Victoria, Genesis and the Uncanny Valley
stwbcsuv_12364ebef4
Posts: 29
After trying out Genesis 8 and looking at the products available for her I am yet again astounded that Daz appears to be taking a sideways or even backward step in terms of human realism.
Ever since Genesis came out in an attempt to replace Victoria 4, I have felt that the models and textures just don't quite look human. I think the test for this is to look at a render and ask yourself, if I saw that 'person' walking down the street towards me would I think it was a normal human. In most renderers with very few highly professionally tweeked renderers with post processing the answer is I would freak out because something about the body and faces just arent' quite right. Please just do it yourself, look at the product characters for G3F, G8 and compare them to real people.
Most of the female Genesis models look dead or devoid of emotion, or where emotion is applied it is exagerated and freakish. The younger morphs don't look like teens or children but instead look like a cross between cartoon characters and stepford wives. For some reason, although Victoria 4 wasn't perfect it was slightly better at convincing me it wasn't a automaton maybe it is the higher polygon count that has been wittled away in each subsequent generation, but Daz really hasn't done much to improve this in recent years. The reliance on maps over geometry might be a factor here.
I guess we have to cross our fingers that Genesis 9 will be an improvement. I mean really comparing G3F and G8, other than the A-pose and removable eyebrows, what is the selling point?
- Get it together Daz
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Comments
Personally I like G2 and G3 most. While the new G8 characters just don't fit to me. As for realism Iray is a great step forward in my opinion. Of course the realism of the models is just as good as the artist who make them. I agree that many expressions in the store just feel fake. And many clothing items as well. But I believe there are also great artists too who make excellent models. At the end It's just your choice what to pick up.
Hi first of all your post really has nothing to do with the
the proper defintion of "uncanny valley"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
Second I tend to agree with your assessment of the current commercial
"Character "offerings in the store.
But I completely disagree with your implication that the genesis
models(1,2,3 or 8) themselves are the problem.
Those formulaic& idealized Characters in the store,
(particularly the early 20's white girls),
are apparently the ones that sell the most and
appeal to people's fantasies.
The genesis models have succesfully replaced V4& M4
and are an order of magnitude superior to those
12 year old Figures by every meassure.
I shall perform your "test" here is a render of the genesis 2
male desiged to appear to be an early fifties aged ,light skinned,
Black American male.
Now attached below is the real life person upon whom this "character" is based.
(Myself )
Everyone tells me we look quite similar
If you want Characters that look like "real people" I suggest buy the face morph packs
and put in the work yourself .
Trust me you will be better off than you wiil be waiting for Daz or the PA's to create exactly what you want to see .
@wolf359, your render is very good. But you can't seem much of the body. The eyes are completely covered, but you have done a good job with the beard and facial skin texture. I mentioned that there are instances where professional renders of the Genesis characters can look human but you also appear to have rendered that in cycles not Iray which by itself means you've done a lot of tweeking. I'm guessing you also did a cloth sim in blender.
Please allow this copypasta from wikipedia "In aesthetics, the uncanny valley is the hypothesis that human replicas which appear almost, but not exactly, like real human beings elicit feelings of eeriness and revulsion (or uncanniness) among some observers."
I hate to single out specific examples,because I don't really want to cause offense to the artists involved in making these products.. but look at these examples from the front page store selected for the feelings I get of ... not quite human and not quite right.
Just three examples among hundreds. Human faces just don't look like this. I've been rendering for over 10 years and I have examples of V4 from 10 years ago that look as good if not better in terms of realism.
I'm just surprised that despite improvements in rendering technology such a PBR the models don't appear to have improved much in 10 years, it took 3 years for the A pose and removable eyebrows... Is that the best DAZ can offer in terms of model quality.
