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Oh, don't let that stop you. Go check out his studio page (www.larryelmore.com) there are plenty of scantilly clad ladies to be found there... :) (as well as half naked barbarians, dragons, and a decent scattering of fully clothed ladies too.) Granted, most of what he does is fantasy work, so if you're not into that, ah well.
Again, my main issue with the video is his conflating of Realism (and I feel the Elmore and Nene Thomas work I've posted qualifies) with photorealism, which is attempting to emulate a photograph. And while understanding realism is important to moving on to other art styles, being competent (which moves beyond understanding and knowledge and into actual skill at applying said understanding and knowledge) in photorealism is, in my opinion, not so important.
The moment someone starts spouting off about what an artist "should" or "shouldn't" do, they are almost undoubtedly wrong. There is no "one size fits all" and "every artist needs to do this". Nothing in life works that way, and art and artists especially don't work that way. What works for some (even most?) artists may not be at all what a different artists needs. People have to stop thinking that everyone on the planet is like them. Make your own decisions about what is right for you and realize that what is right for you may not be right for the next person. Human beings have always had trouble understanding that everyone is different and what helps one person may not help the next person. In the end, people need to do what's right for THEM and leave other people alone to decide what they need.
That was never the intent of this conversation.
That may not have been the intent, but it was implied: "photorealism is important to strive for when creating any CGI".
That was the idea the creator of the video made. ( I paraphrased and did not quote him directly).
But, my intent was to ask if the point he was making was at all valid.
Pretty sure this is only true for hobbyists. I mean you can try telling it to art schools and employers but you won't get very far.
Here's a couple of examples that might make the point...
Recently I did a couple of renders that I was satisfied with. The first was when I modelled and shaded and rendered a bottle of Bud from scratch. It looks, IMO, arguably photorealistic. Made me feel good. Now, show that render to anyone else on the planet, and what will they say? They'll look at you like you're weird and say "Get outta my face, why do I care about a bottle of beer??" And they'd be totally right. Photorealistic, in this case is irrelevant.
Another image I did as a learning exercise, and I was satisfied with the outcome. A Star Wars fighter thingy, and I figured out how to do motion blur. Not nearly as good as Kyoto Kid's with the motorcycle, but I was pleased. Again, arguably kinda photorealistic, plus the fact that it has a bit of impact because it makes me feel SPEED. But show that to anyone else on the planet, and what will they say? You guessed it.They've seen a million Star Wars images, it's boring, get outta my face.
But the second one uses the photorealistic aspect of camera shutters and film (which can cause motion blur) and gives the viewer something they'd actually see in a photograph of a fast moving vehicle. So it might impact them because it conveys the feeling of speed. It's something they can relate to. In this case, photorealism can help to give impact. If that matters to you....
Huh?? I don't sell any products!! Here, or anywhere else... And Daz certainly doesn't pay me anything. What are you talking about?
Neither image is particularly impactful for me. The Tie Fighter one has slightly more meaning because I'm a non-drinking geek, not because of the motion blur.
And that's the point. If we want to impact others, then it's not about what we may feel about an image. It's about putting yourself in the shoes of the people you're trying to impact and learning what it takes to impact them. So the question of photorealism becomes somewhat irrelevant to the core issue of how to impact others. Unless we don't care about impacting others...
Anyway...
My intent was not to tell ANYONE what to do. I know it is a sensitive subject... I have found the conversation to be very insightful for the most part and I just want to say thank you to everyone again for taking the time to share their thoughts with me.
So...
Thanks.
The video is by a known Blender expert and teacher. It can be reasonably assumed he was talking about CG and probably in the context of getting a job in that industry. He was adressing this, I think, because he gets people watching Disney movies and thinking they'll just go stylised like that from the get go and that's probably not going to happen. And he probably wants to sell stuff.
So this shouldn't concern anyone here much. Just a hobby for most, and a lot of the Daz appeal is exactly not having to deal with all this nonesense
I take the word "photoreal" literal - any render, drawing or whatever that looks like it's an unaltered photo taken with a high quality camera (i.e. how a normal set of eyes see things). Otherwise the definition gets too broad, IMO. So in that definition the above drawing does not qualify to me.
Personally I don't find photorealism as defined above anything to strive after as the main goal in renders, drawings etc., in that case you could just use a camera instead (in a technical context the main goal may be to develop methods for or learning how to produce photorealistic art, but that's a different story). I'd rather take a real photo of a person or whatever if that's an option than spend a lot of time trying to create a photorealistic render of drawing of that person/thing/situation. I only find it relevant in cases where I want a realistic illustration of people/things/situations which are impossible, difficult or too expensive to reproduce with a camera.
Clarification: The first post of the thread and its linked video are talking about Photorealism specifically, which is just a subset of Realism. See attachment.
If you want to learn how to impact people, study the principles of art as a whole, not the narrow perspective of the Jedi Order.
