I've never understood the rush to "realism."  In the beginning, realism in CGI was nigh impossible, so people worked with what they had, and it was good.  Take for example the CGI in the Dire Straits video, "Money for Nothing"; it was crude, colourful, and delightful.  Likewise Tron; the limits of the technology defined the entire style of the movie.

Fast forward 20 years, and now everyone is trying to turn their computer into a camera.  Why?  If I wanted a photograph, I could buy a $5 digital camera and achieve more "realism" than anyone here can with a $3000 computer and years of expertise.  It baffles me why anyone would WANT realism in their CGI.  I can understand wanting the ability to do realism, since that kind of software and processing power has other possibilities.  Realism is where art STARTS, not where it ends.  Picasso began by learning how to paint a photorealistic bowl of fruit; once he had mastered that as a basic, then he moved on, to his benefit and ours.

I've started using IDL in Poser, and I'm finding myself diddling around in PhotoShop, unhappy with the result.  When I'm done, I realize that the finished result looks similar to what the old Poser renderer produced natively, a sort of cartoony, posterized, oversaturated, 70s airbrush look.  Rather than playing to CGI's weaknesses and plummeting helplessly iinto the Uncanny Valley, I'd rather use its strengths and produce something which could not be created with any other medium.

Why are so many people around here treating photorealism as the Holy Grail of Poser?

bookmarked :)

Because art imitates life?

I can't really answer that question since I prefer a more dark and saturated, somewhat painterly look to my stuff. Since I know I can't achieve ultra-realism, I don't try to ;o).

Laurie

I would say it's because the alternative to photorealism is usually just crap. Key word "usually." If you have photorealism, at least you have that. Something that can be appreciated objectively.

If renders aren't going to be photorealistic then I want something at least as good, and I think that's a tall order a lot of the time.

edit
Let me hasten to clarify that I'm not saying non-photorealistic renders tend to be crap. I'm saying you don't get anything by sacrificing photorealism, most of the time. So if you can have photorealism, it's usually a good idea.

Quote - Why are so many people around here treating photorealism as the Holy Grail of Poser?

Because they can.  Because they want to.  Because it is a challenge.

And then there's people like me to which anything would be an improvement.

Wanting to get away from the basic Poser look: plastic people who don't cast shadows with ridiculous features. If that is what you want, go for it. I want to get as far from that as possible. Perhaps not photorealism - there's a huge discussion on here about that already - but certainly not what comes out of the box.
We can do better.

Why photoreal??...

When it come to poser Photorealism is a silly pursuit because poser models are not even  close to being realistic.

but in the area of Architectural visualization it nice to see a photo real render of an office building BEFORE committing to million of dollars.

in movies/advertising its nice to do a CG fluid/liquid effects without flooding  your soundstage

PHOTOREAL WATER

And , course there is high end Cg "Cinematography"
YES THIS IS IS ALL CG & NO ITS NOT "AVATAR"

So there are practical uses for "photorealism" that DONT involve
thongs ,boobies and dead eyed V-chicks from Daz3D.

Cheers

Because some types of render (thinking specifically of ArchVis) are of things that do not exist but have to be shown as if they did.  Hence the need for photorealistic rendering

I'm with HeWhoWatches on this matter.
The point of realism in art died with the daguerrotype. Since then artists have sought to create images that touch people in ways the camera cannot. Not necessarily better ways, but different. A Monet can, in some ways, tell you more about a scene than a photograph could while being objectively far less realistic.

But I still strive to create realistic images in Poser.

Why? Because I want control of the medium I'm working in. I want to be able to make choices based on my artistic vision, not constrained by what I can and cannot do technically. When I make an 'unrealistic' image I want it to be because it suits the concept I have in my head, not because it's all I know how to do, and I want control over the ways in which it's unrealistic.

Let's not forget to that the movement and action in those old cgi films and videos is a huge distraction. In a still image, the viewer has time to see the faults. Wooden poses, lifeless chalky skin, blank expressions, inplausible lighting etc. only serve to distract the viewer from the point your image is trying to make.

So I like images that have enough realism to overcome those petty distractions, but not so much that the image's whole concept becomes subordinate to the quest for realism.

