[DEBATE] Do you think a 3d comic should be considered honest art?

[Xade]

I have a 3d comic, well, it is now. I tried my hand at making it hand drawn but then I hurt my wrist in an auto accident. I tried to continue by making it easier, doing 3d overlays. This is where I posed a basic 3d model then drew over it but it proved to be too much for my wrist so I gave up and went full 3d.

My comic, Insanity of Xade, has custom models, morphs and textures. I even make some models from scratch, Alex's kitchen, minus walls, for example is a scratch model. Most of the pages has a pixel shader over top of it within daz studio called PWtoon, which makes it appear similar to a hand drawn image. I have custom settings for each character, based upon their fur/skin color. I put a lot of time and effort into ensuring that each recent comic has the correct shader settings. I also try to avoid too much of the "talking head syndrome" that I hear plagues other 3d comics, I do know of one but it would be impolite to mention them here. However, I can praise the Dreamland Chronicles because they have made an action 3d comic that you just cannot put down.

So, I want to know if you consider 3d comics an art form, or a pitiful excuse for person to make a comic. (Remember I hurt my wrist so cannot draw my comic or I would.)

[Pete]

I consider it art, but as with most art there are good incarnations of it and bad incarnations of it.  I took a quick look at your comic and I'm happy to report that it is definitely on the "good" side of things.  You took the time to give your comic a unique feel, the character models are pretty dynamic, and the faces don't have have blank looks.  I've seen far too many Poser-made comics that are rigid, hollow, and lifeless.  So yes, it's art, and it's quality is what you make of it.

[Xade]

wow! thanks! I do try to make it dynamic, there are actual expression presets that I use and I do move the eyes around to seem to focus on the person or thing they are supposed to focus on. (Unless it is Alexis, then I chose random directions because she is blind.) After all, our eyes tend to go to what we are talking to or holding, so I feel the same should be for my comic characters. However, when I first started 3d I didnt bother with the eyes, not thinking much of it but then I got to experimenting and reasoning. I have also been known to do my own expressions, based off of another, Aden's devious look comes to mind. (I was waiting on the shader to update here so no shader) and most of the poses are not presets, although they might have started as one. Again, see the one I pointed out, that was a basic sitting pose but I tinkered with it as the story progressed. I have various plugins, like the hand grip, and a few others that makes it really easy to edit stuff. If you are wondering, I call that Aden despite it actually being Alex because Aden is controlling Alex's body. You can tell this because the ears are limp except for the bottom because he is not used to controlling long ears, being a chip-fox.

[Nuke]

(Warning: Mild rant ahead.) From dictionary.com...

Art(noun):

1.the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.    
12.skilled workmanship, execution, or agency, as distinguished from nature.

So basically, anything that has been shaped by human hands and has any abstract attributions whatsoever is art. Furthermore, anyone who goes around attempting to say what is and isn't art is a priggish ignoramus.

You could argue whether or not they're 'honest' or 'art done for the sake of advancing art', but given that most web comics never see any profit, that's a bit of a no-brainer as well.

I've gone on a bit of a wild tangent, but I think it's pretty easy to extrapolate from this that my answer would be, "Well, of course they are!" Although many 3d comics are, to me, aesthetically hurt by software limitations more than 2d comics. I'd like to see more comics taking the 'partial' 3d approach and touching up backgrounds and such after rendering. Also, if the first strip of a 3d comic has flat, emotionless faces and gestures, then I'm definitely not even going to bother looking at more than one strip. Xade has lots of personality packed into it, but I can't help but to notice the lack of textures and bump mapping and so forth, where I doubt I would have that problem with a 2d comic that looks almost exactly the same. That's quite probably a personal issue, though.

[KidGalactus]

Haha. It's only a matter of time before somebody pulls out a meriam webster link. Art is subjective and can't honestly be defined. Sorry dictionary nerds... ok, not really. Since it's so subjective, reception is typically the thing that determines what is or isn't considered an art form.

In general I believe that anyone who begs that what they do/like be considered art (I'm looking at you, videogame nerds) only inevitably hurts the argument for that expression becoming art in the long run.

If you were concerned about art, you'd just be making art. You wouldn't care how people categorized it.

[Xade]

okay, I changed the title. and the shader almost strips most of the texture away Example, Alex's pants in the current comic are indeed textured and bumpmapped, however, it was a white texture and I needed orange so I simply change the color of the pants to match the untextured shirt. Alex is actually a relatively plain guy, who does not like to be a "walking ad" for something, except perhaps Shatarian Nights, the show that he is into that one could classify as anime. His pants are actually his Shatarian Nights cosplay pants and does has tassels. The light is wonky there because I was experimenting with making my own sets and somehow Alex's file got corrupted, resulting in a darker texture than normal. The tassels are bumpmapped, but you cannot tell it because of the shader. No one else has actually brought up bump and displacement maps before. Sarren's ring is the normal shader, both as the planet and the character, for they are the same prop.

