I admire the realism renders that I see - when they work well. I also see a lot of stuff in the "Realism" genre in the Poser gallery that just doesn't belong. Maybe 1 in 20 pieces are truly approaching realism. The truth is that Poser simply isn't high-end enough to produce realistic pictures, unless you're talking about close-ups on models with an excellent texture from the likes of Catherina. My personal bete noir is when someone uses a mixture of photo-realistic and non-realistic textures in their picture. That's why the only cyclorama backgrounds I use are the photo-paper ones. Put V3 in front of a photo and it generally doesn't work. Screams "Fake!" I still have a lot to learn about why it is so - I know that it's partly lighting, ambient colours, positioning, and of course the posing of the model's body and face, but I think there's also other stuff there, like the way the eye perceives things... My favourite artworks, and those I think of as most successfully "working", don't tend to be "realistic" in that they wouldn't be mistaken for a photo. If I see a render with an exotic body texture (like Ecstasy's for example) and some beautiful cloth and hair painting, then I don't expect to see it rendered over a background photo. And there's my two penn'orth :-) By the way, I love discussions like this. It makes me glad to be a part of this forum :)

---

"you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love." - Warsan Shire