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Very stiff poses are always a giveaway and to smooth/perfect skin.
I think people today are simply overly critical to the point that you can now have a non CGI photo and 50% of the people will believe that it's CGI.
Rogue One continues to come up, and I hold to the belief that in certain brief scenes people would not have noticed that Cushing was CGI, and only commented on it, because we know that Peter Cushing is dead and could not have possibly filmed those scenes. Of course the illusion couldn't hold, and one may have wondered why the scenes felt strange, but it only goes to show how blurry that line is now becoming.
The two truly dead giveaways in film now is completely ignoring physics; and human anatomy/motion which still sometimes has a kind of Harryhausen appearance.
That being said, it's really funny some of the criticism and flak a lot of Daz PA's get on realism of textures and models and the like, when Hollywood studios spend millions, use much more sophisticated software, and I've seen comparable and sometimes better stuff here in the galleries.
I absolutely agree that working with CG makes me more prone to notice it.
So does playing video games for my husband and some of my friends.
Thus why I referred to "cut scenes" which are usually where games put their best animations (if cut scenes aren't done with the same engine as gameplay). But the mocap actor was a different height than Cushing, so scenes where there were other people, his "off" was more noticable. Scenes where there was no one to compare him to played much better.
Noticing Leia was more in the sound mixing (her voice sounded dubbed for the some three words she spoke) and that she was in so much less of the movie, so you only had one brief cut.
And as I said, even on things I know have to be CG (like the Raptors in Jurassic Park) a clearer immage made their CG-ness much more obvious than they had been originally, in either the theater or on my smaller screen (compared to my friend's screen) So it's not just knowing that something has to be CG that makes me notice it's CG. Sometimes it's bits of lighting that don't quite mesh, or scale being off, or other little details that give the game away.
That is not any closer to realism than just aboout any other human render I've seen with DAZ in their galleries and that one is less so really. I think you are being influenced / distracted by the tittelation of nudity.
Hmm, I have seen far too much nudity in my life to be so influenced! You are entitled to your opinion, but mine remains that that is far better than the majority of others I have seen. Naturally the lack of clothing may help with the appearence of reality, given what others have said regarding how stiff clothes can be a give away of being CG.
It's not that simple. Tarkin was done very well but he still was completely off to me. It's called uncanny valley and mostly appears in facial animation and the eyes especially the closer we get to photorealism. We are so used to reading faces, we see them every day. Even the slightest detail being off a little bit results in a feeling that something isn't quite right. One thing I noticed with CGI Tarkin is that his face was in constant movement, too much at times. Just because facial expressions are highly complex doesn't mean that a face has to flow around like an ocean, there are times when very little or nothing moves as we focus on something and just listen. But mostly I suspect it was in the eyes.
The difference is quite obvious. Maybe give it another ten years or so and they might finally tackle it.
I would be in agreement - eyes, hair, clothing ;). FWIW, it's SUPER difficult to make eyes look like they have life in them. When we look at someone, it's what we're usually looking at. We're intimately familiar with every detail and nuance. It's where the uncanny valley starts.
Laurie
Maybe some people's susceptibility to the Uncanny Valley effect are more sensitive than mine, but at a casual glance, which is really all we look at most things with, I wouldn't really notice that much difference between those two pics to make me feel that uneasy (motion makes it more noticeable), but I was more impressed with the brief scenes that pulled it off, as opposed to the scenes where they didn't quite achieve 100% believeability.
I've had my suspension of disbelief assaulted more when Hollywood attempts to age people with practical make up fx as to what they believe a younger actor might look like in 30 or 40 years, which tends to always be way older than actual people look like at that age. The CGI I've seen beats those by a country mile, and still we're talking about an industry that spends $1000s of dollars on professionals who do it for a living to achieve things I've seen done better by non pros.
*Oddly enough Daz seems to have a similar problem when it comes to creating female characters that aren't extremely old, but definitely past their 30s. Perhaps there is an age range where optimun realism is best acheived?
So basically the renders should had bad lighting, worse composition, and be out of focus?
Personally I recognize that I am not skilled enough to capture photorealism so I don't try for it but rather do my own minimalist thing. But many are drawn to it as a challenge and when they achieve it (or close to it) they get instant positive feedback so the community consensus is that such efforts are valued. That said, grabbing a camera is a great solution if I want to get a great shot of something real in my area. But if I want to tell a story, something from my imagination and not from reality, grabbing a camera is not an answer unless you have hollywood budgets to build sets, hire extras, make costumes, etc. Even a simple modern cowboy render for me would require me to travel from the east coast to the west, find a cowboy, talk him into posing in the way I envision, etc. If my vision took place in the Roman Senate of Caesar, well, imagine the difficulties. On the other hand, the magic of Daz is that I can do all that without any of the expense. But you have the other challenge of making it look "real". Pick your poison, for most the expense of one path is prohibitive so they choose to chip away at getting the other closer and closer.
