Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
These are three others meant to look like post processing on real photos.
The symetry on the eyebrows is the first thing I see; well, that and the symetry of the eyes in particular. Followed closely by nose, cheeks, chin and mouth. I'm far enough away that nothing about the eyes (other than the cornea, which wasn't as obvious as the asymmetry) caught my attention.
If I look at the hair for a metre or so away from the screen, the hair screams fake; in part due to symmetry.
Photo shoot fun. :)
Very nice job on the textures; there is nothing in that one that looks off; her legs look great.
The hair gives it away; so too does the top and shorts, but the top more so.
Like many of the 3D offerings, cloth is NOT infinitely thin - it has some thickness, and sharp edges are also a give-away.
What about the whites of the eye... is it possible to add a small bump map (insert better option here) to give the red veins a little texture - very subtle - to make them stand out a bit. Also something about the current texture of the whites is too bumpy (horrible description, but hopefully you know what I mean) expecially at this close in - sort of like the bump strength from the skin was also applied to the whites.
That's odd, because I consciously added some slight asymmetry to her face with a morph specifically designed for that purpose. If the asymmetry in her face is too slight, fair enough, but your remark about the hair really surprises me, since its lack of symmetry should be quite obvious.
Also, what's wrong with the cornea?
Not really as a second look at you render and they look fine to me. They looked too clear before but then postprocessing does that.
You really can't tell that that's a symmetrical hair model?
Uncanny valley asymmetry I'd say.
You really can't tell that it's not? If nothing else, the bangs on each side are completely different, with a tuft pointing somewhat sideways on one side that's completely absent on the other. Here's a preview shot of it, with a single light pointed straight at it so the lighting is symmetrical. Does this really look symmetrical to you?
Problem with the hair is not that it's symmetric but that it looks like some of the overprocessed dye jobs I've seen.
So...a saturation problem, then?
I am going second this opinion. When I first started sharing my artwork, at work, basic figures in basic poses in believeable settings, the first question that comes is what's her name or what did you meet her or who she is. My colleagues have no idea its a 3d render. They percieved it as a real photograph.
Once I explained Daz Studio and 3d art, shared Daz3d website and how it all works they became wise and nit picked my artwork.
However if the viewer is ignorant of what 3d work looks like, it'll seem real and authentic most of the time for many people.
Even to this day despite some of my co worker knowing the picture is 3d I they'll tell me it looks like a photo. It's all about conditioning.
You and I work 3d and invest hours, days, weeks, months and years perfecting our art. We are conditioned. The average joe is just used to looking at pic from a DSLR or smart phone and asks, Where did you meet her?
No, a problem with the highlights & texture of the highlights makes the hair look like doll hair rather than people hair. The shade of red is not usual for people that have used a specific shade of red hair dye or the color of some doll hair.
That still just looks like a symmetrical hair with one tuft moved.
Moving one tuft doesn't change the fact that hair with inherent bilateral symmetry looks unnatural. The asymmetric wisps on top aren't enough to change that.
If that legitimately is asymmetric hair, then whoever made it took a whole lot of time taking a hair that would have looked natural and making it look unnatural, and that feels unlikely.
You could alter what symmetry there is by making one side not so transparent and the other more transparent. Long straight female hair parted done the middle though is often symmetric. Go look at the John Mellencamp song 'Cherry Bomb' video and near the end is a hair style worn by to sisters cheerlead dancing on their lawn with long straight brunette hair parted down the middle. That used to be one of the most common hair styles in US. For me though the hair symmetry isn't a problem for believability as men and women can and do get symmetry hairstyles. Something they really can't do with the rest of their looks.
For a few reasons.
1) These are still images painted from a reference. It captures all the wrinkles and inperfections at that moment. 3d models are typically absent of these inperfections, have limited facial bone structure definition and are too symetrical.3d model faces are often very ridgid when compared to the movements our own can achieve.
