This question has been bugging me ever since reading this news article on changes to the 3D gallery and reading comments across DA separating "real" 3D artists and Poser artists. Having seen some fantastic examples of work done in Poser (and I'll include DAZ Studio in there as well) and some truly craptastic examples of work done in Vue, zBrush, Bryce, Maya, and Cinema, I have to wonder if this isn't really just sour grapes?

I understand the arguments. The models and textures used in Poser are often not of the artist's original creation. The Poser artist has merely put them all together into a scene and taken a captured image. Sounds remarkably like photography or collage, doesn't it? Even faintly reminiscent of theatre and live stage productions? In fact, you can find premade textures and models for nearly any 3D modeling/rendering system or you can even import items from Poser into these other 'real' programs.

My point is, though, that the arguments tend to devolve rather rapidly into a "Poser sucks; Cinema rocks" sort of juvenile argument. Shouldn't the work be judged on it's own artistic merit, rather than the medium that was used to create it? Is it fair for an oil painter to say "it's not art because it was made with crayon' when there are some artists who make some fantastic art with everybody's childhood favorites, Crayola? ([link])

I think what the reported predominance of "Poser" art taking over DA really means is that the artists who use Poser are more involved, more prolific, or there are simply more of them.

Yes, some of the work you see done with Poser (or any other medium) may seem 'amateurish'. But the last I checked, DA was not a community for professionals only.