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I guess it depends on your Hardware and Software also it will depend on your Knowledge and Skill Level not only with DAZ but with other 3D and texturing applications.
Just for kicks, here's my latest "camera"-simulated photo real Daz3d render.
Jeff
Very interesting thread. I'm unable to render photo-real images. I usually make bigger scenes with several figures, no photo-like renders of single characters, but not one of my renders looks realistic. I'm just bad.
Generally I think it's the combination of skin textures, eyes, body morphs and posing together with the big sinners clothing, hair and eyebrows that tells you mostly all times immediately "it's not real".
Critizising if you cannot do it yourself, like me, is bad. However, some examples of my thoughts, don't get upset:
- With the very good render of the women from DustRider the left upper arm told me at once, not a real person (and perhaps the sharp jaw line).
- In Gregorius render of Reeves (or the girl) it was a bunch of things, overdone morphs, skin, and above all eyes and eyebrows.
- Divamakeups variant of Reeves looks much more realistic, maybe it is mainly the eyes and the shirt (form and texture), which cries "rendered". And the chin, albeit maybe realistically formed after the life model, looks just so cartoony that there is bias against "it's real" immediately
- In the marvellously made Floyd render by algovincian it was (besides the DoF, which always looks artificial, maybe "photo-real", but not real) the skin and overdone wrinkles which made it clear to me in a fraction of a second, not real.
- Jeff's render (so well done) is tricky, but I don't know, maybe the pose mainly or something else in combination, tells me "not a real person", immediately
- magnumdaz' women, wow, I really asked me a long time, is it a photo or render? I wished I could achieve at least a bit similar results.The hair is well chosen, short and not very visible, so the "hair trap" is mostly avoided. Maybe the skin of the shoulder is a bit too heterogenous for younger persons. Real skin is not as perfect and smooth as usually shown in default Daz products but also not that differentiated (in avarage). I think you have the average in mind when you judge pictures.
I can't help thinking "Walter Matthau as James Bond". That's something I'd probably pay money to see. I can't wait to get Floyd and I hope they come up with a female counterpart.
FWIW, here's a test of my latest textures/shaders. At the suggestion of Nonesuch00, I increased the SSS radius, but at that point, I had also added a bit of noisy modulation to the SSS as well, so I'm not sure if I've got the right balance yet or not. If you're at all inclined, please visit the thread createed specifically for my work to provide any in-depth feedback you may have. I decided not to act much on any further comments until I can get more than one person reliably offering critiques. Ultimately, optimal results probably rely on a diversity of opinions and perspectives.
I'm kind of like you, I seldom try to make realistic looking people (it's really extremely difficult for me), I just strive to make images that are "realistic 3d" (think of a diorama). but I felt the render(s) I posted had a decent bit of photorealism, so I thought I might share them. Dang, your spot on about the arm and jaw line (actually, most of the face is a bit awkward to me). But if I were to make an image from below the shoulders down, it would probably be a bit more difficult to tell it's a render, until you get to the shoes, then I think the illusion would fall apart again
. Thanks for your comments - you have a great eye!
I am constantly working towards photorealism for many of my renders. Some come out better than others. I find Clothing tough to get ti to feel right often. Also Lighting I spend a ton of time on as well as textures.
Anyway, this is one I though came close for me.
Alot of wonderful renders here. I've seen many characters come close to photo real, honorable mention, but the one that impressed me the most since I began 3D is Danae collection at Rendo ! I can't even come close, Lol !!!! Maybe someday in the distance future
I did this one as a promo for my next hair (Caitlyn Hair, due for release next week) and I thought it turned out pretty realistic, so I thought I would share it here.
Looks good to me, @PhilW. I like the work you did on the hairline and the hairstyle in general (especially the waves/curls at the ends). The one thing I would mention as possibly being noticable is the symmetry.
- Greg
While the style is broadly symmetrical, it is not exactly so - and there will be a choice of different curls, waves and frizz morphs to "mess up" the hair as you see fit!
Excellent - I'll keep an eye out for it in the store.
- Greg
Looks good.
It doesn't strike me as symetrical. Parting, not quite in centre and not perfect (that is great imo).
The wavvy bits are very similar, yet the sides of the hair are not; they are only somewhat similar. It has the feel of real hair.
Doesn't look symetrical at all to me, just generally the same style on both sides of her head which is to be expected. What's different of the ends of the hair are done with more detail to make it look more like hair and less like trasmapped polygons.
Congratulations @Gregorius on release of your commercial product!
Thank you @wolfgangzeiler_9d28beaba3 I use renders to create abstract art (LOL). I go for realism because it's hard for me to imagine (without a photo) how/where light bounces off of skin. renders help me recreate that. That's why my skin settings are so glossy.
