@Gridlost
The issue of Bryce/Poser VS 3dsmax/Maya has nothing to do with elitism. It has to do with clarity of purpose.
Poser, while not a bad program, is best used when in certain, more limited contexts. Poser is a wonderful previsualization tool. It’s great for staging larger scenes that you’ll model or animate later. It’s great for aspiring artists to practice their drawing without the aid of a live model. In the hands of a good modeler or digital painter, some good, final art can indeed come out of Poser. Just know that it’s not about the program, in this case. It’s about the artist using the program. Lousy artist? Make lousy art. Great artist? You’ll be great in whatever app you use. GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out)
With that said, this perceived elitism from what you’d call “3D purists” comes from a position of experience. Have you ever noticed that it is almost always the newbies or those with relative inexperience who defend an app like Poser with their dying breath? The reason is because Poser gives you instant results. Unfortunately, in the hands of a newbie, Poser can also be a crutch. Even in the hands of an experienced artist, Poser has its limits. Poser, for all of its marketing hype, is not really a content generation tool. While you can generate finished works, Poser is more of a content manipulation tool. With no other tool at your disposal, you’re working from somebody else’s content, off of their hard work, and finessing it into something new.
In a more traditional tool like 3dsmax/Maya/C4D, the limits are your imagination and skill. Truthfully, nothing in life ever comes without hard work. You can use Photoshop to manipulate a photo for 2 hours and call it art. Likewise, you can actually paint something from scratch in 2 weeks. In the former example, you may be able to bang out quicker results, but you’re limited by the photo. In the latter, it may take longer, but you’re only limited by your talent.
Like I said, what you might perceive as somebody thumbing their nose at Poser is really just experience talking. Poser art is derived work. I’m not saying that you can’t create anything nice looking with it. However, ultimately, you’re really just deriving something new from models created by artists not actually using Poser. Poser is a middle man with a defined and limited purpose. In a more traditional program like Maya, you’re creating something from nothing. It takes longer, but it is reflected in the end product. It will speak of your style, as well as your skill. With Poser, no matter how much tweaking you do, there will always be that hint of the original modeler’s own style and skill.
Just for the sake of argument, let’s say that Poser is every bit the high end modeling tool that some Poser fans claim it is. Poser is the end all be all. Praise Poser! Let’s build statues in its honor. If Poser were so great, why would Pixar not have already switched to it? Too big of an example? Why don’t you see a huge amount of high quality hobbyist short films coming out of the poser world? Still too big of an example? Okay. Why isn’t Poser the #1 tool of choice at schools teaching 3D?
Be honest with yourself. Is it because Pixar, the basement film maker, or even the institutions are all elitist? Hardly.
Poser is like the magnifying glass in a 100 tool Swiss Army knife. A magnifying glass has it’s use. Sometimes, it’s all you need. However, wouldn’t you prefer the whole knife instead? You may not ever need the fishing line or nail file, but at least they’re there. What you can do with the whole knife is so much greater than what you can do with just the magnifying glass. Poser is good, but all you’ll ever be doing is magnifying the hard work of somebody else.
You talk about how impenetrable “the industry” is; how impossible it is to get a professional job. Remember, it’s all about skill and patience. No offense, but I look at your website and I don’t see experience. Respectfully, I see the work of a relative newbie. Your website is a micro-sized picture of you as an artist. When I look at what you have there, I don’t see any strong sense of composition & staging. I don’t see focus. I don’t see any working knowledge of anatomy. I don’t see a working grasp of 3D beyond (some of) the fundamentals. I mean, really, you even have a ZB doodle mixed in there with your “finished” art. This doodle is so rough and, frankly, bad that it’s embarassing. Your website is your calling card. In many cases, it is also the first impression you’ll make. Putting stuff like that only makes it easier for people to dismiss you as a rank amateur.
If you’ve had a problem getting a job as a professional 3D artist… Hate the player, not the game. Getting a job as a pro 3D artist isn’t the Herculean task you make it out to be. It just requires a lot more than what you’re bringing to the table, at the moment. Keep at it though.
As far as the old question of “which program is better” goes, there are 2 answers:
- It all comes down to skill. No one program is “best”, as it is the skill of the artist which matters most. Use what you like best.
- It all depends on what industry you wish to enter.
