Hi, A friend insists that he could not be fooled by a digital image that appears to be a photo which has not photo elements in it. I recall seeing a post here once to a short QT movie of a woman tilting her head and blinking that seemed very real. Anybody recall it? Any dean-on photo-realistic images that you think are "picture perfect" (if not in content and composition but just in level of realism)?

Thanks. I can make images that appear to be watercolor or chalk or pencil, but don't have the skills to pull of this bet. ;)

Hi There....My 2 cents....I'm not sure that we are quite at the realism stage yet. There are too many factors to get right in order to fool the eye into believing an image is real. These factors include skin tone, eyes, teeth, shadows (ugh), background, clothing, pose, morph, joint deformation, hair - all of which we can get close - but putting it all together in one image is tough. Maybe the easiest would be a head only shot of a male, mouth closed, eyes shut, black background. There was an image a while back on cgtalk (of Tom Cruise?) that was pretty close.

http://www.vetorzero.com.br/kaya/ This one isn't perfect but, it's a WIP and still better than anything I'm working on! The sample clips are worth watching, even if you have only dialup.

Here's a few that I think are some of the most realistic 100% CG images on this website (not all of them are of humans though): Sandra by Misu Abandoned by Zandar Interior 2 by jlv Yuletide Evil by Zandar There are others, and many more on other websites, but I don't have time to go digging right now. ;-)

OH... I can't forget Steven Stahlberg's work! He's a genius. Here's one he did that's pretty realistic:

Steven's Stool Girl

Also, the work of Liam Kemp. This guy has been an inspiration to me:
The work of Liam Kemp

Message edited on: 01/27/2005 16:27

Attached Link: Eric Cartman telling scary stories

Well, I think South Park is the most convincing. It's modelled (yes, it is) and rendered in Maya, and it looks just like paper cutouts. It looks so much like animated paper cutouts that you never think about it being anything else. That's a pretty good illusion. :-) bonni

Attached Link: http://www.davidgould.com/Gallery/CelAndToons.htm#CelAndToons

***"It looks so much like animated paper cutouts that you never think about it being anything else."*** Good point. Amazing people over at the Maya forums don't talk about this more. Then again, you'd be amazed at just how many "2D" shows are actually done in 3D using various cell-shading-style renderers. Unlike Pixar's famous 3D toon works, you might never even guess that some of this stuff wasn't actually hand-drawn.

Attached Link: http://www.hamstar.de

maxxxmodelz...those were *very* good links. i can see why Liam Kemp has been an inspiration to you. there are allot of artists that have given me inspiration. one of my favorites is jeyjey.

Haven't seen a human figure that looked photo realistic yet. Even with the examples shown here, one can clearly tell they're not real humans. Take a close look at eyes for example, they often show clearly that the figure isn't a real human at all. That's the reason why I never buy any of this so called real life textures, eyes and such here at r'dosity or at DAZ or anywhere else. Once they're on the model they just don't look like the real thing at all. At times they're pretty close. but just not it. On the other hand I do want my figures to be slightly non-photo realistic in a sense, that way people seem to relate better to them.

" A friend insists that he could not be fooled by a digital image that appears to be a photo" - That's probably true, and not for any artistic reason, only simple human psychology. Any image you show to your friend, he is going to suspect it of being digital no matter how realistic it looks; because he knows of your interest and enthusiasm for digital images. To be fair, you would have to collect a group of photographs, and a group of photorealistic digital images, and get him to say which is which.

Attached Link: http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=21895&page=1&pp=15

Whenever I do something good in Poser and feel the need to get my feet back on the ground, I always find a visit to ZBrush Central puts my paultry efforts into perspective. The people that post there are genuine artists using one of the best organic modellers available. The link is to a half-finished model of Picasso. It looks more real than anything I'll ever do. Serious Warning .. don't visit the above address and don't view the pictures in any of the threads if you don't want your 3D world-view all shook up.

Attached Link: http://www.alias.com/eng/etc/fakeorfoto/

You could take him to http://www.alias.com/eng/etc/fakeorfoto/ and have him take the "Fake or Photo?" challenge over at the Alias website. Or show him this pic: http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=183940&highlight=Jenny

That picture of Jenny is amazing... one could argue that the hair doesn't look perfectly natural, etc. However, if you take that image, turn it to greyscale, add a tiny bit of grain and some more minor stuff in photoshop... then you have something I think would fool even the most diligently trained CG eye. It looks like the covershot for Cosmopolitan Magazine. Speaking of magazines... If you look at some of the "airbrushed" photos in some major magazine layouts and advertisements, there are tons of pictures of REAL humans that don't look real at all. They actually look fake, or CG. LOL! Irony?

The thing that gives Jenny away for me is the skin. It looks waxy, and not translucent, which is what real skin is. The eyes are AMAZING, though, wow! I agree with maxxxmodelz about turning thei image greyscale and putting in a little noise. bonni

Attached Link: http://www.amazonsoul.com/dick04.html

Here's another image that I think comes pretty darn close. If the animation was spot-on, and some more imperfections added to the textures, I think it could fool many people for sure. ;-)

I believe the #1 problem with truly duplicating reality in a virtual environment is lighting. We've got methods and techniques available now that can come pretty close at faking how light behaves with materials in the real world, but currently, technology isn't advanced enough to completely simulate the infinitely complex way that real light interacts with it's environment. No amount of GI or IBL calculations can pull off the highly complex physics that are involved in true light behavior... the stuff that makes our eyes see what they see in the real world. You'd probably need millions of highly advanced super-computers just to calculate the physics of light and material interaction... far beyond what we are able to do right now.

Message edited on: 01/28/2005 08:25

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