Yes, but just because someone else can or might do something, doesn't mean he/she should be required, expected to or even, must do. Then when he decides, as is his right, not to, he should not effectively be labelled and referred in terms of someone who's somehow failing or failed in a duty to those who have no palpable personal interest or stake in the outcome of what he produces anyway. It's none of their business. After all this time as you point out, no-one except perhaps whatever patrons he has gathered around him, is going to change or dissuade him from doing what he loves in the way he loves doing it and why should anyone be arrogant enough expect him to?
In nearly five years with Daz, his renders haven't improved in the slightest. They're flat, dim, and even worse, he's repeatedly using the same models. I fully stand behind the view that you have no right calling yourself a creative if you aren't pursuing improvement constantly, because as any artist in any medium can state, you can always improve. If you don't, you're just coasting. That's all I said, and if you look at all three of his projects, it's not an opinion. It's basically irrefutable. When you start doing lazy shit like reusing characters, making the same game over and over, and showing little improvement, you better bet people are going to call you out on it.
It'd be one thing if it was hardware related, but seeing as he's making nearly $800/month, he'd have enough to buy a high-end GPU in a month or two, maybe more if some of that money goes toward bills.
If people don't like what he's doing then go away and leave him alone. They've no right to badmouth and dismiss him, because what he's doing doesn't meet their standard or ideal. It's arrogant and unmerited and comes from many who can only, or perhaps just prefer to, sit back and criticise those who are working hard trying to at least create something they truly love and enjoy for themselves and for anyone else who finds enjoyment in what they do themselves.
When you put your material out in the public, you leave yourself open to criticism. When you start doing the same shit over and over, people have the right to criticize you. It's simple criticism. I said that from the perspective of a developer, so I'm not sitting back and blindly criticizing from some imaginary pedestal. I know just how hard it is to make a VN/game, but why waste all of that work being on autopilot with your render quality? He's already fairly popular, so why not attract more people with improved render quality?
That, to me, is judgment and, in my opinion, judgment is solely the province of peers, mentors and actual investors of themselves in the creation, not those who have no actual involvement whatsoever and therefore no credible basis on which to decide its value, other than their own ignorant (of the processes involved in creation, production and delivery) and wholly irrelevant idea of what it shouldn't be.
Yeah, it is judgement. Because a lot of people put in the work to constantly improve, and it's straight distasteful to those supporting your work to just stay the same. I know exactly what kind of effort it takes, the process in which it's done, and I simply know that not improving in any meaningful way in five years of using the
same program is nothing more than being lazy - and lazy means it's by
choice. I simply find it not to be a good look.
Opinion is one thing, judgment is totally different and many cannot or even if they do, refuse to, see any need for them to be applied fairly, decently and respectfully, as distinctly appropriate.
I actually think I was pretty nice about what I said. Could've just as easily gone "HuRr DuRR! tRaSH tIeR rENdERz Go buRR!!!!1!11!"
