I'm not going to name names or link images because I don't want to hurt any one person. However, why do a great portion, if not MOST, asian characters posted for sale, not look asian? Some look like caucasian or European women with asian names, while one I saw, claiming to be authentically Japanese based off of REAL PHOTOS(TM), actually looked black!

I also wonder where some people get their choices of names for asian characters? Some of them border on racially-offensive!

Why does it seem so many of the asian characters for sale these days look like someone grabbed a generic texture to slap on and twisted the eye-dials until the character's eyes are off-kilter enough so as not to look caucasian anymore?

Hasn't anyone heard of the epicanthic fold?! Don't people realize that, ethnically speaking, Japanese don't look like Koreans, who don't look like Chinese, who don't look like Vietnamese, etc?! I know actual Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people who are seriously offended by how some of these characters are designed or named, like caricatures or cartoon_people!

Someone help me understand whycharacters are designed like this while claiming to be "true, exotic asian beauties"?

Because, unfortunately, Daz3d doesn't provide realistic morphs for Asian characters. They don't have the epicanthic fold, they just give it a lick and a promise of it, which is why any good Asian character creator should include custom morphs to allow for more realism. When I made Xie and JieJie, I looked at real photos of Asian people from various areas, specifically China, as that's where they're 'from', and based my morphs off of /that/, not what the main company had created. Miki is the only female FIGURE that has been created as Asian, from the start, and people seem to want nothing more than to turn her into an Aryan white girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, while not actually changing her face shape. This is just as innacurate as using the 'Slant' dial and claiming it's Asian. Each race has features that are unique to their ethnicity. Those of Asian ancestry will not have the same face shape as those of European ancestry. Native Africans will not be a default V3 with a darker skin shader used. As in the picture I posted... The one on the left is JieJie /with/ the custom morph. The one on the right is without. You can see around the lacrimals that even with the various 'Asian' morphs making 1.0, the DAZ morphs don't even come close to making a lacrimal. That bit of shading is /texturing/ on my part.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2163942

In my opinion, as an Asian guy myself, I've found that very very few of the morphs that available from the merchants out there don't so the justice of Asian people, except for the outstanding works of Khrys's Xie and JieJie, Idler168's Mei, Lani, and M3, and BATLAB's V3. Why can't we have more of the real looking Asian morphs of guys and girls?

When you look atthe horrendous quality ofsome of the millenium joints (shoulders,...) I guess we all should be offended. Some people claim realism just because the texture map is based on photographs...

You're right of course. But money makes the world go round, and real high quality is rare.

Otoh "caucasian" characters are mostly o so recognisable when created by "Asian" vendors. (eyes!)

BTW: you think that Maya princesses only wore a loincloth? That all that metal protection leaving belly and breast bare is really useful in battle?

etc etc?

Hell, should "we", women not be offended by the way many guys here at R. portray us as milkcows? Yet why should we, as it is only their imagination, their point of view. And, objectively speaking, quite often rather good artwork.

Poser is fantasy.
Let's keep it like that.

There will always be someone who will be offended by something. Better is not to identify with an appearance because, well: why should someone be offended by the lack of insight and knowledge of someone else?

Message edited on: 12/20/2005 01:50

I know real caucasian women who get surgery to have "milkcow" breasts. I don't, as yet, know any asian ladies who want surgery to tilt their eyes funny. I have NO problem with anyone claiming their character is a "generic asian beauty", however, when they promise accuracy, reality, when they go so far as to even give her a specific_ethnicity, shouldn't she... look like the stated claim? Are you trying to tell me that it's ok to market a white-skinned girl with blue eyes and blonde hair, crooked nose, and no curves as an african-american figure? Isn't that called "False advertising"? Or maybe now we can market female characters with a penis and call it entirely female with no male parts? I'm not trying to pick on you, Gongyla. I'm just trying to understand why truth in advertising is such a bad thing in the Poser community?

MKMike, I'm working on a set for David, but the texture will take a while, as I don't want to base it on Xie or JieJie's textures, as that will make him effeminate, something easily done to poor David, anyway. I have to agree with Mathman. Hair for Asian characters is hard to figure out, and skin tones are hard to make right. I grew up in a predominantly Asian community for several years. My friends were Asian. I was the ONLY white kid! (How I wished my skin would magically turn that beautiful shade and my plain grey eyes would reshape and recolor themselves!) It's difficult finding a skin tone that looks good in most lighting and doesn't look really unrealistic.

