Quote - Hard to define "better." Pagan is clearly beloved of his pixie, but she's not very realistic.  She's got pointed ears, fer crissakes. 

I do agree the one on the right in your image has a unique, real look, but I wouldn't want a figure that looked like that.  At least, not as the default.

I hadn't realized 3D scanning was that big a deal.  It's still not really affordable for the average Poser merchant, is it? DAZ claims they use 3D scans to make their figures. 

I don't particular care for realism, so I don't have their "digital clones."  I do have Dina (the above image), who was made from 3D scans of a real person, but this was ten years ago.

Perhaps someone who has DAZ's Reby Sky or Anna Marie Goddard could post their head morphs.  They were made from scans of real people.  Real people who are somewhat more attractive than average, but real people nonetheless.

 

Well, whether you care for it or not, you do have to confess to having recognised a difference between M4 and the LPH model in terms of a sense of RW realism.

I don't necessarily want to get hung up on the idea that scanning real heads is the only way to go for those of us that do want at least an option for an accurate realism - I've seen very passable hand-sculpted heads in the 3d realm. But hand-sculpting does take time and I think there are very subtle nuances in shapes that give the game away to our highly honed sense of recognising that difference between real and cariacature, especially where faces are concerned.

Looking at your render of Dina, I wouldn't like to commit myself as to whether she is a 100% scanned shape, but she does have a greater degree of structure in form and proportion to my eyes than many morphs I've come across. She looks pretty nice as a base for adding in textures and shaders, and I'd bet those shapes would respond to a variety of lighting conditions and maintain that structure and features better than a lot of morphs.

For those interested in any degree of realism in 3d, I think it's important to recognise the part mesh shapes play. Because if the underlying structure look ok from one angle and lighting state but ropey from another, it's going to cause at least some degree of frustration and that's before you add textures and shaders into the mix and get distracted by those. 

Listen, I hear the cases for real/cartoon and the spaces in-between. There's no right or wrong in whatever people might want to render - it's meaningless to argue in those terms, I agree. I'd just rather there was a slightly wider set of choices for those that want them.

 

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