But to achieve that balance you need the skills to control the level of realism, and that's what some people are trying to achieve here, I think.

because realistic light and shadow are the most compelling artistic elements i know of.  and because it's easier to take realistic light and shadow and make it into what i want than burn in a style only to find the image going a different direction in post and editing.

personally I want to go for realism for a simple reason.

what I'm creating does not exist, therefore I cannot take a photo of it.

my only other recourse would be to build it, (a fully built, rigged, mapped home brewed TARDIS console room), but that would annoy the Wife...

Most users wouldn't know realism if it it put on a latex glove and probed their tender orificies, as the Realism gallery tends to show.  Perhaps it isn't very nice of one to point this out, but the basic fact isn't all that nice either.

From my point of view it's not so much that (photo)realism is a 'holy grail' as such, rather it's a means to comprehensively understanding the visual world and representations of it (be it observed or imagined).
I've persued this in various media (drawing, painting, CGI etc) to empower myself with choice about how I represent ideas visually, rather than accepting the limitations of my skills at any given time. Sometimes, of course, the tools do have limitations - Poser is still limited in terms of the persuit of photo realism in many ways, but it has gotten a lot more capable and it is still a very cheap app. Perhaps pushing these limitations will have its own reward in terms of grasping CGI.

While I don't feel I 've mastered CGI as comprehensively as the other more tactile media I've used over the years (I consider most of the renders I've done to be tests rather than accomplished artworks), I do hope to be able to use it more freely as time goes on.

So perversely the point for me in studying realism is so that I can knowingly choose to make my imagery realistic or unrealistic as an idea demands, rather than being forced into a certain look.

In fact I'm quite intrigued by the 'almost photo-real' as a stylistic choice for representations, but this is only appropriate in my mind for certain subject matter. I usually try to use media and styles that I feel are appropriate for the subject matter I'm dealing with, and this has led me to use forms as diverse as crudely painted canvases in oils to highly polished sculpural reliefs made with modern polymers - whatever is appropriate for the idea.

3d is just another tool that I felt compelled to learn to open up my creative avenues and choices.

I do see the point of people wanting to achieve realism in 3D, not everything can be captured with a photo camera. Kaibach raises a good point, there are quite a number of settings I can think of that will be hard to capture with a photo or film camera when it comes to the future of the past.

I can also see for example the advertising world using realism in 3D..... imagine the cost saved when you can use digital figures that do exactly what you want or need without having to pay them an hourly rate. Without the need of using all kinds of sets or locations.

But when it comes to Poser, I agree with pjz99, the majority has no clue what realism is all about and even when using IDL and other tools, they still produce barbie dolls and very recognizable 3D scenes, not even close to being real.

Personally, I'm not into realism at all. Even when I do create scenes that portray real life situations, I still do my best to make sure the render isn't realistic at all, but always has a toon look or distinguished 3d look. I've found that trying to achieve realism in 3D only takes away from the image and the message or idea you try to get accross. If I make something toony or recognizable 3D, people will focus on what the image is all about. If I try to achieve realism, people tend to look at the faults there are in trying to achieve the realism and forget about what the image is really trying to portray.

I do find realism in poser very distracting and personally it takes away the fun that are in poser rendered images. When browsing through the galleries I do find that the new IDL isn't an improvement at all, it takes away that particular look that poser always had and now it has (almost) become one of the rest. Most Poser 8 renders do not stand out anymore. The images could have just as well been rendered in Vue, Carrara, D/S or whatever. For most people that may be good, I don't know, but I think it's a pitty. What made Poser stand out from the rest is slowly going away.

Quote - Most users wouldn't know realism if it it put on a latex glove and probed their tender orificies, as the Realism gallery tends to show.  Perhaps it isn't very nice of one to point this out, but the basic fact isn't all that nice either.

Most users also haven't spent as much time as BB has trying to understand how everything works, much less make it real.  I still don't think he's come up with a human shader/light combo that he's happy with yet.

Quote - > Quote - Most users wouldn't know realism if it it put on a latex glove and probed their tender orificies, as the Realism gallery tends to show.  Perhaps it isn't very nice of one to point this out, but the basic fact isn't all that nice either.

