbered point.
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dismissive of a great deal of art that exists for its own sake not all works of art have great storys to tell or are dramatic in any sense - portrait art could fit here
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covered by my texturer /lighting master statement would you say their work is bad because the made nothing of it.
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lots of art is born from copying or paying homage to other artists lots of artists have done this throughout history
and their reproductions can be considered art -
your workflow is your own business, some people are terrible 2d artists but quiet capable of good 3d work
…
i would love to go through the other points but I have to go somewhere right now
I agree that this article is elitist and pointless.
It is elitist because newbees and begining amateurs cannot relate to that. Only people who have achieved a certain point in artistic or graphics experience and mastery can relate to the frustration that is being communicated in this article.
It is pointless because what is the point of writing an article supposedly addressed to begining artists while only experienced artists can relate to.
Personally, I don’t see this blog entry as an article but rather as a frustration venting from someone who have seen too much of the sort of “artistic expression” that he describes. I can certainly relate to that as I’ve been sharply loosing interest in “3D artworks” for much of the same reasons lately.
That is a very general argument. Not all product render are the same. And usually, just selecting the right view point with the right lighting and a small additional element can tell a story.
hmm…yeah, good point, ypoissant.
That was exactly the point. According to Redbyte, without a story behind it, any product render comes under the category of ‘work that sucks’, which is further evidence of the pointlessness of the article.
I have to disagree here. Open up any art book that covers composition, light, etc., and what you find is regurgitated stuff that no serious artist should worry about when producing art. All that post-mortem analysis of how and why good art is pleasing and whatnot is just a way for non-artists to make a living by trying to “explain” how things work. Ask any artist why they did something in a specific way, and they’ll most likely tell you “because it felt right,” or something like that. I agree, there are fads and supposed golden rules, but they are all worthless. Make something look right first, to your eyes, and worry about rules later.
Another example: we all know about figures of speech in poertry. No poet goes about and thinks “I’m going to put a metaphor followed by an anacoluthon here.” That would be silly. You just write what you like, worry about rules later if you want, but your job is to make things sound/look right. Also, artists all through the ages have repeatedly broken established rules and created entire new art movements precisely because they did not follow the established rules.
Anyway, I agree, those “render commandments” are not even rules. I also agree they are silly and elitist. Burn them! 
I guess it created quite a stirr on CGTalk because most renders there are indeed about either soulless photorealism with plenty of stock objects or trolls and big-breasted females.
Endi, gotta say your repetition is beginning to bother. I wonder if it someone hacked into your account to keep running that same old mindless 3DS joke.
I wouldn’t worry if you have a decent array of subjects in other images, I have a decent number of Dragons in my pictures, but they only make up a small fraction of everything that I have created, I’ve made enough pics. without Dragons so my art won’t appeal only to Dragon lovers.
I think you’re safe from others’ opinions on lack of diversity if Dragon pictures only makes up a minority of your work, or with me, I could make lots and lots of Dragon pictures but it takes me a while to model them and keep the mesh decent even though I have a base Dragon mesh that I could possibly just change up now, but I would risk the mass audience appeal of my art if I just made Dragons from then on.
Meanwhile, I do have to agree that there is such a thing as elitism is defining what art is and such, you can’t plunk down a concrete set of rules that everyone has to follow, and yes I have read the CGTalk thread. I do agree that the goal in CG art should be more than trying to make photorealistic interiors and characters or otherwise do the generic cartoon style, RobertT has good examples of what CG art could really be like if you dared to break what seemed to be the rules of what the acceptable CG styles are.
Endi’s jokes never get old
IT JUST GOES ROUND AND ROUND ENDLESSLY SPINNING WITH MIND NUMBING REGULARITY…
(ps I corrected your text ;))
This is creating quite a stir indeed!
Certainly, beauty (and, by extension, art) is in the eye of the beholder. You may not agree with one or more of Andrew’s comments (yes, perhaps calling them ‘rules’ was not the best idea), but nevertheless you cannot argue that many pieces of the “art” that you would probably call a “bad render” seem to fall into several of these “categories”.
Elitist? No, and let’s be honest, you’ve probably thought about several of the points yourself at some point. Andrew has said, behind the article, that he only meant it as tongue in cheek, and while he should probably update the article to reflect that (although doing so now may be seen as a sign that he’s buckling under pressure to save his own skin), he never meant it to be taken to heart so seriously. I should point out that he does say in the article that these are his pet peeves
Helpful? Maybe it could be moreso, but it has some useful points, such as where to find a good lighting guide, rather than just saying you need one.
Pointless? Maybe, maybe not. All of you who say it is, is because you feel that only those who already know how to correct the problems in the article, don’t need it. I beg to differ - there are still those of us who have some technical skill, but cannot get a piece looking “just right”, or wonder why people comment that it isn’t “awesome”. Alternatively you still get highly skilled people turning out render after render of photorealistic… cars. (I’m sorry, but there are more than enough car renders on the internet… in my opinion, of course.)
I believe people are taking this a little to close to heart, and I feel sorry for Andrew Price for copping all the flak (and a little sorry for posting this on BN).
