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I'm late to the discussion but I've been watching this thread with interest. I've been doing some test renders to see what influences realism most.Some might consider Facegen a cheat, but to me it's just another tool in my toolbox and I think it really helps to see the influence of texture, morphs, and shaders. The first render (top left) is the default Genesis 3 with the Daz supplied "Ryjeane" texture. Hair is the new Dforce Classic Long hair with Dimension Theory's Iradiance County Pasture for a background. I added a single plane with the Daz Uber emissive shader to throw some light on her eyes. Top right we have a Facegen generated texture on the default Genesis 3 face. No morphs. Here you can already see that the fine lines around the eyes and mouth, dimples in the cheeks and the uneven skin tone in the exported face texture help make this look far less "CG".Bottom left I've added the Facgen morph and to my eye combined with the texture adds another layer of realism. FInally bottom right I've added the Anagenesis 2 shader. Is it realistic? Not enough to fool the folks on this forum, but I think the difference between the first and last picture is like night and day. Could I achieve similar results with morphs and a good enough texture instead of using Facegen? While I'm certain there are people talented enough I don't think I could. But I have to say that in the almost 20 years since I took my first steps in Poser 4 I am constantly amazed at what is possible.
If you read this far...thanks and Happy Rendering
Looks good - and as ArielRGH said, it looks like she's on vacation and enjoying her day. :)
Thank you for using Altern8, by the way! :D
Here's another update to an earlier render. I decided to tackle the hair issue, and after a bit of research, I discovered Bagginsbill's hair shader which, aside from being much more realistic, allows the texture and color to be generated procedurally, which means I don't have to wrestle with baked-in specularity in texture maps.
That looks like a Larry Rostant photo - one of my favourite photographers. I don't remember this specific image though.
Another update of an earlier portrait, this time of Superman. Constructive critique is welcome as always!
New girl. :)
Dial spun just for fun. I'm still working on her, but I like her so far.
Great realism, Diva!
One more update to an earlier render:
Thank you, PhilW! :) I have a lot more morphs for G3F so it was easier to get the look I wanted with G3. I'm going to see if I can figure out how to transfer her to G8F though, as I really miss the ability to do the realistic expressions with PowerPose and G8. I tried several times to do a nice looking smile on her but the premade expressions just looked so fake on her. I played with the expression adjustments but really couldn't get it to look natural. That PowerPose and the G8 facial rigging has really spoiled me! lol
That's looking nice! I like the light illuminating a bit of the skin texture, showing that it's not totally smooth. The brows are looking nice too! That's a lot of progress since the first post! :)
One of the problems with the 3d Community is, what's considered "realism" differs greatly from person to person. Some are interested in translucent skin, some are interested in highlights and specularity, some like shiny eyes, some like anime like, or anime-like exaggerated features. For me, the thing I enjoy seeing the most is detail in the texture. A detailed texture can go a long way for making a low poly mesh to look photoreal. I think @kennrowe's example at the top of this page is a good testimony to the need of photo-like textures to achieve photo-realness.
In truth, I've seen maybe 10 renders in the past 11 years that I thought looked like actual people. It's really difficult to get right, and even those that do, find it difficult to recreate the "magic"!
Anyway, I was looking for somewhere to post my attempt at realism! Cheers!
I just wanted a chance to post render LOL!
Thanks, Diva! Yes, I also like how bump and specularity come together like that. Anyway, here's a new one from me. Does it look better (i.e. more realistic) raw or "filmicized"?
RAW
FILMICIZED
Very nice!!
To me (and this is just my opinion) the raw one looks a bit more realistic.
Here's another attempt at realism, this time a bit on the sexier side of things. This incorporates some recent improvements in my render settings and lighting. Again, critique is welcome!
She looks like Poser Miki.
In a good or bad way? In any case, here's a render of my G8M Elvis hot off the presses!
She looks great; this I could accept as real, with the exception of the bikini, it has artifacts; plus it isn't resting quite right, but it keeps the render Daz-safe.
One of my favorite attemtps.
In a good way but you still haven't matched the best Miki renders that's I seen although one can see definate improvement in your work.
Nonesuch00, could you give me an example or two of what you consider the best Miki renders?