Most users also haven't spent as much time as BB has trying to understand how everything works, much less make it real.  I still don't think he's come up with a human shader/light combo that he's happy with yet.

You must have seen other works then shown here then..... I haven't seen a realistic render that's any better then other peoples images from him in his rendo gallery at all, at love to see his real work......

I dont know about Holly grail but I do lean towards a touch of realism in my work--its more effort but worth the final result.

I have one image with a touch of realism in my gallery(Prisoner in the Tower),it was difficult and could be better but I reach a point and say ,"well after all its CGI"

I mean something much more blatant than subtle things like "is the skin shader perfect".  Is the lighting wonky, do any reflections show nonsense given what is visible in the scene, do the people look seriously freakish, do objects seem to be immune to gravity and physics, things like that.

As an example, many people think that simply plugging a cool HDR image into a reflective material is a good realism technique, or using a neato HDR image as an Image Based Light.  These will almost certainly be very different from objects that are actually in the scene, and actually take away from realism rather than improve it.

Many people think cranking up a lot of Ambient Occlusion improves realism.  Again, it produces the opposite effect - it simply looks like a lot of AO and has little to do with how stuff behaves in reality since AO isn't especially based on how light is reflected.

People with hare lips and noses like Michael Jackson towards the end of his life are not a great element of realism either, nor are impossible proportions or fleshy masses that ignore gravity.

People standing on the tips of their toes while barefoot, or whose feet are levitating 1/2 inch off the ground, or who have something enclosed within their hands but clearly aren't actually touching it, or who have a crisp reflection of a room interior reflected in their eyes when they're apparently standing outdoors - I think you see what I mean.

About a year ago,  one of the""Leading Gallery Artists ""  contacted Me to ask about getting "those amazing shadows" ..   I replied with  light files and settings,  also pointing the way to various tutorials.

After a few days I contacted her again to ask if the information was useful to her.
The response was She did not have the time to learn these things as She was so busy creating...

Her current work,  although improved IMO,  still does not have shadows..

I still try for My idea of realism in Poser without attempting post work. Far from perfect I know,  but then so am I..

I dunno...

Someone kindly pointed out that it's hard to take a photograph of something that does not exist in real life (e.g. a dragon.)

I would like to submit that, in some areas, it would be a lot less expensive, less morally complex, and far less of a communications hassle to do it in photo-realistic CG than in real-life. Some things that come to mind: pornography, historical re-creations, medical images, things like that.

All that said, I don't consider photo-realism to be an end-all be-all of art. Quite the opposite in fact. There's room for all types of art in the house, yanno?

Quote - There's room for all types of art in the house, yanno?

Quoted for agreement.

 One of my projects requires an exploding helicopter. Since I can't afford to do it in real life, CG is the next best thing. BTW I will be shooting for realism.

Quote -  One of my projects requires an exploding helicopter. Since I can't afford to do it in real life, CG is the next best thing. BTW I will be shooting for realism.

Did you ever watch the recent Zatoichi movie?  They used a highly stylized CGI splash for blood which was clearly not realistic, nor intended to be realistic.  It was a very cool touch.  They could easily have used paint squibs, but someone clearly decided that this was a much more interesting effect.  THIS is what's awesome about CGI.  It frees us from the constraints of a physical medium, allowing us to more accurately reflect the images of our imagination -- which are rarely consistent with physics.  Just check out the breasts on any of the multitude of bikinied Vickies in the galleries...

Are you trying to convince people that trying for realism is bad?  What on earth for?

I don't think he's really saying that. Maybe he just thinks that going for something that is glaringly real looking is a lost cause, at least where Poser is concerned ;o). Not that you can't get close. And maybe too, he thinks that realism isn't the only cool thing you can do with cg - it's a medium just like paints and pastels.

Laurie

Quote - I don't think he's really saying that. Maybe he just thinks that going for something that is glaringly real looking is a lost cause, at least where Poser is concerned ;o).
Laurie

Thank You!!
"realism"
3DMAX- ZBRUSH- MENTAL RAY

poser-$130-$200??
realism is quite easy these days
but not at this price.