Thank you - that is what I was aiming for!
Had me fooled and i'm a photogropher + Daz and photoshop user
The photo realism of the newer models (male and female) is become very good. I purchase mostly males but the first thing I look at is the eyes. If the eyes are not right it detract's from the model. My decision to buy or not is often based on the eyes.
When you think about it, for many many decades images were either clearly photographs of real people, or clearly cartoons. 3D rendering of people and other stuff is fairly recent. And I think most of us tend to dismiss images that aren't clearly one or the other: photoreal or cartoons.
Personally, when I see a render that is clearly a render and "not quite" photoreal I tend to dismiss it as someone not being able to make it look real. That 3rd category of not quite photoreal is tough for people to accept, IMO. Same as lighting and shadows, etc., that don't quite match what we're expecting. Our eyes are very tuned to what looks "right" since we've been looking at the real world for decades. And if shadows don't match what we expect, and it's not a cartoon either, I think many tend to dismiss it as "amateurish".
So I certainly look forward to the day when photoreal renders and characters are the norm. And instead of trying to make our images photoreal, we'll be able to focus on making them interesting.
Just ran across this. Apparently, about two weeks ago, the Washington Post discovered Shudu and the concept of near-photoreal all-digital models. It's a very ... breathless article, in some ways. Pearls are not quite being clutched ... but the hand is clearly near the strands, so to speak. The main thrust of the article is about how the increasing use of digital models and avatars will create unrealisitc ideals and body images to live up to, especially for women. Which ... is probably not entirely unfair, but which feels a touch overwrought, in that article. (There may be some issues with adblockers not being allowed to the site. I have a subscription, so I don't know for sure, but I think that came up before. If so, the article seems to have been picked up in various degrees of pearls-clutching anxiety by various papers available via Google..)
Shudu was made by our very own Karuki
This bit in the article sounds a bit strange to me:
This disregards the immense amount of work needed to create credible digital humans. Is this really cheaper than hiring a photographer and models and do a real shoot? I'd say no. And it takes way longer. Not to mention fitting clothes or whatever other product to the digital model. That stuff needs to be digitized too, properly rigged and whatnot. All those thousands and thousands of fashion products... when you could just put them on a real model and make a real photo.
Bu what do I know!
Pearl clutching is good term for that, it is sort of in the ball park of their calculated irritation of their readers but if the readers are the one's irritated by their sand, aka, articles suggesting that we want to look like a semi-realistic 3D model, then it's us that have to create the mother of the pearl repeatly to coat that sand and stop their irritation. They're getting their money via inventing things to irritate us.
Besides, anyway, various photo filters are now 'prettying up' people with likenesses that are closer to the real person than any 3D models I've seen and those ideaizations of self aren't attainable in the flesh & blood world either.
Altern8 Shader set, Julienne textures by Raiya and Second Circle lights.
... and no postwork at all.
Very very good! A couple observations:
1. Overall I'd say the most distracting element from a realism standpoint is the lack of environmental context. The shot seems relatively mundane, not as if she was specially posing or in some way modeling herself such as at a professional photo session. it just looks like an image of a young woman not necessisarily aware she's being photographed, so the lack of context is distracting on an unconscious level. Even in a real studio its very difficult to produce a truly matte background. However in the way of technical study of skin rendering details, the lack of context is fully appropriate.
2. One of the reasons a little context would help is becuase it is a challenge for me to discern how the light is behaving. For example it seems that the shot is generally a little on the overexposed side. The degree of overexposure tells me what the rules of this particualr shot are, kind of like the way a musical key signature tells you which tones fit within a melody and which ones do not.
3. While the skin appears to be slightly overexposed, the hair by contrast seems very overexposed, the fabric on the sweater must be near fully black to appear this darkly gray under this high intensity light.
4. Hair is tricky as heck, especially blonde hair. I think our mind's eyes tend to imagine blonde hair as being lighter than it actually is. Hair has a lot about it that makes it harder to get right than we assume. I think the hair could be significantly darker than it appears now and it would still look like blonde hair. Currently it seems that the entire head of hair has the brightness level I would expect only to find on those few highlighted areas that happened to reflect strongly the key light back towards the camera. Another way to think of what I am saying is that currently all of the hair seems to be the same brightness, I do not see specular highlights anywhere. If the base brightness of the hair is this close to white, then any actualy specualr highlights would reach full whiteness and beyond by relative comparison.