My 2c.
Useful advice? He/she states the obvious and barely touches on the subjects brought up.
Number 2
“You use premade content”
I’ve seen many beautiful poser renderings, poser to blender renderings, etc, so it’s pointless to say that using premade content is the problem in and of itself.
4 is the only point that contains more than a couple sentences. It would be better to give clear direction instead of just touching on general points, barely. Elaborating on this point, alone(number 4), would be more beneficial to artists than the entire, brief, rant he/she has posted. It’s easy to say, “you need more light.” It’s much harder to show a person how to add it, and add it correctly.
But he posted a link to a book on lighting (7)? Yeah, so post the links and spares us the rant of flagrant chest pounding.
And point number 5 (3) is just insane. Why the hell would you discourage beginners from creating art similar to what they are inspired by? Part of learning is copying. Before you can be “original” you have to be “cliché” at least for a little while. That’s a given.
Take the “cliché” image of a woman leaning over a chair with her back toward you and a linen only covering her hips, for example. We’ve all seen it a thousand times. When we look at it we don’t suddenly get down/mad about how unoriginal it is. It’s supposed to be unoriginal. Yet we do this with 3D. People simply must create something the world has never seen before, or be seen as something “less.”
The reality is that most the images in the in the gallery/choice forums on CGtalk aren’t original. They are the same things we’ve seen a thousand times, compounded with years of experience, and sometimes, impeccable detail.
6
“They are a learning experience that should remain on your hard drive.”
Who gave him/her the authority to say what belongs where.
8
“You don’t realize you suck… You need to be able to take criticism.”
You need to have confidence as well. This is about as useful as telling a basketball player he needs to shoot with more accuracy.
9
Your architecture is boring. Here, look at these pretty images for inspiration. How were they made? Is there a tutorial, or even better, is there a video where the artist models and explains the process in realtime? Doesn’t matter, they’re inspirational. Be inspired. But wait, Aren’t you just being unoriginal in attempting to copy from these images? Yeah, but it’s okay when I think it is.
10
Assumes that post processing is over done to hide flaws. While this may be the case with some, a bit of information on color correcting would be far more beneficial. Or if that’s too much trouble… post a link.
Free information that isn’t very informative… You didn’t pay for it, but you certainly didn’t get your money’s worth either. Your time = money, and it’s nonrefundable.
BTW if you find this advice useful I’d be interested in seeing how it has helped in your 3D endeavors. Seriously.
This tells people how to correct those problems? I have a bit of anger inspired tunnel vision at the moment (separate issue) so could you please care to explain.
5. It’s cliche If I see another cave troll or big breasted warrior I’m going to puke. Be original and create something that everyone hasn’t already seen a thousand times.
The thing that is offensive is that this punk puts it as if it were the most easy thing in the world, when it is perhaps th most difficult (if not impossible) thing for any artist to do.
And sadly even if you could do that all the time the fact is that nobody would like it.
Now when I think about it “big breasted warrior” sounds kind of perverted, or something that Monty Phyton would likely do :eek:
Lets flame this jerk!
Lets not. Blowing something out of proportion is not a good idea.
Where does he say that’s easy?
And who can disagree that this :
Be original and create something that everyone hasn’t already seen a thousand times.
is what separates the great from the good? (whatever the field of art)
Wow. I think everybody is way to serious about this.
It’s some totally random dude who makes a list.
Then he writes this list in a tabloid way. Well, that’s how journalism works. Just call your article ‘10 Reasons Why Your Render Sucks’ and you can be sure everyone who knows what a render is, will read it. Seemed to work pretty well, even people who “hate blogging” read it - how strange is that.
Then he uses the stylistic device of overexaggeration, but everybody seems to take everything he says totally literal like they have never heard of such thing.
Come on, if somebody says “That taste like shit.”, you’re not gonna ask him “But how come you know how shit tastes like”, unless you are 10.
I think the point he wants to make is give people a few good advices how their work could get better.
And only because he says “…why your renders suck.” doesn’t mean he tells you which buttons to press to make your render look better, he rather explains to you how your work (which results your renders) will get better.
And sure, to many people this might seem obvious, but quite obviously a lot of people still render with the default blue background and don’t think about composition and silhouettes at all, so apparently it is not obvious to everybody.
And finally no one forces you to read this article (at least I hope so 
) and so your point about losing time does not make much sense. And the headline itself should have been enough to indicate to you that he is overexaggerating. Plus you loose even much more of your precious time discussing this stuff here now.
And about your question, I personally did not find this stuff useful, since I already learned it before I read this list (at least the ones I find important here: story and drawing). But it might be useful to some who seem to have no idea about these things.
Also I do not agree with all his points, for example I really disagree with point 3, I think you can learn a lot of stuff by copying something far more successful, that’s also how many of the famous traditional animators got started.
Just my two cents.
MD
Lets not. Blowing something out of proportion is not a good idea.
So what do I do now with the lynching mob I just gathered?
Where does he say that’s easy?
He implies it
That idea is so annoying and agravating, perhaps it is what keeps a lot of people from doing something, it is a paradox I know
He implies it
bollocks!!!