Quote - I don't think he's really saying that. Maybe he just thinks that going for something that is glaringly real looking is a lost cause, at least where Poser is concerned ;o). Not that you can't get close. And maybe too, he thinks that realism isn't the only cool thing you can do with cg - it's a medium just like paints and pastels.

Laurie

That is My point...  Trying to create a worthwhile image.  Whether or not it looks real.

I suppose there is a difference in "striving for realism" and "bringing something to life".

Like the old Disney animations, clearly not realistic, but almost living with their expression and flow.

I like CG that portrays fantastic things realistically. I don't see the point of creating computer generated photo realistic scenes of mundane subjects that a camera could handle quicker and better (unless it's just an exercise to hone your skills.) The possibility of creating a convincing alternate-reality is what excites me about CG, but to each his own. 

First of all, people like Picasso did something different, not because they couldn't achieve something close to realism, but because they had something different they wanted to do. But the truly great artists have generally had a very good sense of how to depict things realistically. And that sensibility probably lends itself more to their greatness than the casual observer remotely suspects.

Second, so what if certain artists and genres don't aim for realism? Realism has been the aim of many great artists throughout history. Personally, I prefer their work to the abstract stuff.

Third, as pointed out earlier, there is realism and then there is realism. Depicting what doesn't actually exist in a way that is convincing is very powerful.

Fourth, saying that realism is not art is bunk. Many photographers are genuinely artists, not simply technicians. Much more so those who can create something that looks real but as a way of realizing their own artistic concepts.

and finally, this is a discussion thats gonna start going round in circles very quickly.

Because we can not go back in time, or into the future to capture photographs, furthermore, when animating (going for realism), we will not be able to hire an actress/actor. Scenes/characters/props must be realistic as possible.

Because I want to, and thats all that matters to me. :)

I may be wrong but I dont think most people are very serious about Poser or 3D. It's a mildly amusing hobby with a bit of a challenge to it. Some entertainment, with the attraction of feeling like you created something. Realistic is a challenge and a way of measuring self progress. This is a perfectly reasonable use IMO. After all I spent my hard earned cash on the app and various tools, and believe I have the perfect right to do as I please with my free time and the Poser I paid for. I think this may hold true for most.

You do not need to be very good at CG, you are not required to please someone elses sense of worth. You spent the money on Poser, it's your project you work on. Do as you please, and generally ignore others who want you to "do things their way" unless it apeals to you. Unless you are a professional working for someone else, it's your money, use it when you need it. I have an anuity but I need cash now, J.G. Wentworth 877 ....................

Oops got side tracked there. Anyway, people should do whatever tickles their fancy regardless.

I love the challenge. I love the million-and-one directions one can go with it. For me, Poser at its base - a figure standing in the middle of the workspace - is a starting point for a million adventures. It's not about photorealism - sure, some people see that as their goal - but that's not my main focus. In my case at least, I want my artwork to convey a message, a story. The last thing I want is for that message or story to get lost in the dismissive "yep, Poser art" flick so many pro CG artists give our efforts. What that atitude? Because they spend heaps of time and talent and skills on their work and what, we don't? No one can accuse me of that!

With Poser, you can do toon, you can do hi-res renders with impact lighting and brilliantly shadered materials, or you can just render what you need however you need and photoshop (or GIMP) the rest.

It's the beginning of creativity on quite a few levels for me: modeling, shader-writing, lighting, morphing, character development, setting scenes and oooooooooo shopping! Well, retail therapy works for me.

[EDIT] oooooo just noticed: that was my 1000th post. Time to party! V, anyone?

Quote   "[EDIT] oooooo just noticed: that was my 1000th post. Time to party! V, anyone?"
quote.

Yay...   Congrat's on 1000..
Party?   Where?  Too hot here,   45degC atm...

Poser,  Painter, Bryce..  These have been in My HD since Fractal Designs was the proud creator..
What a pity that these programs were cast to the winds.   If they had stayed together,  or even merged into one another..  What a software package that would have been...!!

*"Why are so many people around here treating photorealism as the Holy Grail of Poser?" *

IMO, because while it may be unobtainable, it's much closer than it has been in the past. Most Poser users (present company excluded) are probably just now learning about things like global illumination. It's a new revelation and of course they're going to be excited and enthusiastic about utilizing it. 

