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It doesn't really matter how rare these things are, if their are real people who exist like this then they have a place. Most people do not look like Olympic athletes or super models, but they do exist in reality. Every form of media is dominated by the general attractiveness of the people in it, even music. If you don't look good, it is harder for you to top the charts. Its a sad fact of reality. Comic book characters are almost universally drawn as being near the general perception of perfection.
That does not mean I am against the general argument you make. But your argument is not about really asking for realism, it is more about asking for average and flawed people.
Anyway, I'll toss in Gwennilli as a nice G3F character. Some of the recent releases have been pretty nice.
I am enjoying the new male & female 'Distictive' shapes from Lyoness, even though the same textures are in use, the faces are different enough to where they don't look like the same character.
Although I will say DAZ Store is woefully short on enough unique textures of varying skin tones (forget the blemishes for a minute).
I am still wishing someone would make male & female blemish-free albino skin texture sets and create a series of skin tone and texture presets to change skin color, skin blemishes, add wrinkles or just make generally 'rougher textured skin' for iRay and Genesis 3. Sort of a super sophisticated, flexible, and detailed Skin Builder.
I've been experimenting with trying to get a "realistic" look. Shaping, texturing, shading and lighting need to be just right. Still a fair of work to go with this one, but as others have said, "realism" is a relative term. A lot of us try to make images look real and less "perfect", while the media try to photoshop out real and present perfection to the masses. I think we just need to swap around jobs
For what it's worth, one very key element to making a real 'realistic' skintone is to ensure the maps aren't a single tone - such as the render that Ildanach posted...its very well done, the texture/bump is great but face is primarily a single skin tone; i.e., it lacks the blues, greens, reds etc that are present in real world skin (and I don't mean make-up, I mean part of the base skin). Just pull a photograph into Photoshop and eye-dropper it... you'll be surprised how many colors exist in a simple face portrait.
Well I think it's a great render too but I think the roughness of the texture is overemphasized. I'd reduce it by about half. It's very lovely though.
Thanks for the comments. I agree, that's a big part of a good render too. And something I'm still working on with the good lady above. There was a little more tone variation originally, but I desaturated the image in Photoshop. But you are right, I still need to work on the tones a bit more to get a better look. Cheers for the critique!
Cheers for the critique. I agree it is a little over done in the image above. I had her in another setup with different lighting and the bumps were perfect. But for the lighting in that scene I think you are right and I'll need to reduce them a bit more. Cheers! Constructive criticism always welcome! :-)
You couldn't be more right! It's a strange irony how real photos try to look CG while CG strives for realism.
I sometimes struggle with generating convincing skies/clouds, and it's funny... I've started noticing how fake the real sky looks sometimes. ;)
'Oh, come on, that perlin noise looks stupid. No depth at all. Wait. I'm outside.'
Haha so it's not only me. But I get it the other way around too. "damn those shaders really do look nice. Oh wait...".
I've seen the real sky have a perfectly square grid like TicTacToe and also like a freshly plowed farmers field and many other weird skies. Most recent I remember is a friend sent me a picture of a singular cloud where they lived in Switzerland once shaped very clearly like a small letter f.
Opinions will vary and the end results will differ based on the users abilities.
In the town I live in the sky always has too much perlin noise, the people never have enough bump strength, and in my opinion need more clear coat!
The mask is terrible! There's this bright outline around the clouds, needs to be blended better
Realism in a render to me is good proportions, a reasonably 'interesting' skin texture and features that create uniqueness. So I kind of like my asymmetry and pores, moles, freckles, scars, stubble, random hairs and such in images. Too many doll-faced, kissy lipped, smooth skinned babes in the market. It's Over Saturated ;) ;) I mean, I have a friend who's a model. It's all about the faces she pulls for camera than her everyday face (obviously still attractive but the change of expression is what makes the photo, like what most artists are trying to make their base figures look like). Also there is the stylisation with big eyes, lips and bust and men with big chests. The male models are better, as mentioned, Ivan is great (my first thought though, I admit, was that he has a thumb for a torso). I love George, he is Dadly. I'd like to see a lady George; Bethany doesn't count as she's simply a version of all the other kissy-faced ones. I do like Saiyanessa's work for realism, or at least interesting characters, if realism means differently to you. Lighting definitely helps and I must add, a 'real' look in a render is also achieved if you don't have an overly dramatic pose (see Hawkeye Initiative for fun examples of improbable poses) or you don't just leave the hands 'Ken-Dolled'.