2) Artists used a technique called "glazing" in which thing layers of semi transluscent paint is slowly built up. This allows light to travel through the lighter layers and reflect off the monochrome underpainting. This simulates how light interacts with human skin, eyes and hair in the real world. Interesting thing to note is the fact that the clothing/environments in classical paintings is often done with less care and detail than the faces. Our brains don't seem to mind this. Faces seem to be the deciding factor in how we feel about an image, atleast pertaining the the Uncanny Valley.
Yes, the times I've oil painted I didn't do glazing and the results look like chalky plastic rather than those great oil paintings that use glazing.
Symmetric styles isn't the problem, it's symmetric actual hair. When you have distinct clumps of hair like there are in the image, they're usually not mirrored perfectly one side to the other unless they've been purposefully pinned or hairsprayed into place.
Here are some symmetric hairstyles from this page where I have lined some of the main clumps of hair like I did on the 3D model. Notice that while being symmetric styles the hair itself is not symmetric. This is a dead giveaway for a whole lot of hair models (this is a trouble for the hair in Karuki's picture too).
I usually use 4-5 layers for figures/clothing and 2-3 for eniviroments. There is a world of difference. I have yet to see an artist mimic the classics using alla prima, like you said, looks flat. The concept can definately be applied to 3d art as well.
You have me interested in oil paints now
Here is a quick Octane render of Penny...work in progress (lots of work yet)!
That's good
Thanks nonesuch00 seeing lots of good work here, really like any thread that talks about realism!
I've been working on my eye textures, hopefully improving them. I'm not sure if the bump on the sclera is good or not, but I thought I'd test these settings out in any case.
On the subject of hair symmetry, attached are two images. One is my preview of the hair geometry with one side literally mirrored, which you can compare to the original. If that's not enough, I layered the mirrored version atop the original in Photoshop and set the layer style to Difference. The result is the second attached image. If your claim is that it's simply not asymmetrical enough, you may very well be right. But if you still think it's not asymmetrical at all (or even that a single tuft and the outer whisps are the only two areas of asymmetry), then one or both of us must be missing something.
EDIT: You know what, no more talk about hair from me. You're right, that hair is completely photorealistic, not unnaturally symmetric, and totally doesn't look like 3D at all.
That's much improved i'm sure you can see already.
However, the aquamarine or green color one sees in people's eyes is not actually those colors but a mix of unpigmented & pigmented iris. You need to mix blue & yellow mostly & if one zooms in on the iris as you have that effect will disappear and you'll have something like yellow to a tinyfringe of green to blue. The green and aquamarine colors will come from light refractions and mixing in the cornea from a distance and only when the light source(s) is at special angles and the viewer(s) too.
And the yellow(ish) ring(s) in the middle have radial spikes like the sun. You won't see a perfectly round set of circles.
What you actually want in DAZ 3D or Poser is another matter however because the light model being used in the renderers in unlikely to ever cause the aquamarine or green irises that you see some people get in some lighting situations. So you'd have to do as you've done here and color the iris artificially colored. DAZ & PAs do that too to make up for light modeling & rendering short comings too.
Eyebrows are a 100% better Greg.
I never insisted it was necessarily photo-realistic, nor even as asymmetrical as real hair. I was merely surprised that whatever symmetry it does have was so obvious and distracting, since I hardly noticed it (and I have 20/20 vision). This is just another example of what I meant when I spoke of the surprising subjectivity involved in striving for photo-realism. An issue that seems subtle or nitpicky to one person can seem to leap off the screen for another. Part of the problem may be that hair has never been my primary focus. For me, the top priority is perfecting my skin and eye textures/shaders.
Like I said, if your claim is that, while it may not be perfectly symmetrical, it's still too close to look real, you probably have a point. You seemed to be insisting on a more extreme claim, though. If I've misunderstood you, I apologize.
Here's my try for realistic skin/eyes/hair. Lighting is just the DS default HDRI. Don't mind the clothes, there's some poke throughs here and there, and shirt is not really fitting in the chest area. But anyways, constructive criticism is welcomed