Go look at the Smith Micro Poser Facebook page and you'll see good examples.
You mean https://www.facebook.com/Poser3DFigures/? As far as I can tell, they're not bad (not all of them, anyway), but I'm not seeing anything as photo-realistic as you seem to be suggesting.
Anyway, this was a 7-hour render, but I think it was worth it. What do you think?
7 hours?! How? There is no way anything that simple should take that long.
(also that neck bump looks super weird)
Well I shouldn't of said nothing because it's a long time since I unfollowed DAZ 3D & Poser in my FB account and i scrolled & scrolled & could find the Miki render I was talking about.
j.cade is right, that neck looks like she has goosebumps so there is problem with your non-diffuse maps that you are using.
I did find an image that looks realistic and it is mostly due to stylized lighting used to obscure shortcoming in modeling technology.
Here is a link and this is from the Smith Micro Poser FB feed but you can see the artist that did it on the image. In the Poser FB feed he says how he did it. It is not an iRay render though. He rendered in Poser Pro 2014. The model's bald, to hide not so great hair possibilities, and sweaty, to get the lights doing their eye tricks. And it's a closeup of a face partial to hide too much symmetry.
I don't know my skin (not renders my actual skin) looks a lot like that, with the bumps on the neck (only mine is also on the face and arms) so that actually seemed to be one of the more realistic bits.
You'd be surprised. Most of it is due to the trans-mapped hair, which tends to really slow down rendering. If the character was bald, I suspect I could've rendered her portrait in about half the time. The quality settings are also rather high overall, too, with 64 pixel samples generally, which of course gets multiplied by Branched Path Tracing values. It may seem like alot, but I've found that anything less fails to reliably produce smooth enough renders. I also activated caustics for an extra touch of realism (particularly on the eyes), though my comparative experiments show that that only adds about 10%-15% to the render times.
I can't be sure, but it's also possible that all the extra stuff going on in my skin and eye shaders may contribute to the render time. You see, I've rigged the figure so that features like skin color, eye color, and facial/body hair color can all be controlled via parameter dials. For example, setting the Eye Color dial to 2 gives me green eyes, while setting it to 3 gives me blue eyes, and correspondingly, setting it to 2.5 gives me aquamarine eyes. Similarly, a Skin Color dial can go from 0 (dark African) to 3 (light European). This seems like such an obvious convenience that I don't know why more people aren't asking for it, but anyway, this utility requires several more nodes than just a simple material preset. Plus, even without the extra parameters that make the material dials work, I also have three layers of SSS.
Again, I can't be sure how much it adds to render time, though in my experience, complex shaders have rarely seemed to wield much of a noticeable effect (with the exception of some of the more advanced hair shaders). I've certainly been using my elaborate material setup for much longer than what seems like a recent increase in my render times, so the most likely main culprit is still my tinkering with sophisticated hair shaders and more high-quality settings.
Honestly, as long as I'm at least getting closer to something that could pass for a photo, I don't really care if she looks like she has goosebumps. Looking like a real person with goosebumps is better than looking like a CGI model without goosebumps. Of course, looking like a real person without goosebumps is usually better still, but until I've crossed the fake/real threshold (or at least come as close as I possibly can), that's not a major priority for me.
Wow @Visuimag, so many things about your render are correct. The color, lighting, hair, even looks like the model is blushing a little. Very nice.
@Divamakup, very good job with the model. Very detailed in features and expression. I really like the eyes. If you would, please shine a little more light on the model so I'm able to see the skin.
@Gregorius, forgive me but I am simiply not able to see any realistic qualities here. The models seem low poly to me (face and hair). Though the skin has freckles, they appear ...faded out to me. Nice refleciton on the eyes. You've done a great job with expressions, an area where I forever fail.
About your render times. The previous render I posted took 10 minutes. I don't know the specs of my computer, but I have a 4 year old laptop from Dell with nothing added. May I suggest you try HDRIs to spead up render times?
Whoa! WONDERFUL work! :D I almost missed that one because it's so small. lol I hope you don't mind I post it larger for others to enjoy (it really needs to be seen at full size to really appreciate though! lol So cool!). Nicely done!
Great image by @Visuimag (click for full size):