I'm not sure I agree though that traditional art does not try to capture "real". They were limited by their media, it's true, but the works of, say, Michaellangelo were anything but abstract. They were not "realistic" only in the sense that he had to work in marble and he made people more perfect than real people and toyed with the proportions at times. But to look at the Pieta in person is to be amazed and the intricacy of the detail he added to capture something that seemed real, the expressions, the gestures, the stitchwork on the cloth. Had cameras been around, based on what I've read about Michaelangelo, I am convinced he would have toyed with them but ultimately discarded them in favor of creating "his" world in his beloved marble (or when forced, in pigments) and then tried to give his stone as much life as possible.
You\re right about the everything but the composition.
Actually, unless you want a desert setting, you only need to go half-way across the country, if that. Western Show Riding is (or at least was, I am remembering from a good 30 years ago) a thing in Indianna, Kentucky ... probably the Virginas and Carolinas too. :)
Sorry. Another thing that tends to be a "give away" ... when you have certain experiences, what's "real" and "realistic" tend to be different. I've seen more than a couple of really fantastic Cowgirl renders where things were off... like no feet in the stirrups. (I realize getting the stirrups to twist and in position is a real PITA, but I also know it's possible with most (if not all) of the saddle models I have.)
Which acutally reminds me of another giveaway in posing - balance. Not just "that looks uncomfortable. A real person wouldn't want to hold that pose for very long" but actual "Her feet don't appear to be supporting any weight from that pose, she should have fallen on her butt" type poses. (Usually, I think, because the required bends for realistic weight distribution makes the mesh look bad.)
See, I never LOOK for CGI in non-Daz stuff. I miss CGI in movies all the time. People say, "So obviously CGI!" and the only time I ever did that was the wolves in The Day After Tomorrow and I was already outraged about their very presence at that time. I am CGI Blind.
But still, when I'm looking through the gallery, it's poses and expressions (and of course lighting. bad lighting ruins everything.) Bodies have a weight to them it takes really careful effort to simulate. I\m not surprised the most-passing (to me) of the example stills linked above are the ones where the character is not standing.
And the pose thing is true for NPR stuff too. Balance and weight and body language are things that can be sketched in just a few lines and when they're done carelessly it just leaps out to me.
ETA: Also (re spotting CGI) I watched The Last Witchhunter and said, "Hey, is that a Stonemason model?" at the end.
It's much easier to be heavy-handed than very subtle. LOL
Laurie
I find that images look much more photorealistic when you turn them into black and white. This is one that all my non-3D friends think looks very real, but I had to do a LOT of postwork on the hair and probably should have done more. That's where I'm finding the problems the most, the hair. Even the newer top PA hair always seems to require additional postwork. Feel free to critique this, I know the hair could be better but please point out any other flaws you see so I can get better. This March will be my one year anniversary with DS, and I still have soooo much to learn. I try to fix things in post but it would be great to get it as good as possible in the render. I added the eye reflections in post, can't seem to get really good eye lights in DS. Regular people are easy to fool, but not the experts...
Oh, edited to add, that often knuckles look off in close-ups. Sometimes they seem over pronounced or not in the right place...
Nope. That looks like a real picture with some photoshop done to it.
You win. I wish you hadn't let the cat out the bag and instead posted this picture in its own thread and asked for help recreating some famous scandanavian model.
And let everyone give you tips on how to get a realistic render going. lol
A great missed opportunity.
As far as the nudie one goes, I think it's not THAT important to get it photoreal as to accomplish the goal.
It didn't make it into my erotic art box. Although certain parts are real (the tummy) other things break the illusion too greatly to be turned...
into whatever it was going for. But that would be pretty crazy as an artist. A musician's goal might be to make a song they feel like enjoying themselves (dancing to it, humming it, stroking the chin, whatever).
First off, there are Daz renders that pop up all the time that look like casual shots, because that's exactly what they are composed to look like. Perhaps they went by so fast you missed them, because those tend to be the renders that the majority of gallery users simply breeze by.
Secondly the state of photography today with even base level consumer gear (your I-phone for instnce) means that a complete amateur who knows nothing about F-stop, shutter speed and focus can take a damn high quality picture (composition being the one area that can usually help you tell the amateurs from the hobbyist, or serious photographers). The camera now takes care of many of those aspects, and they do a pretty good job. The casual snapshot today can look very professional -- and then you have selfies.
Wow, thanks! Funny, because I'm seeing a bunch of little flaws now, but I won't point them out!
It's the artists' curse. A lot of actors say they never watch their own performances on TV or film because they cringe. All they see are their flaws, choices they made that they would now like to do differently. Their inner critic is brutal, far more so than almost anyone else. So too is it with most artists, they look at their work and see the parts they wish they'd done differently, wish they'd had to tools or materials or or technique or technology to do "better" to achieve their vision, whatever it may have been. Going back to Michaelangelo, he hated painting, thought his work was inferior to the best while he was the master at sculpting, his real passion. Yet he painted the Sistine Chapel because a Pope more or less forced him to and everyone (except Michaelangelo) acknowledges it as a triumphal achievement in art. Just how it is for artists!