A lot of times when I notice people talk about realism usually the image is a portrait up close or headshot of a female or youngish girl.
One of the challenges I think in creating a realistic figure, is not just to portray the face, but the whole body in context of an image and what is going on in it.
... And yet feminine features on males (and the reverse) is quite common.
Real features often can look feminine or masculine, but in this case, I think it has more to do with the skin resource which was used.
Everyone likes different stuff, but do I think that figure looks realistic? No. Looks like a female resource was used on a man. I don't know that for sure, but it looks odd to me. Frequently, the eybrows of characters look kind of off to me. I think because they use brow reqources that don't always belong with the skin.
So many people use Instagram type filters on their real photos these days that I have found that doing so to a render can make it look more like a real person than a straight render. Personally, I think that creating a realistic expression and pose is most helpful when creating realism and then tweaking in post either in Photoshop or even a phone app! Here is one that I when I show people (who are not 3D artists) swear is real. I mostly have a harder time convincing non-3D artist people that it IS CGI, they all want to believe that my more realistic art is photography! To answer the OP question, I think most non-toon or non-stylized characters, dating back even to V3, CAN look photoreal, if posed correctly with realistic expressions, and basic postwork. Hair is another story though. I usually have to do a lot of hair painting in post and I'm by no means an expert at that, still learning and practicing...
I think what makes Abel look so femine are those Lucille Ball plucked eyebrows, which are extremely uncommon on men and women unless they pluck them to create those arches.
Also I would recommend the under-rated Genevieve (with any OTHER skin than the one she comes with) for a more realistic facial shape. She is my favorite character and great to add a bit to other characters to give them less of a typical G3 look...
I found it ironic that the character with the most realistic skin, also happens to be the ugliest non-monster character I've seen... as if, realism means ugly. What is great about that character isn't the shaping of it.. its the amount of details added to the skin that make this 'the most realistic'.
I agree with you.. I had to go and search out your pick...
https://www.daz3d.com/gwennili-hd-for-victoria-7
Wow.. interesting pick and what was interesting was the dirty skin option.. it gave a real sense of a character... the details in the skin tell the story of the character.
I'm hoping that people who make the characters take all of this these ideas you have put out and raise the bar by adding the details and instead of sterile things that all look like manikins... but then its what we do with what we have... isn't it?
Thanks for that good advice, I didn't know you could save favorties that way.
The concept of 100% photoreal is quickly becoming a moot point when I now see photographs of actual people that no longer look 100% photoreal (and that is without postwork).
Also I think the term (in it's accepted meaning) is completely different when used by the average layman and with someone who is well versed in the intricacies of 3D art. The average guy on the street simply isn't looking at seemingly realistic renders that hard trying to figure out if they're real or not -- why would you?
As for the OP's original question. A lot of the more recent non-stylized figures look quite realistic because the artists aren't striving for perfection, blemishes and assymetry, or even a bit of body fat go a long way toward creating the illusion of realism; afterall how many perfect people do you know?
To me, thinking 'realism means ugly' suggests that people are lacking an expansive concept of beauty.
If you can't see the beauty in a smiling old woman, and only see the wrinkles and blemishes? I think you are missing something.
Here's one I did with Bethany 7. I created a ring light around the camera lens as the only light source in the scene. I also did a little bit of image processing to make the reder pop a bit more.
Here's a link to the image before postprocessing
Well, I think adding a few overwrought and unrealistic scars is not helping the 'quest' for realism that some say they are seeking. An entire human body and all the scars and blemishes wind up on the face? Well there is next to nothing realistic about that.
Saiyaness like, Syyd Raven, Does not just do the faces so their stuff is the most realistic I have seen.
Hmmmm...I have a couple of Saiyaness & I agree. I've searched now for Syyd Raven but there were only 4 products and more under the name of 'Syyd' but I am not sure they are the same person.