Higher quality rendering of Poser scenes has long been available, going back to at least Poser 4 when you could export a scene as a .rib file and render in BMRT or export an .obj file into one of the free renderers. Vue has also been an option for quite a while. The vast majority of people were never going to jump through the hoops to use those alternatives though. Now that Poser has the capability, it's opened the floodgates and "realism," implemented with varying degrees of success is what you're going to see a lot of. 

Everyone will find their own level of comfort/creativity with the new tools. Some will continue to look for the last scintilla of realism while others will use it to create a variety of individual looks that reflect their own vision. Give things time to settle down before sounding the death knell.

To some extent, you can "blame" Hollywood for driving the push of 3d realism. As others have stated, that is to a good degree motivated by economics of 3D vs. practical effects. It's cheaper, easier, not to mention often safer to do it virtual. Even there, films like Up! and the new Disney Princess are wonderful examples of traditional or non-realistic looks that still incorporate cutting edge technology in the production process.. There will always (hopefully) be room for a whole variety things and Poser is no exception. Also, the select group of power users (myself excluded) who are the forum regulars don't necessarily represent the entire 'Poserverse.' A good 80% of of the total user base probably thinks IDL is the Israeli army. 

Quote - I do see the point of people wanting to achieve realism in 3D, not everything can be captured with a photo camera.

And actually photo's don't produce totally realistic images.
(Effects of light inside the lens vs. inside the eye, depth-of-field in a photo vs. the active focusing of the eye.)

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Most users wouldn't know realism if it it put on a latex glove and probed their tender orificies, as the Realism gallery tends to show.  Perhaps it isn't very nice of one to point this out, but the basic fact isn't all that nice either.

Most users also haven't spent as much time as BB has trying to understand how everything works, much less make it real.  I still don't think he's come up with a human shader/light combo that he's happy with yet.

You must have seen other works then shown here then..... I haven't seen a realistic render that's any better then other peoples images from him in his rendo gallery at all, at love to see his real work......

You are confusing me with some artist. I've said dozens of times, I'm not an artist, and have nothing to say with art. I am a musician and composer and I do strive to communicate things with music and to evoke an emotional response in my listener. But with CG? It's just an amusing way to engage my brain - something similar to sudoku. Nobody does sudoku to communicate anything, yet it gives them a sense of accomplishment - of having met a mental challenge and overcome it. To me, finding a slime shader or rust shader or snow shader in those nodes is a sudoku puzzle, nothing more. Finding a way to light a scene well using only one light is also an interesting challenge that I enjoy.

I also enjoy teaching people how to enjoy their hobby more, even if I do not share their motivation for the hobby.

As for the value of realism, I think that it's fine to draw like Vargas, with paint or with Poser, but it was an easier puzzle to make a Vargas shader than to make a realism shader. (I published the Vargas shader quite early in my Poser "career". I still don't have a satisfactory realism skin shader.)

Similarly, I can draw stick figures about as well as any child. And maybe if I had an interesting story to tell, I might choose to do that. But I doubt people would pay $1 billion dollars to see a 2 hour stick figure movie, no matter how good a story it is. Avatar, on the other hand... - well you see the point I hope.

Even when a movie is clearly presented in a stylized way for the purpose of creating mood, the importance of realism cannot be dismissed. In this sense, realism refers to shadows and highlights being present when they should be, not missing or presented in incosistent ways. Consider the movie Ratatouille. The Pixar artists wrote of their study of wet cloth - how they wanted to understand what wet cloth looks like, so that when they CG character comes out of the river, we understand him to be wet. The scene was intentionally not photorealistic, but realism was an enormous part of its construction. Go read about it - it's fascinating.

And even in a stylized context, if you can't tell that a stick is made of bamboo versus metal, then you do the viewer a disservice. What would Kung Fu Panda have been like if his pants did not look like burlap, if his fur was no different looking than plastic? Shaders matter, and they are supposed to look like real things, even if you do not exactly implement photo realism. They need to differ in ways that are consistent with how real things differ. Shiny things should be shinier than dull things. If you don't understand speculars, you tell an ugly, childish, disconcerting story, even in a pure animation that has nothing to do with photorealism.