You are right Maxi_Rose; it is false advertising...and if anybody sold me anything claiming it was realistic and correct in detail and wasn't (based on the examples you described) I would make sure I got my money back...and I would probably make sure they weren't allowed to sell it again until it fit their description. Cheers

"Why do most asian characters NOT look asian?"

for the very same reason most Black "character" sets look like typical ,uber caucasion, unimess clones Painted brown.
the DAZ unimess figures are based on the aryan nordic Ideal
and have very little realistic ethnic morphs built in
and merchants who produce these characters dont bother to
make the effort to veer away from that IDeal
even when thay actually create a good Black person skin texture they cant seem to resist the urge to
give them bright blue eyes. oh well Message edited on: 12/20/2005 04:18

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2116014

The curve of the Asian eye is different in three places, especially the upward curve of the bottom rim just before it meets the lacrimal.

Attached link, an animation, my early attempts to derive a Chinese female character in Poser.

Her name is Lin. That is her family name, a very prominent clan in China. Her familiar name is Xin Qian, which means 'happy and beautiful', making her full name in the normal Chinese order Lin Xin Qian. However, she lives in the West, and although she likes her full Chinese name, she asks everyone to call her Lin. Her lover calls her, affectionately, Xin-Xin, pronounced "tShin-tShin"

To create her look, I could not find a texture that looked correct to me. So I simply took an existing Occidental texture, studied the shape I wanted, and used my 2D editing program to alter the texture.

I believe the key to obtaining the correct Oriental eye is in the texture, not the morphs. The underlying model is P5NudeWoman with EJ morphs and much dial tweaking by yours truly. This effort is not "great" but is a 'working-towards.'

Anyway, I am not Asian, just a lover of Asian faces, and I welcome corrections to any of the above, and comments on the appearance of Lin.

::::: Opera :::::

I will add one thing about the morphs. The model "EJ" that I used has INCREDIBLE morph control of the eye shape. There are over 36 different dials that attack various sectors of the eye shape. I used these to fit my altered texture to the morphed shape. So I guess the morphs ARE important. ::::: Opera :::::

What about Miki from e-frontier?

"Why do most asian characters NOT look asian?" Because Asian people are not creating them would be my best guess and i'd say the same may be true of Black characters, or on the other hand maybe they are creating them without really knowing the details that make the difference. I was studying a face of a russian woman the other day considering trying to create her face on steph 3, now to me she looked russian but for the life of me i have no idea why, i couldn't figure what features gave her that look. Personally i think there is a huge market out there for poser figures that look really different from what we have now, there is so much missing from the real world....Steve

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=28772

LOL This thread should be fun. Yeah,,, why?

Because Asian people are not creating them would be my best guess

I am of 100% Japanese descent (though yonsei - fourth generation American), and I would tend to agree.

Though perhaps it's not so much the character as the figure. With the Vicky base, you cannot make a truly realistic Asian. It's not really DAZ's fault. Using morphs to turn a Nordic-looking mesh like Vicky into an Asian just doesn't work. Oh, you can get a fairly good result if you want the "mannequin" look, but the other head morphs no longer work correctly. I love some of the "International Beauties" morphs, but they don't work with the expression morphs. The face gets weird lumps in it, the teeth show through the cheeks, and the "blink" morphs look hideous. Basically, to do it right, you'd have to create all new morphs for the Asian head. (Which is what e-Frontier did with Miki and Koji.)

DAZ could do "ethnic packs" that include all new head morphs to go with an ethnic morph. IMO, their INJ/REM system is perfect for this. Obviously, having separate head morphs for every ethnicity would result in a huge CR2. But you wouldn't need them all loaded at once, and with the INJ/REM, you could easily load just the ones that go together.

The Japanese Poser users do make Asian-looking figures, but they tend to be highly stylized/idealized - sort of anime-looking. Miki and Koji are the only realistic Asian figures I know of.

