There is an amazing amount of exceptional work in the galleries..  I look at the galleries every day,  always trying to leave an encouraging comment..

 Sure you can take a photo with a $5 camera.  But, if you want to trade your Poser hobby for photography I expect you're gonna need about a $500 camera, plus lenses, battery, memory cards, camera straps...  Then you'll probably want a nice lighting kit, another $500.  I don't know how much it would cost to hire a posing model. Expensive i imagine.  And you'll need some backdrops, a make-up artist, hair stylist, costumes...

  Poser offers pretty much all of this out of the box for a few hundred dollars.  Which is very appealing to a lot of people, even with the limited, yet acceptable realism.

Quote -  Sure you can take a photo with a $5 camera.  But, if you want to trade your Poser hobby for photography I expect you're gonna need about a $500 camera, plus lenses, battery, memory cards, camera straps...  Then you'll probably want a nice lighting kit, another $500.  I don't know how much it would cost to hire a posing model. Expensive i imagine.  And you'll need some backdrops, a make-up artist, hair stylist, costumes...

  Poser offers pretty much all of this out of the box for a few hundred dollars.  Which is very appealing to a lot of people, even with the limited, yet acceptable realism.

You can have a lot of fun and create some very cool pics with the 3D. I think as solo hobbyists, we're just seeing the beginning of what will be possible and this will reverberate through the arts, it's that important a development . . . . and that is me being realistic. :O)

Quote -  Oddly enough, the better-made toony figures have better "soul" than some of the more realistic ones.  This is rampant throughout 3D, though, not just in the Poser gallery.  The less it has to be realistic, the easier it is to make it look, well, full of life.  Humans are just picky.  :lol:

This is why I use toon figures almost exclusively for my animations. The closer to real a figure looks, the better and better the rest of the scene has to be to match it. Off by one little detail and people will be put off by it and not be able to really say why it bothers them.

As for Avatar, the scenery was amazing! CCouldn't tell the CG from reality, if there was any reality in it. But the figures were no better than most CGI. Still had that slightly off putting quality that almost real looking figures do, but not as bad since they are not supposed to look human.

I really think this is a storm in a teacup. Truly, if you don't want to strive for "realism", don't. Fine. But to query why trying to achieve "realism" (however the artist defines realism, which in itself is a bit of a nebulous term) is important to other artists - many other artists - is a bit presumptuous. It says: "why is everyone so intent on making believable shadows and lighting and textures just because we know more now how to achieve that?"

Quote -
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.

In other words: why are we using aeroplanes and vacuum cleaners and computers? We didn't used to have them and we did just fine!

I love the advanced technology that members on this forum have given me: that technology has enabled me to get as far away from the plastic-puppet-suspended-in-space look that one starts with in Poser and has enabled me to create a reasonably realistic water prop that reflects the sky and clouds and doesn't say "I'm actually just a picture of water".
What's not to like?

I'm not about to give up my 320gig HD and 2 gig of RAM and Poser 8 for 128meg HD and 64 meg of RAM and MS Paint. I like where things have gone, and want to take advantage of it. You can still do Tron and "Money for Nothing" if you want but you can also move towards doing stuff like Avatar.

RobynsVeil
Round of applause ...way to stay objective while still making inside jokes!!
Well said.

Quote - RobynsVeil
Round of applause ...way to stay objective while still making inside jokes!!
Well said.

Step forward  RobynsVeil and take a bow..

This, I'm sure everyone will agree, easily justifies the push for more realism.

Quote - If I didn't try to squeeze as much realism out of Poser as it can offer, then none---note: NONE---of my pictures of giant bipedal frogs would be taken seriously, and they would all be laughed at for being so obviously fake.

This, I'm sure everyone will agree, easily justifies the push for more realism.

This (to Me),   is a funny and very entertaining Image..  Does it need realism?   I don't think so..

Oh I disagree. If it was all cartoon, it wouldn't be the least bit interesting. It is because we see this as a real bipedal frog that it grabs ones attention.

