Pop on over to CGTalk at this link: The Final Battle This guy isn't rigged yet, but that discussion about Aragorn's facial stubble and "not quite there yet". I think that we've arrived. :)

Oh my, we've arrived. Thanks for the update. Now I really have something to compare my renders to. He's so real looking.

As an animator, I immediately want to make him move. Even if you could achieve realism of this nature in ANY affordable rendertime budget, which I doubt, now you have a new problem: The eye would demand realism in motions on the same level. But the time you are done.........just hire live actors and film the damn thing! ::::: Opera :::::

Wow - awesome image.

Hey, a Poser 6 challenge. Lets try and recreate this image! That is so WOW! It is going in my NOT A PHOTO folder!

Yeah, but I don't think any 'live' actors would appreciate being sliced in half with a broad sword for any amount of money! ;) This amount of realism means that cut scenes between the live actor about to be halved and the CG stunt double being halved would be almost imperceivable, even full screen.

can you imagine the render time? And now much postwork down to the pixel level did the person do? ::::: Opera :::::

I just can't believe I smacked my face into my monitor screen trying to get a closer look! Amazing.

As far as I've read, no postwork at all. All Maya and Mental Ray. The render time was not mentioned, though many have asked. It is certain that this is not a two minute or two hour render. :) Of course, for an animated figure in a movie, the big studios have render farms that make my (real) farm look like a cardboard box. Did you see the one used for LOTR!? 3200 processor farm array (Weta Digital).

Final Fantasy the Spirit Within = 1000 CPUs running version of RMan, average final render budget = 90 minutes per frame, per an interview with the director. I went to see "Robots" yesterday and noted in the credits that they must have used an HP farm. The render software is their proprietory CGIStudios. ::::: Opera :::::

kuroyume0161: "It is certain that this is not a two minute or two hour render." Long time Maya user here. You might be suprised. There's nothing in the image that equals long render times. He said he's using the sss fast skin shader. I'd say (depending on the machine) 10 to 15 minutes. Maybe 20. Though I could be wrong.

A lovely, detailed, modelled character but the render doesn't quite look right to me. The skin seems a little strange.

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=15063

Isn't it PhotoRealisticTexture IN, HyperRealisticRender OUT?

I purchased a texture here at Rendo called Golden Girls (link above). This texture is SO realistic, all you have to do is pop it on V2 or EJ and you have grandma, every wrinkle and lump and use-your-imagination.

My first render was so real it scared me. I did no modeling, postwork, morphing or anything. I just hit the make art button.

::::: Opera :::::

Message edited on: 03/15/2005 19:11

operaguy: "Isn't it PhotoRealisticTexture IN, HyperRealisticRender OUT?"

Not exactly - but it can get you a long way there.

A figure needs to look good from different angle and under a variety of different lighting conditions.

A lot of what give a character "reality" is the way the specular highlights are handled (and modified by bump / displacement maps) and the subsurface scattering effect of the shade (Poser 5 doesn't really have this out of the box).

There's a lot of "real" looking Poser work out there. But I've never seen Poser 5 produce a full color, well lit image that I had trouble distinguishing from photograph.

Message edited on: 03/15/2005 19:14

jeffg3: Perhaps the forthcoming Poser 6 may produce more realistic renders. I've never seen any close up render, from any software, of a person that is 'photographic' quality.

Keeping it in context, Poser 5 is a fraction of the price of Maya Unlimited, so the natural expectation would be for the 'higher' end software to peform better.

What's good for all the 3D community is how an increasing number of 3D software companies are improving their products at a relatively lower price compared to a few years ago.

Message edited on: 03/15/2005 19:48

Maybe with Poser 6??? :)

Becco_UK: " I've never seen ANY close up render of a person that is 'photographic' quality."

Check this out. It's pretty close

http://www.xmg.ro/mihai/pages/img_pages/box6.html

or this

http://www.raph.com/3dartists/artgallery/6327.jpg

these next two are also pretty good, but I believe they are closer to simple projections than true, light-interactive shaders

http://www.highend3d.com/artists/artist.3d?au=3dcharacters&iid=133

http://www.highend3d.com/artists/artist.3d?au=3dcharacters&iid=151

dlfurman: " Maybe with Poser 6??? :)" Well, P6 has SSS and image based lighting. That coupled with a modified face_off shader network should produce some stunning renders. Too bad CL doen't allow 3rd part hair plugins. And the new ambient occlusion will also help a lot!

I'm really looking forward to P6... My goal, although not too close yet, is to get to that near photorealistic render. Some of the textures from Stephania Zambini, Morris, and Syyd at RDNA are real close.....but the lighting can kill them in a heartbeat. Camera angles and so forth throw them out really fast, so the lights have to flow with the movement of the figure, but then you lose reality of the scene, as the sun or even a room light does not move in real life with the camera movement, but the shadows and light target move.

I suspect that realskin and hyperreal will still work in P6 so combined with ambient occlusion, you'll get a great effect. I don't know what additional nodes added to the materials room or not so how exactly SSS is done in P6 hasn't been revealed yet. I'm getting anxious just thinking about it :)

I am perplexed by this term Photorealistic. I know what they mean but I never considered Photographs Realistic. The eye handles everything differently than a camera, we just take photographs for granted. I think if you showed a photograph to a person who for some reason had never seen one, they would wonder about his strange 2 dimentional approximation of what their eye sees. Just some thoughts.

jeffq3: I don't use Maya so it's all guesswork. :) Cinema4D could do a render like this is less than an hour - minus the hair. ;) Hair is almost always (unless it's a really good transmapped model) render intensive. But again, he said he used Maya Fur with Mental Ray which seems to indicate optimization between them. Anyway, this takes my mind off of the P6 order problem and helps me resist purchasing MilDragon 2.0. ;0)

Here's the closest I've come to "real" using Poser 4 and some basic postwork. It's nothing to compared to those Maya images, but 6 months ago when I started playing with Poser, I wouldn't have thought this was possible for me: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=905537&Start=1&Artist=linkdink&ByArtist=Yes (sorry for the shameless plug, but I'm kinda proud of this, and it's only got 130 hits.... )

looks good... 130 hits...no breasts, no hits

Good god - thats amazing, thanks for the link.

I wouldn't even want to try to model that chain mail.

If you were able to find and read the creator's responses (which I'll admit is not easy with over 16 pages), he did not model the chain mail. I think he modeled one link then used a fractal instancer over another object to simulate the chain mail.

you could get close to that chainmail with displacement mapping. something poser has had for years now. too bad hardly anyone bothers to use it for detail work.

I bought Poser 5 in 2003 and it had displacement mapping that rendered straight out the box. Throw in a material room that can match many 'high' end programs, plus a cloth/hair room and you have one of the most underated programs made.

The picture is a rough example of Poser 5's displacement, using one of Syyd's Industrial Woman textures.

Message edited on: 03/16/2005 15:47

wow, I've been checking out some of the work posted on some of those other links on this thread, and the work is amazing! However the people critizing the work are frigging brutal! At least I know here if I post something that's not very good people will be nice to me and offer constructive criticism. lol