Yep, I don't buy it either. He claims "if nothing is properly criticised, mediocrity triumphs."- how true (and how bloody obvious too), but combined with the rest of his article this implies that "mediocrity" is worse than "bad". What a stupid, uniquely late 20th/early 21st century notion. Criticism is inevitably subjective, but that doesn't mean a critic shouldn't strive to be objective. Objectivity is developed through knowledge and analysis of a field and a good critic should be able to identify and observe trends and patterns and develop his/her opinions based on them. If I wanted gut-instinct subjectivity I'd ask a taxi driver or my Uncle Rab rather than buy a newspaper who pay the wages of self-proclaimed critics. Nevertheless, gut-instinct can absolutely be relevant in criticism. I am about 95% certain that even if I knew nothing about art, had never been in a gallery, never seen a painting, and knew nothing of artists' lives or historical importance I would still have stood, captivated for 15 minutes in front of van Gogh's painting of an olive orchard in the garden of a psychiatric hospital he was committed to, when I saw it at an exhibition a couple of years ago. Of course you could analyse it, but it pretty much transcends critique- it was just breathtaking. When friends asked what I thought of the exhibition, to see if it was worth the queues, the crowds and the entry fee my reply couldn't have been more subjective: "Just go and see it, it's fantastic." What's the point of that article anyway? It sounds like this geezer is an old-enough-to-know-better example of the "keeping it real" generation i.e. "Yeah, I might be an arrogant @rse, but that's just the way I am. At least I'm keeping it real!" Yep... real dumb. Don't take this as a flame Stinkie, as an ex-critic yourself I'm not having a go at you or your peers, I just don't like this guy's stance. BTW I think his portrait at the top of the article gives him away as an arrogant, self-important tosser... you can almost smell the "smug". How's that for subjectivity? LOL [image: Wziw_Badge-Jonathan-Jones-on-A-001.jpg]

@richard said: Hey stinkie Nice work again mate! I wonder though if for some of your renders that SU fog and PS with lighting effects could produce similar albeit not as good but in minutes! Not sure you have seen my thread on SU rendering? I have seen it, Richard, and I quite liked the results you achieved. Cannot remember the thread's title, though. I'll have poke around. EDIT: for those interested, Richard's thread is here: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=16807 All together now: thanks, Dick!! (Sorry. Really hard to resist. )

i really need to get into modo...

No Pre-order discount for new customers?

I like both the images however if the building were not in the center of the frame it would feel more comfortable.

@unknownuser said: ooo, rerendering in Maxwell, eh? Curious to see how it works out. Worked out fine. I'll post the result in this thread as soon as I've found the time to do some tinkering in PS. @unknownuser said: I'm not sure that your images need this based on what you're doing but it's worth taking a crack at and seeing how it looks. Just keep in mind that it's one of those rules that you may want to break for the sake of art. I'm not sure they need it either, but I'd like to try nonetheless. If it looks good, great. If not, well ... then it doesn't. As for printing relatively small, a lot of contemporary paintings, photographs and drawings are just too darn big! This, I think, is because they are made with the archetypical 'white cube' in mind. People don't live in white cubes. Well, most don't. (A second reason for a lot of contemporary stuff being big, is due to how art students get to know art: by watching slides. Hence they never learn 'big' is the poor man's 'scale'.) Thanks alot for the tutorial!

@richard said: I too like the second image, would love to see the fin pickup a bit more of the directional light with less ambient light. There's no ambient light in there, only an emitter. The lighting could do with some tweaking, though. I oughta get me a book on photographic lighting. @richard said: What are you using for lighting? Sky dome with some light panels?/quote] Image 1: skydome Image 2: emitter @richard said: Would love to see out of interest how your setting up these little projects of yours, maybe even a gallery of your works so far? I just muck about until I end up with something I like, Richard! A gallery? Maybe in due time.

Can i revive this topic.. its very interesting. i found it suddently while looking all on the previous thread.. "my question perhaps is.. Is art all about media? Look at how Duchamp use the urinal.. yet we considered it as art and has influence our modern installation artist.... If we go back at the Dada period, Dada was intended as against art in itself.. but what happen it became an art movement in itself although the founders wanted to go against art... do we appreciate this movement base on the media? I guess partly, but most of the art critique said its about the context... will be 3d rendering could be consider as an art? well back to my main point then.. is art all about media? no not at all.. most of the art work were glorified not by the media itself but the context behind the media.. in using 3d rendering.. is there any meaning you want to share? is there a context? yeah why not us then be the one who will push to this.. use 3d rendering in art.. many will say its not.. good let's make it more controversial. the more its talk of the town, the more you will exemplify its context.. personally, i considered 3d rendering and 3d media could be an art in itself.. are all 3d rendering art/ don think so. but this media could still be use in the world of art..

integration with the materials DB is very cool, as is real flow integration. If only i used maxwell

@holmes1977 said: Hi 21 D Check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona_Pavilion Thnx mate...helps out a lot @unknownuser said: there's quite a few models of the Barcelona Pavillon around. Check the Warehouse and PushPullBar. My own I'd rather not post as it isn't finished yet. no prob mate.....now that I know what's it called, i definitely search around for a model to render.

kmead said @unknownuser said: The thing is its not what I am interested in doing. I hire people to create renderings... Day to day we just don't do them... don't have the time, money or real need for that level... I don't really care to. I am a designer... SU is a good tool to design with and although I may send models to be rendered ...its not going to be me doing it. This was always my attitude, until quite recently. Now I'm trying to learn to render as soon as possible. Now I'm a freelancer, it certainly helps to have that skill. But mainly because it really seems that the general public, business people and even planning committees see everything through CGI tinted glasses. Regardless of how good the design is, it's the better renders that win jobs. Recently I've seen several, what I regarded, as innovative designs by up and coming architects consigned to the scrap heap, while some really ugly buildings by mega-corp developers have been heralded as "pioneering architecture" on the strength of the render. As I'm employed solely as a modeller a lot of the time, the only way I can compete is to recommend outsourcing the render to a Chinese render farm that I've made some contacts with (getting renders done in the UK is too expensive). This still comes at a cost but the quality of the rendering and the speed of the turnaround might be something that I could never achieve. However most of my clients are really small firms, so even a service like this is too expensive for them. Only option, do it myself.

I am sorry Stinkie, we are now working in the final elevations. The project changed a bit on November. I can send to you the Elevation and Section we had by then. That is all I can afford by now. Cheers. edit : it is off now.

very cool, stinkie. really nice subtle real-world details good luck with the project.

And of course, there is TIG's meticulous MatrixProximity (http://www.pushpullbar.com/forums/ruby-scripts/9467-visual-index-ruby-scripts.html#post131588) along with Chris's wonderful ruby.

Yeah, that's right. I've got an 8 core Mac Pro with 16 gb of RAM. OS: Vista Ultimate.

Scott, Dzine, Thanks for your suggestions. I'll try them both.

minimalism...good thinkin stinkie

FYI -- this thread has been continued here: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=25915&hilit=bonzai3d

@earthmover said: I was curious why you are exporting out of SU as an .obj. To avoid triangulation. @earthmover said: For the money, the nexus engine is pretty darn good. I'm not debating that, far from it - modo does offer a lot for it's price. But, I have the luxury of being able to choose between Maxwell and modo's renderer (and VfSU). Given the fact that I am mainly concerned with quality and rendering times aren't that much of an issue to me (I am not a pro, thus I haven't got any deadlines to meet), it would be illogical for me to use modo's engine. Back to learning how to unwrap UV's now.

While its not exactly Disneyland. . .