First, the background pic is too pixelated. That is easy to get right so it's worth fixing. Obviously the lighting on her looks very "plastique". This is also relatively easy to fix. She also has no good texture on her (as visibile on the face, especially the eyes). Her left arm is poking into her body, also easy to fix. It's damn hard to make poser renders look real but you should avoid the obvious mistakes ;-)

Quite a few things in addition to what bizarro posted ... 1) That's the P4 woman, and not Victoria (or preferably) Victoria 2 ... makes a HUGE difference. 2) Texture maps 3) Lighting 4) And of course, the Poser renderer is sub-standard. Take heart though, it's not a bad start ... I've seen much, much worse. -Tim PS> You appear to be using too much JPG compression ... try a higher setting, because this image is very pixelated. It's hard to asses an image that has been compressed so drastically.

Real people aren't perfect. Her face is symmetrical and frozen. Most folks twitch mouth corners and raise eyebrows and blink occasionally. Our eyes don't line up either since we usually have a dominant eye. to get the lady looking a bit more human, I'd have one eye just slightly wider open than the other, and raise one brow just a bit. I notice that you've done postwork on her nostrils (or found Traveler's morph). However, the whites of her eyes and teeth are both too bright and too flat. Shade the teeth a bit at each side so they don't look false. shade the eye whites a bit, too, and add a catchlight in each eye from the front-lighting. Now for the skin. Use a decent texture map (I think you are using a map because of the chalky lower lip). You might also use a bump map (but be restrained). Watch the size of the highlight so she doesn't look like plastic, but has a hint of healthy glow. I change the ambiant color for skin to a dark mauve, because black looks too dead (suitable for dungeon games and zombies, not red-blooded humans). Pose (notice that I'm working from miniscule to majiscule). Her neck looks elongated and twisted a bit much. It shouldn't be that prominent, even on a ballerina. I'd shorten it. The arm is also twisted back strangely (shouldn't cut through the mesh of her body like that). Move the arm forward enough to look natural. Right now it just looks painful... and the eye keeps coming back to it the same way a tongue probes a sore tooth. Finally, composition. This doesn't affect whether your model looks real, but it does affect whether she is even seen. The white guardpole stuck in her back is distracting, so move the model to cover it. The center of attention is the framed doorway. If your lady was a spy or a fugitive, this would be fine, but her body language indicates that she wants to be noticed. The background looks almost like a negative print (especially since the street lamp is dark), but I like the unrealistic coloring. Why don't you pick up some of that bright strangeness and use it in the spotlights on her? If her left edge was highlighted, it would help to integrate her into the scene and reveal her at the same time. You might even put some of that neon glow into the wispy ends of her hair. Hope that this helps. Carolly

The two most glaring things about Posette that make her face unreal are her eyes and her smile. The eyes can be corrected with texture mapping. The smile is altogether a mesh problem. Although some folks have eyes that seem large for their face, the iris generated by most texture maps is way too large. Reducing the iris size will help. The shape of Posette's mouth is too flat. There is no real curve to the corners, no indentation into the cheeks where the muscles draw the corners upward. Also, her smile just shows way too many perfect teeth. Smile at yourself in the mirror and you'll notice the teeth tend to be slightly different sizes, and they blend into darkness at the corners. Posette's teeth are perfect and white from corner to corner.

all the above ... and the lighting of your model has to match what is in the background - color intensity and angle/direction of the light. You'll never get a job with the C.I.A. with a render like that.

Posette is not a hi res 3D model and not based on a real human
every one here has given great advise but in my opinion no amount of texture mapping and lighting will
will make Possette and "dork" look truly human
and rendering them in a quality raytracer like Cinema 4DXL makes matters worse as the ray tracer reveals
the ovious low-res nature of their Meshes.

from this angle and this lighting she looks alot like gwenith paltrow.(not sure if i spelled that right)

Posette always seems stiff to me. She doesn't pose with gravity. Her stance is too rigid. She needs to be more relaxed. The stiffness gives her a mannequin look, like a store window dummy. Melanie

What's so great about "real"? What does it even mean, for an image to look "real"? Like a photo? Photos don't look "real," do they?

