I am just wondering if anyone has some good tips for achieving an ultra-realistic effect when rendering a person's head ? An example of truly realistic renders (in my opinion) would be some of Syyd Raven's promotional images at the RuntimeDNA store. Some of things that detract from realism in the images that I create are : * Glassy eyes; * Glow emanating from mouth and nostrils; * Stiff, plastic-looking smiles (as opposed to, say, DAZ's freebie smile pose, which looks truly natural in the promo); * Teeth that are too perfect (even dentures don't look that fake); * Unable to get right combination of lights; * Camera positioning. Any feedback would be appreciated. thanks, Andrew

Well it is involved but I can share what I do. -First I always use Complex Global lighting and SHADOWS are a MUST. The take are of getting rid of the glowies. -Head and shoulder shots use a 50-75 mm camera. -Full Body Shots 35-50mm Camera Camera mm over 75 flattens everything too must in my opinion. Pictures always look pasted on the image. -Make surethe figure is making eye contact with something other than dead space. -I always lift the cin. If the head is lowered then I raise the eyes. Lowered head and eye images look funny to me. -In this image the body has a subtle "S" flow to it. Arm is out for balance. Practice is really the best way to find what works Regards, Anton

I did this one with Stephanie a long time ago. Not typically realistic but it shows how important shadows are. I made the image tall to emphasize her shape. The blank but colorful background makes her pop. I think it is important to establish if the image is a scene or a portrait. Portrait should not be so busy or large that the subject is lost in an ocean of stuff. In scenes I think figures should be off center doing something..not looking at the camera and keeping themselves busy in a task. You mentioned Syd. You should drop her an email. I am sure she would love to share thoughts.

ps: hope you care read through all the typos. :)

One more. In this image I want to show what complex shadows can add. It may seem subtle but I think it helps add to the look. I have been using shadows for a few years now and almost never render without them. I almost always throw an added spotlight on the chest&head even if it is dim. The higher MM camera setting to the right looks fine, but adds to the "flattented" look. In this image I wanted a suggested barrier between her and the viewer making her seem subtly "un-obtainable". Again, I used the "S" shape to her pose to paly with the straight lines of the sofa bench. Regards, Anton

Catharina Przezak has posted some very nice renders in the past few weeks, go check her gallery. Maybe she can give you tips.

Attached Link: http://www.keindesign.de/stefan/poser/

A subtle depth of field effect is also a good source of realism, as there is no real camera that does not show that effect. Keep the focus on the eyes. For realistic eye reflections, I'd recommend using environment mapping. For lighting, get a book on photography. To avoid glowing nostrils, you can try a) increasing shadow map size b) lowering min shadow bias c) switching to raytraced shadows. See the Poser section of my website for a few rendering tips and a tutorial on depth of field.

The complex lighting sets at Daz, RDNA and the few that are posted elsewhere are great starting points, always pay attention to the expressions, blank stares, default brow positions always detract from the realism. I have only just started to get to grips with this myself in recent months. I hope you get the effect you wanted. best wishes Jody

Do you think are more realistic shadows maps or raytraced shadows? Raytraced shadows appear more fast

Thanks, everyone. In particular, thanks PhoenixRising - you have gone to a lot of trouble to give me plenty of food for thought. Hopefully, I will be able to produce some results shortly ... BTW, Niles - I've been in touch with Catharina, and joined the Mec4D forum....

