So I am working on personal stuff and work stuff and I'm doing what I can to keep the mesh fairly symmetrical, which is easier to manage for sure but then I started wondering: If I make asymmetrical morphs will they be used? I look at the galleries here and the images I see posted on the forums and everything I see looks super symmetrical, which in turn makes it look unrealistic and oh so obviously 3D rendered. So is it just that folks don't like using morphs that add in asymmetry, that figures don't really supply enough asymmetrical shaping morphs or is it an organization thing and they're just getting lost among all the other morphs in a figure?

Inquiring minds want to know (I wanna know).

Everything looks super symmetrical (except for Sydney) due to lack of attention to detail.

I certainly would use them, I am a big believer in the split morph command to make things (so very slightly) asymmetrical.

Keep your mesh symmetrical - let the users futz it up (or not).

Thanks. That's what I'm thinking too.  I just never really see it in the Poser communities though. Kind of sad. :- Anyway, thanks for the good advice.

I wouldn't look to the Poser galleries as an indication of what people are actually doing with Poser, any more than I would look to Facebook galleries to see what people are actually doing with Nikon DSLRs. Whether it's a camera, a 3d graphics app, or a home sound system, most people won't use anything beyond the most obvious features. That doesn't mean you shouldn't include features that more discerning or advanced users will be very thankful for or that those features aren't getting used at all.

My favorite character morphs are those that are custom made and based on real people (even if -- at full strength -- they are caricatures.) I mix these together to create characters that are very different from the ones each is based on, and the result looks much more like a "real" person. Or sometimes I begin with one of these morphs, and then add begin dialing to change the features from there. Starting with an asymmetrical base results in a more interesting face. But asymmetry is always going to annoy some people, so -- for the sake of maximizing usefulness -- I like it when content creators include both symmetrical and asymmetrical options. :)

Edit: As for M4 and V4 in the galleries, you're correct. The Morphs++ pack does not give a lot of options for asymmetrical morphing -- only the expressions offer one sided morphing. The actual shaping morphs, like cheekbones, jaw shapes, chin shapes, temple definition, and even things like lip and eye shape etc are all perfectly symmetrical.

 Hey Teyon,

Look at this from a distance. Look at the big picture. "Real people" are not Always symmetrical but where are the differences? Mostly on te face.

Secondly, and far more important for free stuff and content creators is that most of the Poser tools NEED symmetry to work as designed.
The setup room, the fitting room, the morph brush, ease of clothing building, a lot depends on symmetry. 

The object files, the rigging, the magnets (if required), the dependencies, everything has to be fully symmetrical.
I have a very- very- detailed report in Mantis about ALL native Poser figures, what is happening, and WHY they are not popular.
99.9% is about them NOT being symmetrical at some point, and what this does to the Poser tools.

The most important thing for any new Poser figure?
The very-very first second the end user opens a new Poser figure, he has to fall in love.
"One does not get a second chance to make a first impression."

Asymetrie is allways a second step in my workflow.

After I've finished my character morph, I add a seperate asymetric morph to my character's face and body seperatly.

Use morphs to apply asymmetry.  Making a less than 'perfect' figure creates content development nightmares.  

Are we talking about the face or the body?

I think some independent left and right side control (morphs) in the face are useful, because even if someone's facial structure appears symmetrical at rest, once expressions kick in very few people move their eyes and mouths symmetrically.

I think trying to achieve asymmetry in the body would be a complete waste of time and effort. Barring medical conditions like scoliosis, most people's bodies are very, very close to symmetrical, even athletes at the top level of 'asymmetrical' sports like archery and rowing. I believe that the skeletal remains of English Longbowmen can be identified by the fact that their back muscles developed asymmetrically, but I can't think of any modern activity that would have that effect on us.

Don't look at the galleries.  How many of those who post even bother to tweak an out of the box morph so it doesn't look like the character of the day?  Asymmetry should be in in the morphs but then Poser has had the split morph since what P4/PPP?  It's a function that often gets overlooked.

Thanks guys and gals. It seems like there's still value in the asymmetrical morphs, which is good information for me to have right at this moment. :)  I know the galleries here and at RDNA and at Deviant Art aren't the best representation of the Poser community at large but in all honesty, that's the fastest way to see what's being done as opposed to going to the personal websites of individual artists.  That said, I'm exceedingly happy right now to hear people still have interest in this and will be taking that into account on projects I'm currently working on.

That said, it was asked if I meant facial or body asymmetry and that is an interesting point. Outside of female breast size, there's not a lot of morphing that I know of that seeks to add asymmetry to the body. Would that also be something folks would want? I feel like that actually WOULD cause more problems than not though.

Everything looks super symmetrical (except for Sydney) due to lack of attention to detail.

I certainly would use them, I am a big believer in the split morph command to make things (so very slightly) asymmetrical.

Keep your mesh symmetrical - let the users futz it up (or not).

==========

+1

(quote forum feature doesn't seem to work?)