Oops, I meant not just the topics of interest to people faking a camera using the term photorealism.
Many of the techniques of drawing, sculpture, oil painting, etc. were about learning how light, shadow, texture, etc. really behave even before there were cameras, and even though there was no attempt to make the images look like photographs.
I'm suprised the PAs haven't been pulled into this since it's ultra-important to them.
When they create something are they going for photoreal or exacting details or whatever?
Cause that's where it seems to really begin.
The glass shader....the forest....the clothing wrinkle, the arm bend....
I think after they go, we go and make a bunch of decisions and muck around with their foundation.
Beyond the 92% fantasy offerings, what about what most of them are chasing.....
My personal goal is realism, but of course I have to wonder what would happen if my characters looked completely like a real person? Literally no difference to a person on the street. Would anyone use it? Let's assume completely realistic content could be bought in the Daz store. You put it all into a scene, it'll look like a usual snapshot. You assemble it with more care, it ideally looks like a great photograph. But not like what we have come to know as render.
Weird thought, right? I wonder how art would evolve like this
Looking at those illustrations that look like that they are a style out of history books from the 1970s I personally prefer iRay although those old style illustrations aren't slouchy.
Literally no difference to a person on the street. Would anyone use it?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Every industry would use it.
A conspiracy theory says this technology already exists.
You assemble it with more care, it ideally looks like a great photograph.
You assume all the 'renders' would be of common stuffs.
The ideal would be to, once again, show you stuff that's difficult to impossible to create in reality.
Did that shark really leap up and grab that helicopter?
Photoshop, stand aside!
I was having a conversation the other day with somebody who works daily with professional CG artists about some of the cultural differences I've observed between hobbyist and student artists vs. working pros and semi-pros. Like, I've observed that a lot of students tend to worry a lot more about making sure both they and others are 'doing it right'. I actually saw an argument that EVEN THOUGH manga pros do use 3d models as artistic shortcuts, nobody should ever, ever consider doing that unless they can draw characters perfectly from scratch without references. It's only okay for those pros to do BECAUSE they've mastered 'the basics'. (says the argument I saw)
Meanwhile, the folks my partner work with simply do not CARE about whether they're doing it 'the right way' or 'have the basics' because.... they're working. They have deadlines. Being able to perfectly sketch a human figure with a pencil is not actually relevant to their paychecks (unless it is). They've picked up other skills and they make art with those skills and it earns them money and that's that.
Anyhow, I suspect that's where the PAs are... off earning paychecks.
...I;'ve been through formal art training since my early days in primary school all the way through college. Even after college the "learning phase" did not stop, and will not stop until I'm 6 feet under. I've experimented with all sorts of techniques (even developed one of my own) and explored all sorts of styles. Some really moved me, some were "meh". One time during a meeting of all the students in painting at the college I was attending, I was asked why I didn't do abstract expressionistic styled works. I mentioned it just doesn't move me when I see nothing but splatters or a couple lines and a circle on a canvas, some may see something in it and that is fine, I don't. I ended my comment with. "I've tried it, and if I kept at it, could probably produce 6 - 8 paintings a week and the only real 'challenge' in that would be to my chequebook balance for all the materials I'd go through."
Didn't win many friends among the department with that response, but it was the truth.
It's really about what motivates and interests you, not what others feel you should do because it's the current "trend".
I, personally, like photorealism only if it is dramatic with it's lighting, scene and pose/expression. I find I will often do a photorealistic render and then think, blah, so what, it looks like a real person, but would someone put a photo of a stranger on their wall? Then I bring it into Photoshop and the real fun begins, making it arty... Although I'm playing around more with photorealism now than I used to, it's really hard for me to leave a render alone. I find postwork always helps and even photographers use postwork to make their photos pop more, so, for me, I'm not a fan of pure "no postwork" photorealism in most renders. Only rarely do I see a pure render that wouldn't look better with postwork. And I tend to like more dramatic postwork too...
The only cool thing about photorealism for me is people's incredulity when you show them a picture of someone who doesn't exist and they just don't get it, think it's a photo or based on a photo or real girl and you have to explain, nope, it's just pixels and polygons. That person never existed. Which is different from classic painters who used models and photorealism was important... Software like DS makes photorealism all too easy, but it doesn't necessarily make it art...
worry a lot more about making sure both they and others are 'doing it right'.
@DreamFarmer
It's like that for EVERY pursuit.
Music/art/....um, everything.
Look on the forums and it's always "Is it cheating if I..."
But I've said there too- it stems from spending too much time with a particular group. You begin to think they are all that counts.
If you think it's all about the end reader/user/sales.....you get that "Well it sold such and such so it must be good"
Or it's popular....
verse movies that critics love, but everyone else can't figure out why. lol
Or that sleeeper that's a cult classic, but no one else knows it exists or it flopped when it first arrived.
---
pitch you tent.