5. A little more about the environmental context: Everything about specular reflections (the tight sharp type of highlights we often see on hair, skin, water etc...) are entirely angle and perspective based as you know. Specular highlights tell the viewer about the locations of the primary light sources and about the location of the camera itself. Thus, if the main light source illuminating the charater is placed directly in line with the camera, then all of the specular highlights will appear to point toward the camera. If the shot is also overexposed, then a specular reflection that might usually appear as a thin line down the nose will likelyh appear or wider than usual if the shot is overexposed. overexposure tend to push all the pixels towward whiteness which will sppear to flatten the specular reflections
Overexposure tends to have an effect not so dissimilar to increasd surface roughness, in that the limited dynamics of a render displayed on a screen means that as pixels move toward whiteness, regardless of the reasoning, the final result will begin to flatten.
All of that to conclude I think that the only thing I can say safely with the current lack of environmental context is that the hair is probably the aspect I'd examine first. Just how blonde do you want her to appear, and exactly how blonde is real blonde hair, especially when photographed as we see here? I suspect it is darker and less saturated that the mind's eye assumes. Daenerys Targaryn's white dragon lady hair is probably the exact same brightness as what you have depicted here, but without the yellow tint. As discussed in another thread recently, fully white is pretty much the kiss of death for realism sake. I just think her hair is too light to fit with realistic expecations. otherwise, super great work.
its a combination of all the things mentioned as well as the joints even in the best models with a ton of JMC morphs STILL even with Gen8 figures are not realistic because of the resolution of the mesh around the joints. the muscles and flesh are not compressing or flexing around a real bone like in a real person. it does not collide with other parts of the body does not account for some areas bing soft others hard. in real live modesl some areas hang with gravity bones protrude at joints against the skin when joints bend muscles flex when parts collide with others the soft areas compress. All this is faked with jmc morphs but they are far from perfect and fall short very quickly in most poses and then there is interaction with the surroundings of the model and itself. Does the ball of the foot compress in contact with a floor? does the buttocks compress when a figure sits in a chair does a soft chair compress with the weight fo the model?. does the thigh compress against the other thigh when a model crosses its legs or lays down on their side? NO to all of this. A good painting even one that is very painterly but is anatomically correct looks like a more realistic representation of a real person then most high res photo realistic renders unless extreem care was made to avoid the poses that expose the limitations of the mesh and the progams lack of soft body physics. MOst renders look like a posed barbie doll becuase like a doll the mesh is not alive it does not move like bones under skin and muscle and fat.
Too much focus on shaders and skin detail and not enough focus on the model itself is the joint REALLY bending like a real person? Does the skin really look like it is streched over muscle and bone? In most cases even the best JMC morphed additions Like Ultimate bend morphs for Gen8 the figure still does not inteact with itself a breast does not compress when a arm colides with its side nor do the soft flesh not flexed move with gravity. or compress when in contact with objects. fixing this will produce far more realistic images even with out subsurface renders and photo real render engines realistic shadows are important and when it gets down to light shining through areas of the body like ears or nose or fingers and hands and feet. but a image map can fake that even with out a subsurface render shader. as painters fake it with paint on a 2d canvas. i find even stylized paintings a more realistic representaion of a live human then many of these photo real renders becasue a good painting can capture the gesture and movement of a live person and it depicts the person.
After all everything we see is simply the light bounced off the object entering the cone of our eye and foreming a image in our brain. replicate the light and you capture the image. but if the figure looks off no matter how well lit or shaded it will always look off.
Thanksǃ It's funny that you should mention it, because I'm planning to release a version 2.0 very soon, incorporating my latest strides towards realism. Looking at the last render of mine to appear in this thread really highlights just how long it's been, and I can only hope that my latest work shows a respectable amount of progress given that time. Here are a couple of more recent samples. I welcome critique, as alwaysǃ
Very realistic around the eyes. Did you map this yourself or is from a set you purchased? Or is it a MR that you've been working with?
Thanks! I'm mostly combining certain parts and aspects from two or three different photo-based MRs, though the irises were mainly painted using a set of specialized Photoshop brushes.
A major thrust of mine has been to completely separate bump/normal information from color information. I think the surface reacts more realistically to light when you don't have any bump/normal information baked into the color map.
Exactly. I think extracting those types of maps from the diffuse / albedo works MOST of the time.....
I think one of the biggest parts of "photorealism" is lack of true subsurface data. Almost all G8 characters use SSS maps that are just lightened copies of the color map...if they aren't using actual copies. I've posted up a couple examples of my own tweaks to skin, one of Michael 7 and one of Monique 7 (with Monique 8's eyebrows), where I've reworked the SSS map. The technique I use is the same for any skin, G3 or G8, and I've gotten wonderful results. Chromatic SSS is a major step in the right direction, but Daz is really missing out by not taking advantage of an actual SSS map.