Otherwise, it would just be a screen grab from some lame Saturday morning cartoon.

By the way, nice job, but I'd add Fresnel reflection to the eyes.

Quote - I'd like to ask what folk here consider to be 'photo-real'?
This might seem an obvious question but there are examples of quite well known works of art widely accepted as falling into this category (paintings by Chuck Close and Gerhard Richter for example) that I suspect wouldn't be accepted as such by some here. The paintings of these two artists are rarely totally indestinguishable from photos, and yet are obviously referenced from them. Both artists have made insightful works both about and from the use of photographs, but there are certainly examples of which, when seen in isolation from their wider bodies of work, might appear to many as having little meaning beyond being a painting of a photo. I would suggest looking at greater depth (especially at Richter, who I personally consider to be one of the modern masters).

I think that there is a big difference between photorealism in Poser and photorealism in painting (Richard Estes comes to mind as an early master.) In painting, photorealism is often called superrealism, or hyperrealism. It's true that the artists take a photo as a starting point, and project it on the canvas, but in general the lights, reflections etc. are not quite real, but more of an idealization of what really goes on. Typically, they don't use depth-of-field blur, nor do they introduce lens artifacts.

Edit: Thats a Van Gogh sketch BTW, (in case anyone didn't recognize his style)

I'm unsubscribing. I've lost interest in this topic.

Cartoon, pen and ink, abstract, pointillist, realist, hyper-realist - these are not puzzles. Others have solved them.

Quote - > Quote - here's a pitiful example from me. Here's the story. Andy is the house bot. He takes care of all the things the family doesn't want to do. But in the early morning, before they wake up, he's free to enjoy the sunrise. Admire his joy.

If you got this render out of Poser you did a nice job. I don't think light behaves very well in Poser at all. There was so much you could have done to screw up this render, a bad setting or texture  on any of the room materials for instance. The 3d pic is an illusion, you do the best you can to make the illusion work the way you want it too, but it is all tricking the viewer's eye and that isn't easy to do, when the eyes are so good they know something is wrong with the render even if the conscious mind hasn't figured it out.

That's actually a very simplistic render and not at all difficult if you have a reasonable understanding of how light actually behaves and an equal understanding of Poser. If you read a few of BagginsBill's threads on lighting, gamma correction, etc, you can produce similar results very quickly. There's little difficulty involved. BagginsBill's example renders are demonstrations of basic principles and involve no special technique or careful setup. I don't know why you believe that realistic renders are so prone to failure in some aspect. Lighting in Poser really isn't too different from lighting in real life that photographers have to deal with. The only problem is that most people don't understand lighting and their renders suck just as much as their real photography does, if not worse because in real life they don't have to set up the lighting when they're outside for example.

Quote - [That's actually a very simplistic render and not at all difficult if you have a reasonable understanding of how light actually behaves and an equal understanding of Poser. If you read a few of BagginsBill's threads on lighting, gamma correction, etc, you can produce similar results very quickly. There's little difficulty involved. BagginsBill's example renders are demonstrations of basic principles and involve no special technique or careful setup. I don't know why you believe that realistic renders are so prone to failure in some aspect. Lighting in Poser really isn't too different from lighting in real life that photographers have to deal with. The only problem is that most people don't understand lighting and their renders suck just as much as their real photography does, if not worse because in real life they don't have to set up the lighting when they're outside for example.

I get the results I'm looking for in another app, so I've never bothered with rendering in Poser for more than the occasional test. Plus I can work in Poser while I'm rendering in another app. Lighting in apps like Povray and Vray aren't too different than real life. Poser is, there's no question about it . . . but it doesn't concern me in the least.