Answer 1 is the safe answer. Nobody here would really disagree that skill trumps what tool you use. Obviously, if you suck, it doesn’t matter how fancy or expensive your app is. If you’re talented, you’ll always be talented. It may be more difficult to get results in a more underpowered app, but you’ll still shine.
Answer 2 is trickier. Ask yourself, “What do I want to do for a living?” That may end up defining what app you choose. So, even though Maya, C4D, 3dsmax, and Softimage may all be functionally comparable, they serve some fundamentally different industries. There will always be overlap. You’ll always see other apps being used in an industry that is dominated by one specific app. However, to be clear, certain industries do favor certain 3D apps. This is really rooted in each app’s own history and tradition.
For many years, prior to Windows, 3D Studio DOS was the premiere app of choice for game art. In fact, for many years, it was practically the only game in town for serious game artists. As the years passed, other competitors came into the picture and 3D Studio DOS wasn’t the only game in town. However, because it had been used for so many years and by so many game artists, it became a defacto tool of choice.
As DOS gave way to Windows and 3D Studio DOS evolved into 3dsmax, it became known as THE tool for game artists. That’s not to take anything away from Maya as a game art tool. Not at all. Maya rocks. It is used to make content for a lot of games. You’ll find a lot of jobs in that industry if that’s the tool you use. Browsing through the jobs though, you might end up finding more of a skew toward 3dsmax. 3ds has a lot of history in that industry.
Similarly, Maya has a long and illustrious history in the film world, dating back to its pre-Maya Power Animator days. That’s not to say that you won’t find films that use 3ds, C4D, or any other app. In fact, movies and TV use whatever gets the job done best & quickest. That’s why a lot of film studios like Pixar develop their own tools. However, as with 3ds, you’ll find that Maya’s market leans more to one industry (film) over another. A lot of other reasons for that, such as it being more of an “open” app, but history plays a big part in all of this.
I’m not pulling this out of my @$$, btw. Just look at how Autodesk markets each app. Check out their customer stories. Check out the job listings. You’ll definitely see overlap, but you’ll also see more of a bias. Plus, it’s not as if a studio that has 30 seats of Maya and has been using it for 10 years will be so willing to change to 3dsmax. Such a software migration is expensive, as is having to retrain or replace every artist.
Cinema4D is more of a tricky beast. Had you asked this question a couple of years back, I might have called it a “jack of all trades” sort of app. It is as competent as the other tools. It has been used in many films over the years, mostly for matte work. It has been used in a number of TV shows, ad campaigns, and so forth. It has even been used in texturing pipelines, thanks to its BodyPaint3D module.
However, these past few years have been more… defining… for C4D. Maxon has developed Cinema4D in such a way that it has largely become the tool of choice for Motion Graphics artists. You’ll find a lot of jobs in mograph that require Cinema4D. The app does that task very well. That’s not to say that C4D isn’t used in other industries. However, I defy you to find a job at a major game or film studio that explicitly requires C4D instead of Maya or 3dsmax. It just doesn’t happen. Cinema4D might get tossed into the pipeline by an artist who’s familiar with and fond of it, but it’s hardly a job requirement in those industries. In the past year, I think I saw maybe one film job, far overseas, that required C4D over the other guys.
As hard as this may be to accept, if you want to “go pro” then you also might have to “go Autodesk” as a result of that desire. AD has the top 3 CG apps in their stable: Maya, 3dsmax, Softimage. With other competition out there, they don’t technically hold a monopoly, but they do hold a signficant, relevant market share. If you aspire to one day work in specific industries, get to know one of those Autodesk apps now. You’ll find more work.
Again, there’s a lot of overlap in terms of functionality and purpose. Don’t feel as if, because you chose Maya over 3dsmax, that you’re screwed. You’re not. My suggestion is that you find out what you want to do & work your way backwards from there.
Games: 3dsmax (Maya & Softimage too, but more 3dsmax imho)
Film: Maya (3ds & Softimage too, but certainly to lesser exents.)
MoGraph: Cinema4D
ArchVis: A lot of ArchVis guys prefer 3dsmax or C4D, but really ANY app goes. It all comes down to precision & rendering.
I don’t want to discount the power of the other guys. Other apps like C4D, Houdini, & Lightwave exist, but it’s hard to deny that Autodesk is a juggernaut. If all you ever want to be is a hobbyist, use whatever you want. However, if you seriously want to turn pro, Poser just isn’t going to cut it.