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Unpopular opinion: big rendering farms ruined the charm of digital art showcases
I was looking through my old DeviantArt folders from 2008 last night and man, the hand-painted pixel art and low-poly models just hit different compared to the hyperreal stuff people crank out now in 3D renders. Back then you could tell someone spent 40 hours on a single frame in Photoshop or Painter by hand, and the showcase felt like a real labor of love, not a button press. Is anyone else getting tired of seeing the same photorealistic scenes that all look like they came out of the same black box?
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sarah8181mo ago
Oh come on, I gotta call something out here. You said "pixel hunt" but I think you meant "pixel art" right? Pixel hunt is a totally different thing, its when you have to find a tiny hidden object in a point-and-click game. But I get what you're saying about MS Paint sprites, I spent so many hours on those too. Honestly though, I don't think its fair to blame rendering farms for everything. Back in 2008 people were already using 3D software and making cool stuff too, not everyone was hand-painting pixels. Its more about how the art scene changed and what got popular, not just the tools. I still see tons of amazing hand-done pixel art on places like Twitter and Itch.io, you just gotta know where to look.
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the_faith1mo ago
Big rendering farms ruined the charm" is exactly it, I swear. I remember pulling all-nighters to tweak every pixel in my MS Paint sprites back in high school, and the heart was so visible compared to just hitting render now.
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