Skin textures...there's a lot of variation in Asian skin tone. Very dark skin is not unusual for, say, Japanese who have settled in Hawaii where it's sunny and everyone wants a tan. In Japan, fair skin is still the ideal (plus there's a lot less sun). I would like some paler skin textures for Miki; the existing ones tend to be either dark, or not Asian at all.

I would also like some nice natural textures. Most of the ones I've seen have a ton of makeup. There's a tendency in Poserdom to have textures that look very "made up" - the kind of make up most women save for evening, when they won't be seen in bright light - or very "realistic." Pores, moles, blotches, etc. visible from 20 feet. I generally like something in between. Most women wear at least subtle make up when they are out in public - enough to cover any blatant blemishes. Besides, makeup tends to look very dated, since styles in makeup change so much. I want pretty but not necessarily contemporary.

And i beg to differ back :o) that set doesn't look Asian to me, its a nice set you'll get no argument there but it not there for me, Steve

Steve, there are a number of things that make Russian women look different, but one of the main things is the distance between the top of the lip and bottom of the nose is greater...and I have a feeling that may make the cheek bones more pronounced.

Cheers

Message edited on: 12/20/2005 08:13

And i beg to differ back :o) that set doesn't look Asian to me,

I think that was his point. The merchant is Asian (or so I assume, from his/her products and English skills).

To me that character does look Asian, but more like current Asian popular art than like a realistic person. Sort of like An-An and characters of that ilk. Definitely not Western-looking, but not realistic, either. Not intended to be realistic.

This is a intresting post, I just recently purchased a "Asian type" character, but now this post has me wondering how real is it? This is the product: http://market.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=41068 And this is what I've done with it: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1106486&Start=1&Artist=Chippsyann&ByArtist=Yes PS: I too am still waiting for a real looking black character, not some hand dipped barbie doll.

I do feel there is a lack of accurately Asian male characters. Fortunately, my projects tend to be pseudo-manga/anime type pictures, so realism is not such a bugbear. But if I ever had to achieve realism, I think I'd stick with Koji. Except he hasn't got the face morphs to transform him into another person but Koji.

I think there's only so much you can do when starting from a generic base mesh. I'm surprised that the idea of using interchangeable heads hasn't caught on.

Ok. I've got to name names. This one is bothering me. It's a picture from the gallery, but the picture is not my biggest concern. My biggest concern is the character's name. It's... Bong. This person named the character BONG.

Does anyone even look at actual asian languages or talk to real asian people for names? At least Khrys asks my fiance, who is mainland Chinese, for names.

For those who don't know, Khrys' Jie-Jie is an "older version" of Xie, Khrys' original asian character. She's like a big sister to Xie. Jie-Jie's name? It means... big sister.

Regardless of how "unasian" peoples' characters turn out to be, can people at LEAST try to give them REAL ASIAN NAMES? This is NOT like playing "asian music" on the piano by "hitting all the black keys". You do NOT start with a hard consonant, then alternate from vowel to consonant to get generic names like Koko or Kimiko, or grab a consonant and slap it onto the front of "ang", "eng", "ing", "ong", or "ung" for a name like Bong or Ling.

This topic heading makes me cry, but many, many of the replies are very thoughtful and considerate in their responses, and some good debate is going on.

It's good to see people talk about this so openly.

Message edited on: 12/20/2005 11:56

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1115647

While "Bong" sounds like an odd name to American ears, it actually is used as a woman's name (or nickname) in some Asian countries. The Philippines, for example.

And Kimiko is a pretty common Japanese woman's name.

I think part of the names bit is marketing; if you don't know from Asian, you're going to need a bit of a 'hint' to learn that it's an 'asian' model. Be honest, if you saw something like (I'm making this up) Samarathanipa Lawantananag, would that sound Thai to you? would you know if it was or not?..;)
To be honest, you could go hungry as a merchant if you wanted only 'politically correct' people to buy from you. Not that there's anything wrong with being that way, but I would suspect as a merchant, that you'd be far happier with hundreds of sales, rather than dozens.
I think most folks are limited by the mesh itself; you'd probably need some real polygon-tweaking to get the look just 'right'. So for all those enterprising folks out there who have the chops to do it, by all means, go for it.