The focus has been on Maps over geometry for genesis despite graphics cards being able to handle far more polys than ever before. I work with game engines 'unity', 'Unreal' and 'Godot' and I know they prefer to work with lower poly models for performance, but DAZ models shouldn't have that restriction because the focus tends to be single image renders. Besides V4 offered 4 lower poly levels of detail for multi character performance rendering at a distance where as the stock single level of detail on genesis has been lower poly than V4 and using subdivision to present a smooth geometry. I think the problem is that this loss of geometry means detail is shifted to the bump/normal maps and most artists find it hard to get this to work as well in renders. So facial features, body marks and details appear overly smoothed like shrink wrap has been applied to a human face.
@DazSteve
The first picture has a "plastic" effect on hair due to a poor shader. And the eyes are a bit oversized. Other than that it seems very good to me.
The second picture is the worst. It has oversized eyes, a fake expression, a "glue" effect on hair, and missing wrinkles in the pants. Real clothing folds much more than that.
The third picture just have a fake expression. Also there's a "spaghetti" effect on hair. And missing wrinkles on the shirt. Other than that the proportions and materials seem good to me.
In general G8s tend to have fake expressions. I don't know if it's because of poor topology, an issue in powerpose, or just that nobody knows that facial muscles must follow the mouth.
As for missing wrinkles in the dress that's quite common too. A solution is to use Marvelous Designer that's very good in simulating real foldings.
I guess hairs are the hard part. Being limited to alpha-mapped hair and morphs for poses doesn't help realism. They need a good shader to avoid plastic effects. And a good fine-painted texture to avoid "spaghetti" (too thick and spreaded apart) or "glue" (too thin and pasted together) effects.
I don't agree that subdivision is a limit. It helps a lot in any step from modeling to animation and even rendering since it avoids non-planar geometry.
Actually the beard is from the unshaven set by Mec4D
and the skin is an old Mike4 skin( Sol for M4)
My complexion is so light that I have to use
"lightly tanned "Caucasion Skin maps for my CG clone
As I stated, it is NOT the figure so much as it is the morphs and the asthetic
choices one makes to create characters that look like "real people"
Here is the older version of my CG Avatar,
The figure used: Millenium man 2.
...yes you read that correctly Daz mike 2 with "boris" morphs by Capcese.
Does that mean that the vestigial DAZ Mike 2 is a better choice for making
"real people" than say... the genesis 3 male ??
Nope ..I did the work required to get the likeness simply spinning morph dials in poser 6
The render is maxon C4D.
The render engine is not that much of an issue in making characters that look like "real people"
it the use of morphs and textures that does the real work.
I prefer cycles for stills because I dont have a nvidia graphics card making Iray
unusably slow for me atm.
No.. this was all done in Daz studio with genesis 2 male
and the Daz Dynamic cloth control
then exported to Blender
With textures autoconverted to cycles nodes
via the free teleblend script by "Mcasual"
Those young girl images you have posted appeal to a certain demographic
who may not be looking to emulate "real people"
They may not be yours or my personal fetish
however this is not a failure of Daz or the genesis Models themselves
it is what some people seem to prefer.
I'll add my opinion to this, because I feel the same way about G8, although my opinion is not as sharp.
I think the 1st picture looks OK because of the nature of that particular character, IMO it's not intended to be overly realistic. In the 2nd picture, keep in mind that 3DUniverse's characters always have a bit of a cartoonish appearance, it's part of its style.
The 2nd and 3rd share a common (and quite common in general) problem with the lips: not many people have lips that big. Also, the G8 expressions are too much aimed at a specific age target (V8, as in the Daz character, not the engine) to look good on younger models.
IMO the younger character produced by the Daz company are the least convincing. Julie 5 was OK, and Belle 6 was an improvement, but I couldn't find use for Josie 7, Julie 7 or Josie 8. Julie 7 and Josie 8 don't feel like what a girl looks like to me, plain and simple. I'm talkin' heads (not the band, I mean I'm talking about the characters' heads). I'm not going to discuss what a minor body should look like, sorry.