I think the last out of the box asymmetry morph group I saw in a figure was with the Tomo conforming head for V4 by MayaX... have to admit I'm woefully behind on current figures, though. I imagine that asymmetry morphs would be of most use to those who utilize Poser for animations with an emphasis on subtlety of expression, probably a small minority. Personally, I welcome any feature included with a figure that increases it's... ummm, idiosyncrasy. Otherwise, a minor custom morph or the split morph function suffices.

:)

Yes, agreed, but asymetric morphs "out off the box" have become less and less important with the new morph brushes available.
With a the stroke of the mouse, anybody can make a morph.

And Blender is gaining popularity "fast" to create morphs and Full Body Morphs.

"Default" a figure has to be symmetrical for all Poser rooms and tools to work as designed.

Asymetrical morphs, are on the lower list of the workflow.

"Otherwise, a minor custom morph or the split morph function suffices."

Hence my above statement vilters...

I see that that you have become quite the Blender proponent. I've heard a lot of good things about recent versions but have to admit I'm still traumatized from youthful explorations of the app. I recall that you used to be such the Hex proselytizer, I imagine you find Blender to be more robust and stable? I myself still find Wings to be my favorite modeller, but also utilize Modo when I need something more exotic than nuts and bolts box modeling. Wings still has the fastest navigation feel for me.

Anyway, just some caffeine induced jabbering on my part, apologies for the OT.

There are several L and R versions of morphs in the morphs++ packs. Not all of them have L and R equivalents but many do, beyond just the expressions - in the face as well as the body. Character vendors can't split the morphs on their own and package them with the character so that's something the end user has to do. Many posting in the various galleries just don't seem to bother with it. 

Anastasia is deliberately asymmetrical - her face at least, if not her body. 

 That's a great point AmbientShade. So for character morphs that are based on symmetrical meshes, are we all cool with the idea that they be asymmetrical (ala Anastasia) or should I just err on the side of caution and stick with user controlled asymmetry? Some specific asymmetry I think can benefit a FBM character.

 I would use asymmetrical face morphs a lot. Asymmetrical body morphs not so much.... you can scale a forearm a tad longer... a right hand a tad bigger... but with the face it's harder unless there's specific asymmetry morphs. gen 4 has left and right head 'parts' morphs but not head long left side... head wide left side... like that... mostly left or right 'parts'... not divided for the whole head

It's pretty crucial that the base model and rigging be symmetrical, for content creation and proper functionality in the software.  Of course you know that. 

The asymmetrical morphs can be a final measure. Whatever morphs you create just give them each their split L & R counterparts, if it's a morph that would benefit from it. Not just the face but the body as well. But make them injectable. A figure with too many morphs pre-loaded in will bog down on a lot of people. 

 In late 1990's existed a 3D modeling app Anim8or. (www.anim8or.com)

At the time, i used it to build morphs for Poser figures, selecting vertex by vertex by vertex.

That is where my love for the lower resolution figures came from. ( LOL.)  Morphing vertex by vertex by vertex, sometimes entering the X;Y,Z valeus manually to maintain symmetry, is very-very- time consuming, but Iearned a lot. Then came Hexagon, and it became my favorite, but the crashes, It works but is sooooo unpredictable unstable.
Some weeks it would work rock solid, and some weeks, it was unlivable.

Blender? I do not pretend to know Blender at all.
But I know a very small corner very well. The modeling, UV-mapping, the grouping, the material tools.
And NO crashes. The most reliable app on all of my PC's.

What I learned fom all 3 ?
For default human figures? => MAINTAIN symmetry at ALL cost at this stage.
Never mind me, I'v only been pulling vertex for some 20 years. LOL.

What I learned in all 3

From an implementation point of view how would an asymmetrical morph set be presented, I assume people would still want symmetrical so if as an example there are 20 morph features that would be 40 or 60 individual morphs (if both + left + right). 

I think ambientshade's idea of including the more elaborate asymmetry morphs as a user choice INJ is a pretty good one... sometimes slogging through all the left/right morphs with morphs++ can be irritating.

Well, I meant all the shaping morphs should be injectable. L & R morphs could be under their own list for organizational and cleaner navigation purposes. 

So, an example would be:

CheekbonesHigh
CheekboneHigh_L
CheekboneHigh_R

That way the character artist could set the L cheak at .45 and the R cheak at .48, or whatever. 

and,

CheekboneHigh_L
CheekboneHigh_R

could both be under an 'Asymmetry' header, and even be their own set of injectables. There's no limit to how many menus and sub menus there can be in the parameters pallet, but some forethought on organizing is important. 

Interesting thoughts on the subject. It's given me a lot to chew on. 

maybe you should do an experiment? create a few asymettry morphs but add a master dial which you could add varying degrees of randomness - im assuming the changes to face parts in translation would only need to be very small - talking sub millimetre adjustments    do a few renders and see how realistic they look compared with unaltered face?