I better watch it or I might spend another day here instead of making the bush I need :P

[Nuke]

I better watch it or I might spend another day here instead of making the bush I need :P

Man, this forum is helping me grow as a webcomic author, but I haven't spent this much time loafing about and wasting time in forums since high school XD

Also, I apologize if the first half of my post came off as directed towards this thread at all. The thrown insult was meant for certain critics that probably aren't even within earshot. I'm sure you're on the side of 'My own comic is art, thankyouverymuch'  :P

I do kind of want to argue against, "Since it's so subjective, reception is typically the thing that determines what is or isn't considered an art form", though. I mean, since we're trying to define the abstract here, there really is no right or wrong, but I feel that if a thousand people don't feel that something is art while one person does, it's still art. However, you could argue that it then isn't art to a thousand people and is art to one person, in which case both absolutes are wrong.

Abstraction is a pain, which is why I linked the dictionary for this one.

[raerae]

I think it's absolutely art. I'm not exactly a fan of it, because uncanny valley disturbs me. Some of my favorite art at least starts 3-D(usually painted over, though). So not my thing, for the most part, but certainly art.

[Xade]

speaking of 3d being incorporated into 2d art, I have noticed a bunch of sketchup enhanced comics, one of which reacently discovered it Dan Shive of El Goonish Shive I follow him on twitter and his most recent school hallway scene has 3d generated lockers. Personally, I find it a rather pleasing and more realistically angled hallway and it saves on his production time in the future because all he now has to do is angle it, snap it, paste it and do the actual artwork, like the characters. It gives the backgrounds more uniformity like it is in real life. After all, you would certainly look at a lamp that suddenly mutated into a different style, or a hallway that suddenly became shorter in surprise and possibly freak out.

Nuke, I agree, it has helped me, helped my layout mostly :P

[Funderbunk]

Art is a silly word that could be applied to almost anything. I honestly think the word should be taken out of use because it causes useless, subjective divides. One man's art is another man's drivel.

Using the common definition, however, yes, it is most definitely art.

[Xade]

Art is a silly word that could be applied to almost anything. I honestly think the word should be taken out of use because it causes useless, subjective divides. One man's art is another man's drivel.

Using the common definition, however, yes, it is most definitely art.

heh, so says a fellow 3d artist ^_^ *waves* hello brother, or sister, whatever the case may be :)

[Alectric]

This pretty much demonstrates how silly it is to try to define art.  The way I see it, it just doesn't matter.  You can call your comic "art" if you wish, Xade, and people will be unlikely to openly disagree.  However, it's not the sort of thing that comes to mind when you think "art," so it might feel a bit awkward to call it so.  I think you might as well not worry about it, and simply refer to IoX as what it is, a webcomic.  If you try to define its artistic legitimacy, I doubt you'll get anywhere.

[Xade]

That is true, Alectric, the only reason I started this debate was some twit on twitter claimed that 3d comics could not be considered true artwork and was cheating. It was all done via direct messages, (they @ed me and asked me to follow them because they had a personal issue to discuss, then deleted the tweet once I did) and I got rather puzzled about it so decided to get a more general opinion. I basically told them they didn't know what they were talking about and they have been viewing this thread. They actually just conceded that they were in error, and upon hearing about my injury understands why I went 3d. Believe me, if I had a choice I would still do hand drawn comics. I was able to take it with me wherever I go and I would not have had to lug my laptop along to the hospital when my Dad passed on so I would have something to do, and wouldn't be so far behind. However, it hurts to even sign my name, and when I do add detail to my textures I have to hold the tablet's pen at an awkward angle for my fingers so not to bend my wrist too much. It has also slowed my typing down from 115 wpm to around 95 because I move my whole arm as I type. Luckily you can mouse with a straight wrist if you do it right or I could not do IoX at all. ;)

hmm...I should add why on the FAQ page, come to think of it....

[GaborBoth]

I'll be honest, all 3d comics look the same to me. The lack of real facial expressions, curves, cloth folds, exaggerations, no stylizing or use of mask-effect, the mannequin-poses, and I could go on. They all feel stiff to me compared to drawn comics, even the higher quality ones. Exceptions probably exist, I guess.

And to the school hallway mentioned above: Knowing the basics of perspective you can make a hallway like that in 5 minutes, (been there, done that) or you could trace the photo or 3d picture so your comic will still be hand drawn. Not to mention other mistakes...in the school hall page you mentioned the distance the characters stand from the lockers changes a bit every panel and the angle you see the characters changes much less than the angle of the background (see the last two panel). It's easy to see the backgrounds and the drawings were made separately, so something feels wrong through the entire reading. Even the genius Scott McCloud tried that, but it still looked terrible and still failed. http://scottmccloud.com/2-print/older/abe/index.html

This all is just my opinion though, don't throw monkey poo at me. :)

[Funderbunk]

Kind of unfair considering 3D comics are an entirely new phenomenon and you can probably count them with your fingers. They simply haven't had time to develop the most efficient techniques to do everything and still update on time. Even the current pinnacle of 3D comics, Dreamland Chronicles, is made from the work of several people. It's like drawing before the age of the pencil. Or at least an overly complicated pencil.

EDIT: Not to say that you don't have a point, because you do. It's a point that pisses me off (the point does, your post doesn't, don't take this as hostility) though because I wish there was an effective way to do, for example, clothing folds. It almost always requires animating the damn thing and, depending on how realistic you want your clothing folds to be and how good your computer is, waiting a damn long time for it to finish simulating, rinse and repeat a thousand times to account for possible errors. You could do it by hand, but that's even more of a hassle.