Thanks for posting! I watched to whole video, and even though I've already figured out (or learned) most of it, I did pick up a couple tidbits to keep in mind in the future. I do think if your intended use of 3D is to make "3D": images, then knowing/understanding photorealism, and how to mimic it, is extremely important. Now there are many who use DAZ, Poser, etc. to create images that mimic 2D art, or their style is more of a stylistic 3D/2D. For them, this is no doubt much less important. but from anyone wanting good true 3D results, I think he makes some very valid points (I definitely want to watch some of his other videos too).
To some extent I can agree that "hobby artists don't need to understand how to do realistic 3D", if a true 3D look isn't what they are after. However, if you want your work to look truly 3D, and have a certain degree of realism, then yes, I think you do. If your using 3D software to make flat 3D/2D images, then you don't need to. If your using 3D software to make stylistic renders that look more like 2D drawings and not like 3D images, then you may not need it (depending on your style). Finally, if you just don't care if your image looks like real 3D, and just want to want to make images that make you happy and have fun, then obviously you don't need to concern yourself with any of this. But for anyone who wants to improve and make their 3D work look more like real (realistic??) 3D, then the video does bring up some very valid points and ideas to improve your work.
For anyone using DAZ who wants to create true or realistic 3D, much of the work he talks about is already done for us The modeling and basic surfaces/shaders are already there. If you purchase a lot of lighting sets and have a good set of HDRI images, then lighting is also pretty much taken care of. But, if you want to go even further, and create your own work, and improve on the base that you start with from your purchased products, then yes, understanding "photorealism" is a must. But first, you need to understand that a photograph, any photograph, is merely an abstraction of reality, it is not reality. We have abstraction caused by several factors including; the media that captured the photo (film and digital both create an abstraction of reality), lens geometry and quality, resolving power of the lens and the film/CCD, color capture (spectral) accuracy of the lens and the film/CCD, blurring and DOF, and a host of other factors that control how pleasing the image is to our eye (lighting, colors, framing, composition, etc.), and exactly what part of "reality" is captured. These are all factors in making a great realistic photo, but they are also factors that are important to a great realistic 3D image.
If you go past the first few minutes of the video, he talks about the nuances and minute details that many people miss when making/composing a 3D image (this does not apply so much to people using 3D to create 2D images, or highly stylized and post processed images that mimic a more traditional 2D art forms). But for people that are wanting a true realistic 3D effect, regardless of whether it is a toon or a "real" person/thing, understanding proportions, how things move, the physical properties of surfaces (materials/shaders), lighting, a bit of post processing ...... things that are covered in the video, are a must. Now true, if this is not your "style", then much or all of this may be of less importance.
Pixar has come up a couple of times in this tread. IMHO, their movies are prime examples of the principles talked about in the video, especially their more recent works. One great example is the water in The Good Dinosaur. It looks like real water, the waves/ripples all have secondary and micro waves/ripples, and the shaders/mats are perfect for real water. Or the short "Piper" (note: this link isn't to the full short, but it is the best quality example video I could find of it), OMG, the realism there is phenomenal for a "toon". Obviously it's not real, the characters are stylized, but IMHO the realism really helps sell the story. Pixar pushes the realism envelope and continually improves with each film. Even Inside Out, where all of the characters in her brain were volumetric, they still had very realistic elements everywhere in every scenes. Pixar also creates physical models of all of their primary characters (small sculptures), and drawings (for expressions, etc) to aid in the development of the characters in the digital environment. So essentially, they are representations or real world objects (they also go to great lengths for the artist to study and real world analogs to the environments and characters they are creating to improve the "real" feeling).
I too am a big fan of the 3D animated films, and go to watch most of them. What I have noticed is that while Pixar continues to push the realism envelope, many others have backed off a bit no doubt to reduce render times and costs. Though Disney Animation Studios seem to be pushing it in their own style, even their own ray tracing render engine to improve their realism and own style).
That is awesome!!! I think it's also a good example of how everyone has different needs and styles. For this person, obviously to recreate reality was a prime concern. If this wasn't done from a photo reference, then the creator had a firm grasp on photo "realism", as DOF and what looks like a bit of camera lens distortion were a part of the composition.
No, it definitely isn't photoreal. As to it being realistic or not, that would depend on your definition of realism. To me, no, it is not very realistic. It is great work, but I wouldn't call it realistic, because the abstraction of reality is pretty large here (missing details), but there is some "DOF", and overall very impressive work. Yes, there is the play of light and shadow, and it portrays things you can see in the real world, the lighting does seem to be a bit inconsistent to me. Now 30 years ago I might have thought it was very realistic, but now, not so much.
Anyway, too sum it all up, any style is valid, but IMHO if you want to achieve believable 3D effects, because this is the style of render you want, then yes, understanding what is needed for photorealism is quite important.
So sorry for the long post
Thanks for posting! I appreciated reading your thoughts about it... and I'm glad you enjoyed the video!