Pakled, I've never 'gone hungry'. I won't pretend that my sets are 100% accurate. I'm not the best texture artist out there, either. But I work hard and try to be respectful and try to create as close as I can reasonably get without completely remodelling the head. Xie is one of the best products I've ever made. JieJie is quickly shaping up to be a good selling product, as well. Do they look Asian? Not everyone agrees, because everyone's idea of what an Asian person looks like will vary. I've had people tell me Xie is beautiful but doesn't look Asian to them. That's fine. It's a hard balance to strike. And I agree with Randy, the expressions thing IS hard to allow for, especially since DAZ refuses to let people redistribute even basic expression morphs. Xie and JieJie both come with custom blink morphs to keep their eyelids from messing up when their eyes closed. That's the second-best solution. The best solution would have been for DAZ to allow me to redistribute the expression morphs, since literally anyone can get them from the V3 SaE cr2 file which is freely available for download on their site, even without purchasing her. As for being limited by the mesh... I always thought that was why DAZ didn't do very good Asian morphs on the Mil2 figures. It set up the stereotype people expect for Asian characters, in a lot of ways. I got to playing with M1 in my own morphing program and was able to morph a fully realized epicanthic fold with no problem. Now /that/ is sad, to me. These companies have all that really high end software, they've got lots of people working for them, with the software, and they can't do a little research.

Attached Link: http://goldsea.com/Features/Beauty/beauty.html

I've seen similar comparisons in the past, but thank you for the link, this will help me in the future. :)

I find the lack of basic anatomical knowledge very off-putting on a lot of figures. The slanty-eyed "so-called" Asians, annoy me. I wish people could be better informed about this. If I were Asian, I think I'd be somewhat insulted at the cartoonish idea of the exotic Asian. I also find the lack of basic awareness of Black pigmentation distribution another annoyance. Blacks are not just brown Caucasians. Artists who are designing figures should look at a photo of a Black person to see how hands and feet are really pigmented, for instance. There are tons of reference materials all over the web. Is it that difficult to do a little research on something you might spend hours or days on designing? Sorry, if I sound irked, but these are some pet peeves of mine.

Same here, Artnik. Maxi was the one who pushed me, (seriously, she threatened my life!) to try harder to make realistic Asian characters for Poser. A lot of the content creators are middle class white people (like myself) who may not live in an ethnically diverse area. (unfortunately, like me, at the current time.) Some people don't realize they should do research. Others, sadly, just don't care, while others still THINK they have it right and are well meaning. The BEST way to make sure characters that don't look like their correct ethnicity is to not buy the character sets that look inhuman, or to leave constructive feedback, if you have.

2 miki morphs of many I hope to release next year(no names yet...lol). Or, my anglo- interpretation anyway...;). Lots of textures coming, I'm sure. Well,, wrong upload. lost it

Message edited on: 12/20/2005 14:28

I, have lived in diverse areas all my life. I'm in the Chicago area, a real melting pot. I have come in contact with, and have had friends of all kinds of different peoples, ranging from Asians,where my old neighborhood now has a second Chinatown area, and a lot of other Asians, to my current area with a lot of Middle Easterners and Pakistani and East Indian peoples.

I have always lived in areas that were diverse and had a great mix. I love living where I can find everything from a Korean Grocery store to a Taqueria.

I lived for years in a Chicago area called Andersonville. That was, and still is known as, a Scandinavian area. Though there are many other Ethnic groups there as well.

Anyway, I've been in contact with all races, creeds and colors. I guess that's why I wish people would be less insular about their artistic ideas on some things.

Message edited on: 12/20/2005 14:31

richardson, she looks really good. I'll be watching for the release. I have an Asian friend named Kimiko.

steveshanks wrote "And i beg to differ back :o) that set doesn't look Asian to me, its a nice set you'll get no argument there but it not there for me" steve - you've missed the point totally, the artist is Asian, the characters are nominally Asian, but they look Nordic. Have another look at what you originally said.

richardson - is that a photo or a Poser render, because if its the latter its a fantastic job.

P6 using face_off mainlight settings and shader. Quarker hair. Modified Tamela texture. I did the clicking. Are you serious? I still see cgi. Hope to fix that this next year.

Richardson, the ONLY thing I see wrong with her is her mouth. That's the only thing that REALLY gives it away as CGI and not, say, a lightly photoshopped photo.