"I'm not sure I agree though that traditional art does not try to capture "real". "
Nor do I, Grinch. I actually said as much at the beginning of my second post, using Danby as an example. But my posts tend to be long so I can understand if that was missed.
To me, the stand-out "Hey!! I've been created in Daz!!" is that the model looks like the generic Michael, Leo and Ivan - I rarely use femal figures, so I can't comment on that side. But, as a few people have commented, poses tend to be a bit of a let down.
Yes, but...
The unwritten gotcha there is that it helps a lot if the scene creator has an understanding of setting up good lighting, good composition, and sharp focus, before going beyond that to muddle things up with that messy "real life" stuff. To paraphrase the old saying, if you want to break the rules, you should first understand what the rules are and how they're applied.
Impressive render and, I'll agree, b/w, if done correctly, can improve a picture quite a lot. One thing that stands out, for me, is her eye. Where the eyelinered skin meets the eyeball seems too sharp, due to the lack of "fleshiness", of the daz figure.
I've noticed that a lot of you are mentioning hair as a big spoiler. So I checked my content and I can say that I only use about 5 or six of my my considerable purchase list. Then I looked at both stores (here and Rendo) and it is clear that I would not buy most of them. I've recently bought UHT2 which improves things somewhat but it seems to like some hair sets and not others. What I try to avoid buying is hair that has painted highlights and shine. I'd rather the light and surface settings control the shine. Painted looks unnatural (there's that word again).
Fibremesh hair is a non-starter for me - unless it is very short. I bought Garibaldi years ago and I've yet to see a decent looking style produced from either that or LAMH. Hats off (oh, the pun) to anyone who can prove me wrong on that.
That's an outstanding render. The eyes are too bright, but this is a great example of how we look at things knowing they're CGI and find flaws we wouldn't if we didn't start from the assumption it's not "real." What hair products are you using for that? The hair is really outstanding for long hair—the flyaways are perfect.
As far as the original qustion goes, I find it depends on the artist. For people who don't get the skin right, I notice it immediately. After that, clothes and hair are really troublesome, as are issus with poses and expressions. I'd say the weakest element of a DAZ+postwork artist (aka, somebody who isn't skilled enough at Zbrush to sculpt this problem away) is the limits to the facial rig. Real expressions involve so much skin movement, plus little dimples and wrinkles, that it's hard to capture most faces well.
Extreme lighting, black-and-white, and heavy does of bluring (via depth of field or otherwise) are good solutions. My best attempts at photorealism employed very shallow DoF and used a lot of Photoshop work to pull everything together. It also helps that the Mei Lin 7 skin I use is so good in close up.
Depends on how one defines traditional art. Lots of artists try to capture the real; others do not. Simple as that, it all depends on what artist you happen to be talking about.
Good point about the photoshop thing, Lots of "real" photos no longer even look photorealistic because of the sheer amount of post work that's done on photos that don't even really need it. It's easy to say something is a daz render if you're specifically looking for things knowing on the front end that it's a Daz render, just like people will automatically say that something is photoshopped though they're not even sure what aspects actually were, but the photo simply looks very good. Point is you can do a very photo-realistic render completely in Daz that will fool an average person IF you have a firm grasp of the software when it comes to textures, lighting and manipulation of all the controls (and there are LOTS).
The term "photo realistic" is quickly becoming a term that has no real meaning, since people are starting to lose the ability to "tell if it's live or memorex".
I love the endless irony. While some are using Daz to create real moments and imagined people with very real-appearing goals -
Others are making pixar-type cartoon people and they are TWISTING Daz to look less real by morphing and such.
They are working hard to create another translation of an already translated style.
Same for those doing 'anime' styles.
And yet, now while I battle to get the best looking pseudo-reality I can, I am awaiting that new shader that will turn my 3-D art into 2-d art.
I just got back from seeing the Lego Batman Movie and I'm so ticked! You could immediately tell that those weren't real Legos, and the characters didn't look realistically stiff, artificial and plastic-y! I mean, the story was funny and the voice acting was good, but if they're going to make those movies with CG plastic building blocks when they could make them with real plastic building blocks, the least they could do is make them look faker. :/ .
I'd have to disagree - at least as far as the body goes. If you cover her face I think it looks realistic. Just my opinion. The face is a dead give-away though. The body though, when the face is covered, looks pretty realistic, IMO.
I don't consider that ironic or even odd - I think there are people, myself include, who just enjoy a variety of artistic looks and styles and want to be able to create them with a program like Daz Studio. I think a lot of people enjoy trying to push the realism as far as possible but also enjoy the more 2D looking styles and want to be able to create art in both styles.