Quote -  Oddly enough, the better-made toony figures have better "soul" than some of the more realistic ones.  This is rampant throughout 3D, though, not just in the Poser gallery.  The less it has to be realistic, the easier it is to make it look, well, full of life.  Humans are just picky.  :lol:

I once watched a lecture by Nigel Holmes, master of infographics, where he talked about using technology for the sake of technology and he used Polar Express as an example.  His point was that the filmmakers tried so hard to attain realism that they should just have used real people because the technology didn't give the characters any kind of emotion.  He then used the film The Incredibles as a good example of 3D and technology.   I think this quote from Nigel says it best: "If it's a cartoon, let's make the people cartoon like."

Technology has however advanced since then and I think they did pretty well with A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey but when I watched it there was always something about the characters that bothered me.

Quote - I really think this is a storm in a teacup. Truly, if you don't want to strive for "realism", don't. Fine. But to query why trying to achieve "realism" (however the artist defines realism, which in itself is a bit of a nebulous term) is important to other artists - many other artists - is a bit presumptuous. It says: "why is everyone so intent on making believable shadows and lighting and textures just because we know more now how to achieve that?"

Quote -
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.

In other words: why are we using aeroplanes and vacuum cleaners and computers? We didn't used to have them and we did just fine!

I love the advanced technology that members on this forum have given me: that technology has enabled me to get as far away from the plastic-puppet-suspended-in-space look that one starts with in Poser and has enabled me to create a reasonably realistic water prop that reflects the sky and clouds and doesn't say "I'm actually just a picture of water".
What's not to like?

I'm not about to give up my 320gig HD and 2 gig of RAM and Poser 8 for 128meg HD and 64 meg of RAM and MS Paint. I like where things have gone, and want to take advantage of it. You can still do Tron and "Money for Nothing" if you want but you can also move towards doing stuff like Avatar.

That's a perfect answer to the question IMHO.  Bravo!

Quote - > Quote - 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.

In other words: why are we using aeroplanes and vacuum cleaners and computers? We didn't used to have them and we did just fine!

I love the advanced technology that members on this forum have given me: that technology has enabled me to get as far away from the plastic-puppet-suspended-in-space look that one starts with in Poser and has enabled me to create a reasonably realistic water prop that reflects the sky and clouds and doesn't say "I'm actually just a picture of water".
What's not to like?

I'm not about to give up my 320gig HD and 2 gig of RAM and Poser 8 for 128meg HD and 64 meg of RAM and MS Paint. I like where things have gone, and want to take advantage of it. You can still do Tron and "Money for Nothing" if you want but you can also move towards doing stuff like Avatar.

As it happens, a fair number of people have begun asking the very questions you consider so ridiculous: why are we using aeroplanes, vacuum cleaners, and computers?  Anthropologists have found that hunter-gatherers require an average of about 14 hours a week to support themselves; the rest of their time is spent learning, teaching, creating art, and making love.  Despite an ever-increasing amount of kitchen gadgetry, statistics show the average homemaker spends just as much time doing housework as sie did 100 years ago.  Sociologists such as Neil Postman are increasingly concerned that mass media and computers are deforming the entire shape of our culture in ugly and psychologically toxic ways (cv Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death," required reading in any mass comm course these days).

I, for one, happen to like the Internet.  I've been using computers for about 30 years now, and I remember dialling in to the university's computers with a bakelite telephone connected through rubber acoustic couplers on a 110 baud teletype machine.  As a diabetic, I also rely on modern medicine to survive.  I don't want to live in a cave and amuse myself by stuffing berries up my nose with a stick.  But I do think we need to question whether breakneck-speed change for the sake of change is of advantage to anyone.

The fact that we can burn megatonnes of aviation fuel to create new vectors for the transfer of disease across entire continents in a matter of hours doesn't mean we should. The fact that we can use genetic material from fish to produce pesticide-resistant tomatoes doesn't mean we should.  And the fact that Poser can produce photorealism doesn't mean we should.

I didn't start this thread to dun people who spend their time striving for photorealistic renders, only to question whether this is art -- and to ponder why so very many people here feel that photorealism is a goal in and of itself rather than a tool which can be used or not used as the creator sees fit to create art.

It is just as valid to question whether a lack of realism can lead to art (and just as productive).