Just to add to the discussion, I grew up in Japan (11 years out of my first 18). At the time there was a large American military presence there. The kids who were the result of Amrican dad/Japanese mom unions were looked upon quite disfavorably by the pure Japanese. However, when they got old enough, many of these "ainoko's" became very popular models. The mix of features was found desirable and attractive. It's interesting watching this discussion progress and the article posted by bushi was excellent.

Just to add to the discussion, I grew up in Japan (11 years out of my first 18). At the time there was a large American military presence there. The kids who were the result of Amrican dad/Japanese mom unions were looked upon quite disfavorably by the pure Japanese. However, when they got old enough, many of these "ainoko's" became very popular models. The mix of features was found desirable and attractive. It's interesting watching this discussion progress and the article posted by bushi was excellent. One thing of interest was that even within Japan there are variations. The Japanese from the Kanto plains areas (Tokyo and mid-Japan) had the features often considered most Japanese - picture Lucy Liu (without the freckles) or Go Go Yubari (the stunningly gorgeous schoolgirl killer in "Kill Bill"). I've also seen many Chinese with similar features, hair and skin characteristics. On the other hand the Ainu people from the northern part of Japan seemed more aboriginal. The Okinawans (southernmost Japan) also looked more aboriginal. There are variations within all races. If you really think about it, Angeline Jolie and Nicole Kidman are both caucasion but do they look alike? Would you say "no" to either? Unless, of course, you're happily married and deeply in love with your wife like I am. {grin}

If ever you need help, Richardson, lemmie know. I use a similar program to yours to do my own morph work. Miki's a great character, as is Koji, though she's getting ALL the attention at the moment. Your character is quite lovely, by the way. :) And I really don't think anyone's saying 'All Asians must look like Lucy Liu!' or anything of that sort. What we're saying is that they should at least be close. It doesn't have to be /perfect/, for me, just... better than the DAZ only characters I've seen out there. Out of curiosity, would anyone be interested in epicanthic morphs, by themselves, for the various figures? As a product, I mean, not a freebie. I've toyed with the idea of doing a few styles as a stand alone product, but didn't think there'd be a lot of interest.

Khrys --- I think a lot of people (myself included) would definitely interested in epicanthic morphs. Richardson --- which model did you use in that first image of yours ?

K, 45 Why not? I think a lot of people would use it once they were aware of it. As a standalone? Probably not. But included in each product you release, yes. And I'll copy that offer to desktop.. Math, That's miki. But heavily modified in Zbrush. Bobasaur, lucky kid. If only all kids spent 10 years in another country,,, imagine

"The Japanese from the Kanto plains areas (Tokyo and mid-Japan) had the features often considered most Japanese - picture Lucy Liu (without the freckles) ..."

But Lucy Liu is Chinese-American. ;)

..and any subject is open for discussion, except for the previous one..do I make myself clear?
-Kill Bill 1..;)

It's maybe the same reason why some people almost seem to be trying to make a Caucasian Miki. She's got a far more real-seeming body shape than most Poser characters. It's maybe why SP3 and David look a bit more real than Vicky and Mike. But look at this page and tell me what reality Poser is trying to model.

The two most obvious answers I would have come up with to the original question have already been presented. So I'll just echo them. :) Basically, V3 does have some limitations in the various "shapes" that can be gotten via the supplied morphs (and yes as also mentioned, ethnic varieties of any kind are affected by this fact, not just Asians). And also yes it's true that many people really DON'T know that Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, etc. are actually different races. ("Don't they all speak Asian or something? And they live in Asia, right? Huh...I don't get it!") And further, I also agree with the feeling that many "Asian" characters being sold are not very Asian looking at all. There was one in particular (and I may be thinking of the same character as previously mentioned in this thread), that was billed as an "Authentic Japanese" character but with VERY DARK skin, and IIRC no option for a lighter skin tone. I thought it was kinda bizarre myself. I'm also reminded of another thread I saw once wherein someone mentioned seeing an Asian character for sale, but asked why her skin tone was so light, and that it made her look un-Asian.

I know which character you mean, about the dark skin, GabrielK. There /is/ a group of Japanese women called ganguro, where they tan their skin DEEPLY and then have really light makeup and pale blonde hair.