Also try your render with anti-alias turned on, that is if you didn't. That gets rid of a lot of jaggies. There are some great textures out there, an old one that I love for Posette is called Taylor. Marque

Marque, he had anti-alias turned on (you can tell at the transmapped hair areas, especially). The biggest problem is the use of Posette in this image, IMHO

Ack, should have noticed. I think you are right, she is just too doll-like Marque

Not talking about the background, just the figure.... The eyes and the arm are the only two items on the figure that make this figure look like a model, not photo-realistic. Other than that, I think you've done a GREAT JOB here. Great hair great smile, and I think the background looks very "art-deco-cool", myself. Pumps up the image because it's different! And that's my opinion. Cheers! Pam

Well, I agree the background pix could be cool if it was not so pixelated. I do not want to sound rude here but with Poser it's so incredibly easy to get a girl and a dress and a smile together that it just takes a little more to call something a "GREAT JOB" even for a beginner. With such obvious mistakes I would actually call this a pretty bad job. (sorry, got to be honest sometimes)

Bump mapping might help a little also. To me, it doesnt look like there is any bump mapping on the face at all. But the whole pic looks pixelated. Im going by the light glare on her face. Anti Alias would help also. Can see a lot of Jaggies on the pillars and the model itself,

I would not Call his work" Bad "

for a typical poser render with posette its decent
but for a 3d render aspiring to look "photo real"
he is using the wrong program and the Wrong
Model to acheive such a look

I've seen some "photo real" stuff come out of poser, the problem is usually the texture and the face. The textures are too detailed, when your average pinup is actually airbrushed to remove detail. That and the fact that the faces, unlike a "real" face are always symetrical. The smile is perfect, not crooked. The eyebrows are perfectly level, the nose has no bumps or bends. Has anyone ever looked at Brittney Spear's nose or eyes? She's not especially pretty, she's no "supermodel" but the familiar is attractive, the more you see a face the more you grow to like it. I used to think Vicky was quite "ugly" but now I prefer her "real" face to many of the morph jobs out there. I also wouldn't call his work "bad" it's better than some I've seen, but by placing the model front and center lke that, especilly with such a bright background, it's bound to draw comment, (and criticsim) later jb

Oh, good grief. For pity sake....Don't you remember when you all first got Poser4. I had Poser 1 forever...that was mostly an excercise in Bryce, and, epainting....it needed so much postwork, i basically was just using it as a base figure and doin' my best to paint by numbers from my head to create. but, i had fun. Here's what i think. this person...obviously new to poser...found a jpg that he/she liked and, used it as a background. i've got one in my gallery that i made the same mistake on....and, i had had poser for a good while. second...this is better than many that i have seen in the gallery, the last month or so. here's a free vowel, guys....we now have a lot of newbies, here. and, many of us who have been here for a long time, have wandered off due to the changes in the site. this person gets my hands down applause...why? for jumping in and "playing"; for having a unique concept, and, trying to convey it; AND, for having the guts to bring his/her questions into forum. An unasked question is the worst of all. Tips....go to happyworldland...you can find a link to it by going to the web ring top 15 list on the right side of your screen. they have some reasonably cool textures for possette. also DO A SEARCH IN THIS FORUM FOR STAALE...not sure if i spelled it right. He has some awesome possette textures. To me...that is the biggest problem with your render. YOu just need a better texture. Also, the advice on symmetry is good. And, play with your lighting. (Or download some of the poser freebies that come with lighting sets.) She is too dark in the front, there. try and light up her face a little. happy posing. Pop...Pop...Poppi!!!

I agree wiht Poppi, it's unfair to say this is a "bad" job. I think it's great start. I do think maybe the girl should be doing something. Of course, this could be a "vacation photo." There's nothing wrong with that. MAXseer has a whole lot more to work with than I did when I started. I started with Poser 2, which was a very small improvement over Poser 1. I also had to paint faces on my people. But the folks just coming into Poser (even Poser 3) have so much to work with. This is leaps and bounds ahead of my first render, which I don't even have anymore. It was really pathetic, merely because the people in Poser 2 looked so stupid. They didn't have hair or clothes. I have to laugh at it when I look back on it. MAXseer, keep going. You're on the right track. I've been using Poser for several years and I'll still trying to achieve that "realism," too. Melanie

"first glace she might look real.. but we can all tell she isnt right?? but why? i'd love to hear your thoughts.... " I dont think anyone is downing his work. I think some people are not reading the Original message. I dont think anyone called his work bad. I belive i see suggestions as an answer to his "why?"

Mosca: please elaborate - Is it a question of real or just fitting in? - the more someone knows, the less they say.

JerseyG, someone did state striaght out that this was a bad job, but it appears they deleted that entry, as I can't seem to find it now. I don't think they were trying to insult MAXseer, I think they just used the wrong word. Melanie

Thanks for all your input.. i dont feel insaulted by any of it. making this pic was not a labor of love.. more just messing around.. the pixalition in the back ground is from the scan and the jpg compression (that it went through at least twice) and thanks for your kindness melanie.. i started with poser 2 also.. but i soon gave up on 3D characters.. but i came back with the poser 4 release... i wouldnt say its bad.. but yea, i know not a great peice of art.. it was meant to be more like a vacation photo. thanks for all the input and bashing anyways.. i hope everyone can benifit from the critisim.. i'll have to post some of my better work sometime so you all know i'm no slouch!