Luckily Zev0 made the awesome Growing Up line of products, and those return way better results from the renders I see. Also there are products like Jojo, Princess Leila and others that are pretty convincing. Kyla is not a child character, but I bet she'd do for a very nice one.
IMO Daz characters come with very good and "special" bundled hair and clothes, but I'm beginning to feel like they are engineered to set a pace for the PA's releases and not as real standalone models. Josie 8 released = other teen characters appear. Victoria is a flagship of the company so she's not sold this way (this sounds like digital slavery).
Bottom line: either the Daz co. doesn't want to sell very well done children and teens (because they're family friendly so they won't participate in digital grilled underage slavery, only in digital adult slavery), or their anatomy knowledge and competence goes to 0 below 18. I can understand it may be difficult to explain to authorities that some of your employees need to study child anatomy. They should outsource this job to the PAs that are showing capable.
Please note that any reference to slavery is just a joke based on the fact that on the store you can buy characters. I'm not crazy enough to challenge Daz on their forum. Have a good day, and le'ts hope the next offer will be for a really realistic young slave (?). Let's also hope Django didn't hear me.
Thre really isn't that much difference between V4/M4 and G3/G8, and much of the sort of details you could get from the base version of V4 is easily done with B8F, since the poly count of V4 is almost exactly the same oas what the level 1 subdivision polycount of G8F is (base polycount of 17k multiplied by 4)
There's a huge difference with V4 and G2/G3/G8. With V4, the polygons followed the shape of musles and shape of a human figure. This is important for bends, especially on lower polygon meshes. In G2 and especially G3/G8, they did away with that and now the polygons look VERY bad far too often because polygons are meant to bend along their edges and cannot bend across their surface. Just yesterday, I had a closeup of a face of a G8F figure. I noticed tons of square staircase shading artifacts along the cheek. I had to up the sudbivision level, but it didn't go away. When you zoom out, it's not as noticeable, but these small details all add up and your brain interprets them as something being not quite right. Something disturbing. And for me, G8 has gone in this wrong direction. There is something physically wrong with how the heads are put together. And the body has been wrong since at least G2.
But the problem that DAZ figures suffer from the most is that they're super low polygon figures. They're increasingly becoming unusable or just plain useless.
I just had a good look at the topology from old Poser characters (I still own a Poser 6 license just for best compatibility with old content) to the new G1-G8. What you say is partially true in some cases. But keep in mind that the used technology is different. Subdivision is the only way to go for animation. So you simply can't leave it out. This would bring DAZ Studio back to stone age. As for details in new generations they are best achieved with HD sculpting than with geometry itself. But this doesn't absolutely compromise the final quality, rather it is better because it can improve on actual topology, while you can't do this if you only have the geometry to deal with.
EDIT: and anyway for those who like V4 M4 best there's nothing against using them. V4 stills supported in the shop with a top of 4000 items. So really I don't see the point in wanting the new generations to be the same as the old V4 M4 lines. Just pick up what you like and you've done.
You make an important point.
Not all of us use the figures for static images and
the base resolution of the genesis figures is quite
useful in building& editing animation with
good veiwport feedback.
And people must remember that V4 needed multiple
vestigial poser based magnet technology to correct her joints.
Also not everyone actually uses the genesis figures in Daz studio.
The genesis figures are very popular with users of other high end programs.
(Maya ,C4D) that never embraced V4/M4 in the past.