I saw an article a few years ago that showed the results of a "physical attractiveness" study using images of  fashion models and various famously "good looking" people.

the Short of it is that the people who were judged to be the most good looking

were the ones with close to or near perfect facial symmetry.

Just a personal observation as poser user since the early 1990's:

I would submit that most poser users are not for looking the usual "flaws"

in ordinary people for their renders

note the lack of cellulite morphs or male pattern baldness hair props

it is not the perfect symmetry that is making poser renders look Like 

3D models.

it is the unrealistic hand painted/too uniform, skin textures& hair with baked in speculars and sub par lighting used for the most part.

Just a couple of points to emphasize:

Asymmetrical morphs are fine. But, if that's all that is offered, it's terrible. :) Make a symmetrical version with asymetrical add-on morphs, if desired. That way, they can be pruned. Once you mess with a figure's symmetry, you are limiting the user's choices and capabilities with certain functions.

Facial asymmetry is the most noticeable, if one is aiming for realism. But, spacial relationships between facial features is what most people tend to notice. Use both when creating realistic morphs. A V4 face is almost immediately recognizable, no matter what morphs are on it, when spacial relationships are rigidly maintained.

Gross body asymmetry is rare. Small asymmetries will exist, but they're virtually meaningless - We're face people, we pay the most attention to faces. (No matter what bits people like to render the most...)

"Realism" in Poser has been discussed, ad nauseum. Poser figures, by default, are not scaled appropriately and are largely not intended to look "realistic." People "make do" with them and some can achieve some surprising results. But, the reason that these results are "surprising" is because... they're surprising. :)  Poser figs just aren't very realistic to begin with. (They can be made to get very close, though.)

The use of bump, displacement or normal maps can work wonders for establishing slight asymmetries, blemishes, creases, wrinkles, pockmarks, moles, whatever... Sometimes, a "geometry first" answer is not the best answer.

Well, while I can understand and in part agree with your points, I like to think that since I've been involved with the humans we've gotten more realistic in scale if nothing else, lol. :)  I think we definitely need to include asymmetry in our shape morphs (and actually including shape morphs is probably smart too) and while yes, having good textures can help, it has to start with geometry. If the geometry isn't up to snuff then it may as well be a pretty doorstop. Work, thou art cut out for me, methinks. 

Agreed that the geometry and the edge flow have to be human muscle representations.
But in the end?
It is Diffuse texture you see, it is Diffise texture you render.

The default Diffuse texture has to be spot on.
Bump, displacement, normals, could enhance the Diffuse texture but never replace it.
Hell, most of them, Poser can build them better with its nodes.

An absolute NO-NO- is a washed out Diffise texture, and counting on Bump-Displacement or Normal map to get the quality.

The 3 most important parts are :

• Object file edge flow
• Diffuse texture quaity
• Rigging, rigging, rigging.

OPTIONAL => Bump Map, Displacement Map, Normal map => Anyhow => Choose ONE of them, and stick to it.

Specular Map? Do not loose man-hrs on that one, and magnets belong in a hardware store.

Dependencies are OK if required, but check, recheck, and tripplle check symmetry.

...I like to think that since I've been involved with the humans we've gotten more realistic in scale if nothing else, lol. :)  ..

I've seen native V4's breasticulars and hips and M4's thighs... What is it with these people and thighs? You could fit a small child into M4's thighs and still have room for their wagon. Jaws, there's another one.. They all look like they just finished playing "The Nutcracker" without makeup. :)
Hey, they're quality high-res figures with good geometry and good native rigging. I have no problems with them on those counts. (Except a spot on the armpits and that one darn star section on the head group (face) where someone tried to create a dimple.. That thing is in exactly the wrong place for me whenever I try to do some custom face morphs. :) (I can't speak to DAZ's "G" series.)

They're one-shop stops for human models and they have oodles of morphs. You can even get fairly realistic looking bodies out of them. So, I can see why certain features are slightly exaggerated. But, still...

I think that "body asymmetry" isn't worth worrying over. There's nothing likely to be rendered in which that is a deal-breaker. Most people don't even notice body asymmetry unless its gross. Facial asymmetry, however, can have a greater effect. But, even then, it's probably not worth worrying about unless you're dealing with "recognizable" custom morphs. I forget the vendor, but there was one vendor that specialized in recognizable morphs and very good custom facial morphs that used asymmetry very well. (Did a lot of V3 faces/packs.) Those were excellent morphs and generally had only the barest asymmetries in them necessary to approach a level of realism that V3 could handle.

I'll chime in on an almost dead thread. I find asymmetry of expression most important in adding realism and uniqueness. I'm noticing peoples smiles so much these days. Sometimes a crooked smile really identifies certain people and can be amazingly endearing or attractive. By the same token certain off balance frowns or angry expressions can add more emphasis to an emotion. Look at Harrison Ford or Sly Stallone. The asymmetry of their smiles define them. I've been spending a lot of time trying to capture those kind of nuances in my characters without it seeming forced. I'm getting there slowly.