Thanks,Anton...as always,your very generous with shareing your knowledge with us. Jody,that's a really nice image...good job. For the glowing nostrils,useally a small amount of postwork has fixed that for me.In extreme cases,Travler has a set of morphs(free RNDA),one of which completely close the nostril,which I then paint back in.(Note:Vicky3 doesn't seem to have the noseglow problem) SWAMP

jarm: to be perfectly honest... your render is one of very few where my first reaction has been... 'that can't be a render'... and where I have had to look closer to convince myself that it is not a photograph. I think it is a wonderful render. ziggie

The elbows give it away :-) But yes, I was very, very, very pleased with that one. Best wishes Jody

Yeah, Don't try... Seriously, you will ultimately get to a point like I did with sculpture where you realise that they will never breathe.... Though having said that I once saw a bronze decco bust that had a skin patina, amazing bit of work, but a bit too expensive to take home :( But then again, sometimes the journey is it's own reward... But yeah, Global lighting, (you'll find some in freestuff by ZrincX) dail the camera out, add a little grain to the image in post, real images are rarely pin sharp. later jb

Attached Link: http://www.morphworld30.com/

Here you can find a free no glow nostril props for V2, Michael and Stephanie. They are smart props, but they also come with some dials to place them exactly where you want. I found them very useful when i was using V2! Hope it helps :)

oh, i forgot! To achieve more realistic smiles I use "smile right", "smile left" and "frown" morphs. Smiles are not completly simetric, so using "smile right" and "smile left" for "unbalancing" them achieves a more realistic look. I use frown with negative values, so lips corners turn up a bit. Good luck ;)

Here is a different view on the topic: While a lot can be (and has been) said about the merits of complex global lighting, I hardly think it is a requirement for "realistic" rendering. I for one, don't always like the "muddy" characteristic of many CGL renders. But as far as "realism" goes, there can be a lot of artistic license applied to that concept. I think this render is fairly realistic, and it only uses 3 lights. It is straight out of Poser 5 without any postwork and only took about 15 seconds to render on an old P3 machine. Just another way of looking at the topic :-)

Excuse my ignorance, but what is "complex global lighting" ?

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/tut.ez?Form.ViewPages=155&PageAction=View&Page=6

SnowSultan explains all about lighting. See link. Personally I'm one of the minority who think ultra-realism is over rated. If you want ultra-realism, then take photographs, is the common argument and I see much rationale in that. It makes no sense to me that people want to do fairies and then complain that they don't look realistic. Why should they? What's wrong with the fantastic looking fantastical? Poser lets us go beyond reality...that's much more the point for me. But I'm always out of step. I've even gotten used to it.

Yes, I agree. Its good to know how to achieve ultra-realism, and I've learnt a lot over the last 24 hours. I also was trying to find ways of getting away from the glassy eyes, fake grin, and perfect teeth look - so that the subject of the render has some genuine humanity and warmth. This is where I think that Syyd Raven's images really look good, in that her images don't look 100% photographic, but she captures real authenticity and warmth in her characters. Thanks again to all who have helped me. I have learnt a helluva lot through this thread :)

My delayed 0.2 Euros - Photography started out imitating painting, then found its own dimension. 3d/CGI will do that, too, I hope. Just using Poser basics, even idiots like yours truly can already do a lot in this direction (Zrincx's Brooke character, 3-point light based on Syyd's tutes, no post). The masters (Syyd, and Cat Harders et al.) are already doing Final Fantasy-quality still images. IMHO, movies like Final Fantasy and the "Osiris" short on Animatrix are NOT stepping stones towards photo-realism, but towards a new credo of tongue-in-cheek fantasy/dream reality that'll be the hallmark of all-3D movies and pix. If that makes any sense to anyone but me ;o)

Ait it wierd haw some charcters seem to have DNA, I looked at the above image and thought "Zrincx" Nice shot. later jb

heyas; anton (and other shadow mavens): how do you get shadows to work well with hair? even using big maps (4096), i get blocky or checkered shadows with kozaburo's hair. for the glowing nostril/teeth/tongue/etc: first, make the nostril material base colour a dark black-brown. i also make the inner mouth bits non-white colours. for example, i make the teeth base colour a pale yellow-white. (about in the 25% black value; ie: the top 1/4 of the value column.) the tongue and inner mouth material i use a pale pink-grey or just grey. the darker base colour keeps those materials from shining too much when light hits them. you can darken them up to suit your scene by adjusting those colours.