Its treated as the holy grail because it takes more effort, more correction renders, more attention to detail, precise setting for bump spec. and displacement, and knowlede of realistic lighting setups. Point is it's harder to achieve when its done correctly.

Quote - Similarly, I can draw stick figures about as well as any child. And maybe if I had an interesting story to tell, I might choose to do that. But I doubt people would pay $1 billion dollars to see a 2 hour stick figure movie, no matter how good a story it is. Avatar, on the other hand... - well you see the point I hope.

The most moving piece of art I've ever seen hung in the National Art Gallery in Ottawa.  It was a massive canvas that covered an entire wall.  From a distance it looked like a single simple rectangle of red.  Standing in front of it, it was so large that the eye could not encompass it all; it was a sea of red to the edge of vision.  And all that red was composed of uncounted millions of tiny, individual, painstaking brushstrokes.  And off in the lower left-hand corner, almost invisible to the naked eye, was a single small area of red just slightly different in hue than the rest.  

The painting had taken years to paint, and it was painted by an artist in the Soviet Union in the 1950s, under Stalin.

Despite the best efforts of Soviet censors, this artist had successfully managed to convey the stultifying oppression with which he lived.  Standing before that canvas, I felt nearly smothered and claustrophobic.  It was an awesome piece of art -- and I have no doubt that many of the folks enamoured of "photorealism" would take one look at a huge red canvas and scoff audibly.

My argument is not that photorealism is not useful, but that it shouldn't be the goal in and of itself.  It is where art starts, not where it finishes.  And I might well watch a two hour stick figure movie; I certainly have no interest in seeing Avatar.  "The Spirits Within" taught me all I need to know about the value of CGI spectacle for spectacle's sake.

Quote - Its treated as the holy grail because it takes more effort, more correction renders, more attention to detail, precise setting for bump spec. and displacement, and knowlede of realistic lighting setups. Point is it's harder to achieve when its done correctly.

I disagree.  I spent a long time arguing with someone about this recently.  He showed me a render of Barack Obama's face which came very close to photorealism, expressing admiration for its "realism."  I tried to explain to him that while this portrait no doubt took a lot of time to make, it wasn't art.  Making photorealistic renders of people's faces doesn't take any artistic insight or talent, just time and patience.  Not that there isn't value to this; after all, a bricklayer or stonemason who has spent a lifetime learning the trade can do wonderful work which delights and inspires -- but it isn't art.  There is a difference between an artist and an artisan.

I'm not trying to be some kind of effete art snob.  I recognize and appreciate the skill required to create a photorealistic render.  I just don't believe it to be (necessarily) art.

do realism or do not.

in the end. matter does it not, if happy you are.

Quote - I tried to explain to him that while this portrait no doubt took a lot of time to make, it wasn't art. 

You just invalidated all your arguments with that one single remark.  Nobody - but nobody - has the ability to define what is and what is not art, unless they are talking about their own works.  You would need to be telepathic and have a complete and exact understanding of the creator's motivations in order to do so.

Whatever happened to "do what you like", 'what makes ya happy" or "whatever trips your trigger"?

Kai's right. We can go round and round forever with this one. Do what you like or what makes you happy. End of argument ;o).

Laurie

I think some people are confusing artistic merit - which is very hard to quantify - with realism, which is not hard to quantify, and does not have very much to do with artistic merit.  You would do just as well telling a bunch of sculptors to stop wasting their time studying anatomy, and would get similar responses.

Quote - > Quote -

**My argument is not that photorealism is not useful, but that it shouldn't be the goal in and of itself.
**

....according too????

I agree that this thread is pointless as the OP is clearly trying to argue a subjective personal opinion that can not be proven
but only repeated.... endlessly

>>>unsubscribed<<<<

All I know about art is:

1.  It often involves naked women for some reason.
2.  I know what I like but that's about it.

And about the BB comment I made earlier, my opinion was that unless you get lucky and manage to stumble upon the magic shader combination to make realist skin/whatever, unless you know exactly what each shader does and how to manipulate it to get a very precise result you are just going to be going at it blind.