*weep* Sorry I like the lolcat, don't kill me!

Honestly though, you can never really account for taste. Like I tell everyone who's having trouble understanding what gets more views and favs than the rest of their stuff, the stuff you just crap out really does tend to get more attention. Yeah, it sucks when something you put a ton of work into gets ignored, but the more thought you put into something, the more ideas your audience needs to understand in the communication. The lolcat picture, all you need to know is what a cat and a bowl is and understand the concept of hiding, but a lot of your other one-off pictures rely a fair bit on character recognition from your comic and that's a little harder to identify with to the random passerby. Don't take any offense, I have exactly the same problem and I don't even have any source material out yet, haha.

On the topic of render comics, how come so many are so shitty? I was looking through a grip last night pondering doing one in my spare time now I'm jobless and Silent Shadows really is...hell, it's the best I've seen so far. Seriously, no other 3d comic I've seen even comes close. *shiver* The porn ones are especially bad.

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／l、
（ﾟ､ ｡ ７ < Nin, nin!
　l、 ~ヽ
　じしf_,)ノ

Meh, it was alright early on but now its just kind of annoying. Its mostly the immature crowd that's doing the +faving :\ Meh, which is all I'm going to say on that subject

I've wondered that myself for a while now. The only Poser-based comic that has come close in quality to anything I've produced (not that I'm saying I'm the best—I'm really not ) is My Mayfly, which the author abandoned half-way through the storyline about two years ago. Honestly, I think its because a lot of people doing comics using Poser aren't particularly skilled or patient enough to produce decent renders with Poser or Daz|Studio (I know you've heard the jokes about the "Make Art" button). Another one is learning the bending limitations of the figures that they're using, and being patient enough to output a high-res render that you can take into GIMP, PSP or PS and do post-work on.

Yeah, a lot of the reason I had to put my own 3d work off to the side was frustration with the limitations of imposing my own style into it. Yeah, I was doing some great work and really making some progress in the style department, but each obstacle you overcome, there's a taller wall behind it, heee. Plus the game project I was working on was just too big in scope for one person. The nice thing about a comic is there's only two major processes I need to focus on as opposed to 4 to 6 with a game.

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（ﾟ､ ｡ ７ < Nin, nin!
　l、 ~ヽ
　じしf_,)ノ

My most faved deviation is someone else's drawing that I colored. My second faved deviation? A WALLPAPER. :thumb12456908:


I STILL GET FAVES ON THAT WALLPAPER!! And I don't even HAVE that computer anymore!!

Trust me, I understand the frustration.

I wanted to post another picture that someone else drew and I colored, but it would far outpace the tiger girl just because it's another naked cat girl with better coloring.


On the note of Poser comics, I have to agree with your friend. You're very conscious of lighting, which is something nobody else seems to care about outside of "every scene is lighted the same, except for evil characters who get ABSOLUTELY NO LIGHTING BECAUSE THAY R TEH EVOL!!."

See what I did there?

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...indeed.

"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun." -- Ash
NWL Comic: [link]

I suspect that's why I concentrated on lighting and shader techniques in the first place. When Silent Shadow first launched, I used the default skin textures that shipped with Aiko and Hiro3 but like *NightWarriorLimited just said, I have this tendency to focus on lighting and in the last three years, I've picked up things about cinematography and realism and have practically devoured every issue of 3DWorld, HDRI and ImagineFX (when I could afford it) or CreativeCOW (which is free, btw).

I think what I'm trying to say is attention to detail is very important. You don't have to go to art school; you just have to be a serious nitpicker and have a drive to constantly experiment and improve things. _{though I do sometimes have a tendency to be half-assed about things}

And speaking of hires renders taking a long time, I just had my secondary comp rendering for 24 hours straight to produce that last panel for Page 19. That's raytracing and AO slowing up the works :\

Aw snap—I forgot something. The only really good Poser-based porn comic was done by w1967 at Renderotica. It was posted in the Renderotica series gallery and ran during the summer of '05. I don't know if it's still there or not because the last time I visited, 'Rotica was in the process of changing it's website around.

Alright, I knew a good portion of dA's userbase was stupid but seriously? A fucking screencap? I really think that dA should give you the option of disabling +favs for deviations like screencaps and Scraps posts. Meh, anyway. I posted a warning yesterday and would you believe some tard went and +faved it afterwards? Yeah, I deleted it.

*nods* I'm not really sure what brought that on; whether it was my interest in VFX and animation or a desire to not repeat the mistakes all Poser n00bs make.

Oh right, working with 3d definitely wasn't a waste of time. Speaking of the patience issues, that's something I can really bring over into my drawing. Before, I couldn't spend more than twenty minutes or so on a pic without giving it up as a lost cause, but after doing renders, it's a lot easier to shift focus to different parts, I can put down a drawing and pick it up later and the time it takes to really put a ton of work into a drawing now, is still not long compared to what I could put into a render. It's also been a bit more natural to see into the picture and get a feel for objects having depth, but my drawing is sort of flat as a stylistic choice.

On the subject of your shaders, I was watching Vexille the other day (really not all that great) and it kind of reminded me of your style. They really turned up the heat on the AO though and it was really distracting sometimes.

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／l、
（ﾟ､ ｡ ７ < Nin, nin!
　l、 ~ヽ
　じしf_,)ノ

Yes. A stupid screencap. That makes me feel great about my own original artwork, y'know?

In general I believe the greatest failing of most all 3D animation and renders is lighting and shadow. Put as much detail into a 3D model all you want, but screw up the lighting with something generic and it ruins the whole picture.

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...indeed.

"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun." -- Ash
NWL Comic: [link]