Now that Blackhearted is gone, I guess it is safe to talk about him.

He raises a question which is pretty much on topic, as the underlying thread of this thread seems to be the similarities of figures. (cf "The human figure is much more difficult to claim substantially similar than it would be for a character like Micky Mouse. Because a figure has a nose, eyes ears all in humanoid proportions does not mean that a figure is substantially similar. We could make no such assertions." Dan Farr)

the pursuit of realism: must 'photorealism' always be the pinnacle of 3D? Blackhearted

I think he is right. The pursuit of photo-realism is naive, and it has nothing to do with art, but with artisanship at best.

The fine art world abandoned representationalism (in favor of abstractionism, impressionism, etc) when cameras became cheap and anybody with $5 for a Brownie could produce an image more perfectly representative than the finest fine artist could.

When the phony CG holy grail of photo-realism is finally attained and becomes available to Poser users, we will be thrilled with it for fifteen minutes. Then we will have to start to learn and think more about what real art is and could be (and it probably won't involve scanning bodies and patching together photos on a template, IMO).