It's also very bad for detailing the body on low body-fat characters. With the edgeloops following the shapes of muscles, tendons and those bones that can press against the skin in V4, and even Genesis and Genesis 2 it was easy to sculpt the definition into the body, easy for non-PAs to adjust, and pretty much all morph sets adn normal maps that had such details could be freely mixed. With Genesis 3 and 8 those edgeloops are not there and it's impossible to sculpt such details without HD morphs. And that leads to two problems: 1) Non-PAs cannot create or sdjust such morphs as we have no ability to create/save HD morphs. 2) The PA created HD morphs and normal maps derived from them mostly cannot be combined: because (unlike with V4, genesis and Genesis 2) wiht no degeloops showing where the edges of the structures are on the mesh, all the artists are locating the structures differently freehand across effectively a rectangular grid. For just one example, the lower rib and external oblique thoracic and serratus anterior muscles are aligned completely differently on the mesh in the Rune 7 morph and normal map to the Gia 7 ones, and those to the Ophelia 7 ones, and those to the DAZ Body morphs that have those details, and those to the Muscularity morph set. Try mixing them, and Bad Things happen, from bifurcating rib ends and smeared muscles to (when mixing Rune 7 with any of the others) a horrible £D checkerboard because on Rune 7 those details are at a very different angle to all the others. The end result is that on V4, Genesis and genesis 2 one can mix up any bodyfat level one wants by mixing morph products and just using base resolution morphs, even tweaking with some morphing oneself, but on Genesis 3 and 8 one is stuck with the few body fat levels (not muscle bulk, just body fat - a lot of models and actresses actually have clear muscle, tendon and bone definition even though they have very little muscle bulk) that DAZ and some PAs have made, without any ability to mix products or adjust wiht some extra morphing oneself.
As far as I'm concerned, for the trunk and limbs, Genesis 2 was as reduced as the mesh polys should have gone - it has the minimum to define the main sub-surface muscles, tendons and bones with edgeloops. Genesis 3 and 8 have lost that, making the figures much more limited for portraying a range of body types. And one of the reasons a lot of Genesis 3 and 8 renders look less real to me is that, with base morphs unable to show proper body detailing, a lot of people don't pick even from the few choices of HD morph or normal map body detailing they have, leaving the bodies (assuming not completely clothed) looking like shop dummies. And a lot of the characters for sale, for those who just use them out of the box (which i don't - don't think I've ever used a head from a character set with the textures that came with it, or that body either, and even when using the heads and bodies I'll alter them), the body morph doesn't have even slight definition, adn neither do the normal maps, much.
However, on Iray ...
Personally I don't use it. It renders rooms, props etc very realistically. But to me it doesn't render human skin anything like as realistically. Most renders I see, to me the skin looks like tinted wax, cellulose acetate, painted silicon - everything but skin. Only the very best looks rather like skin, and even then, only rather like ... just like enough to plummet screaming into the depths of uncany valley when set beside the very realistic rooms, props and whatnot. For me. Iray renders with no people in can look breathtaking; but put a g3 or G8 figure in and it either looks like a waxwork or shop dummy in a real world setting, or for the very 'best' it's a really creepy alien pod person or android imposter trying to mimic a himan but just isn't somehow quite right - and therefore seriously uncanny valley. I prefer good 3Delight renders where the scene, the room, the props etc and the people share the same level or reality (or unreality). It's much easier than geting all these Iray props and rooms and vehicles and adjusting them form their photorealism down to the lesser realism of the Iray people.
So, take the not realistic enough Iray characters, add the shop dummy level of lack of body detailing from the loss of human body structural edgeloops of genesis 3 and 8, stick it in a photorealistic Iray set, and I really don't like the results at all. The people massively let down the photorealism that can be achieved on everything else in the render.
And, no, I haven't seen one DAZ Iray render of a person I actually think is photrealistic. Not by anyone. Not by the people posting - and even selling - tutorials. Not by the people selling 'improved Iray skin' products (the 'before-after' product promos many of which, to me, the befores are better than the afters).
So I agree with the OP that DAZ's figures are letting things down. The loss of human torso and limb structural edgeloops between Genesis 2 and 3 was a big mistake, letting down a lot of the renders of people who just use out-of-the-can characters, and something I find very, frustratingly limiting in my own character creation, given that we mere mortals are not allowed the means to create the HD morphs that are required, while the limited range produced by DAZ and the PAs cannot be freely mixed. And the rush to Iray, when the reality of skin rendering is well below the reality of the (certainly much easier to model mathematically) surfaces of much else in renders drags things down even further.
I already addressed the issue with subdivision. It's not a silver bullet. And yes everyone uses it, myself included. But it doesn't solve the problems of a badly made mesh such as G2 to G8. Also, we don't have access to making HD morphs. So that point is completely void for the general user. And lastly, you can do animations with much higher polygon meshes than what G2-G8 provides. My point still stands that the mesh is ultra low polygon count.
Personally? I can't recall any DS skin realism tutorial where the promos looked better than mid-grade renders that are everywhere.
I think however this artist has been getting very close to photoreal skin. One of the main improvements is adding veins into the SSS map.
https://zniman.deviantart.com/art/In-the-studio-at-the-end-of-summer-699165776
@DavidGB @AlienRenders
I believe the key here is HD maps that are used for sculpting details in the new generations. Well it's not that you can't create or mix them. It is indeed possible in any professional 3D package though you do it in a sculpting session. So it can be done just in a different way than before.
The fact that DAZ only gives HD access to PAs is another story. This is not technology related but marketing related I guess. And I agree that "unlocking" HD access would be nice for the artist who wants to play around with it without being forced to be a PA.
Personally I find DAZ Studio too much limited for my needs so I just use it as an asset generator for Blender. Once I get the asset in Blender I can do whatever I want with it. Below a discussion that may help in some degree.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/42706/is-there-any-format-or-workaround-for-exporting-content-with-hd-resolution
The new way with HD sculpting and Iray is better in my opinion because scuplting gives you much more freedom over the base topology, and PBR gives you much more realistic renders. And it is just born so it has time to grow up even better.
But again, you have your choice. If that just doesn't fit you and you prefer to work the old way with M4 V4 morphs and 3Delight then just go with it. M4 V4 are still supported and 3Delight too. So what's the matter.
I think a lot of it is a matter of opinion, as the link that agent unawares posted looks like someone overdid the veins in the SSS layer to me, which make it seem fake. Other folks want to see much more detail in the skin, which is fine. As far as mesh density for figures, let's not forget that the number of polygons in a figure determines how long it will take to sculpt a reasonable body and face for it; the longer it takes, the fewer figure morphs a given content artist will be able to make which impacts how much money they will make. I know; some will argue that a more detailed figure will sell more copies and thus make them more money, but can they really afford to do that?
...what? Do you model morphs point by point?
Yes; there are certain facial features, like burns and scars, that look best if you manipulate as few points at a time as possible. The same can be true of such things elsewhere on the body, as well as other details that people want PAs to put in characters.
o.O
We are definitely going to have to disagree there.
"Realism" is a hazy term because as one might have noticed, even within this thread, different people have different ideas as to what looks "real" and thats all I'm going to say on that part
But one thing I will say OP seems to have picked 3 pretty clearly stylized characters and then complained that they didn't look real, which is sort of like going to the opera and then complaining that there was too much singing. Josie is made by thorne, Ravyn by 3duniverse, two vendors known for their stylized figures. There's maybe more of an argument to be had for Josie, as she's a main Daz character and she isn't described as stylized, but then again she isn't described as realistic either (there is mention with Josie that the bends have improved realism, but that is not the same as saying "most realistic teen shape ever")
Why not link to product images for Lyra, or anything by Raiya or Saiyaness (does having the letter combination "aiya" give them magical powers? the truth is out there)
I think perhaps the OP just doesn't like semi-stylized characters, which I can sympathize with as I also don't find the look appealing. However I think they misattribute the cause of their dislike to the figure rather than the style
There are arguments to be made on the relative merits of polygon counts and topology flow, but suffice it to say they do not boil down to "moar polys, moar good" (for instance less polys more subdivided tends to bend more smothly than more polys) and when it comes to topology, well, way more knowledgeable people than me have unresolved arguments about the relative merits of the different paradigms so I'll leave it to them.
Here are a few renders for you guys to pick apart.
The first two are Genesis 3 and the third is Genesis 8