Attached Link: You're Mine

So, what people like me end up with, then, is "the best that we can do."  I DON'T often get what happens when adjusting nodes in the material room.  You're correct about the "guess / render / refine" technique, but I find this exhausting and gave up trying to figure it all out.  In the attached render, I put a light probe in the alternate diffuse node of the male figure and played with the settings for many hours before arriving at a rough approximation of what I'd imagined in my head.

To be fair to Robyn (and I apologize for the misspelling!), the skin shader I mentioned for the Bronwyn render is a freebie I picked up years ago.  She may be far more skilled at creating these now. 

Further, I HATE Poser lights.  There is such a disconnect between the preview and what Firefly cranks out I can never tell what my images are going to look like until they've actually rendered.  Because I don't do this for a living, there is only so much time I can devote to a render before I abandon the task in favor of my next idea.

Now, you hint that some of these shader-related issues may be addressed in the newer version of Poser.  I won't ask you to confirm this, but for those of you who are deeply involved in what happens in the material room, understand that many of the REST of us would appreciate improvements in Poser skin, so that our renders don't look like plastic people under a variety of lighting conditions.

:)

Attached Link: Bronwyn's Portrait

Now, despite Robin's excellent work, I would NEVER mistake this render for a photo.  The hair, Bronwyn's nose, and her flesh simply don't look real to my eye--even though this is my character and my render.

Quote - I would also point out that most people don't even use the shaders in the renderers you mentioned correctly, either.

Alright, given that this thread is about "photorealism," I'll bite on this . . .  So what are "most people" (I presume this includes me) doing wrong?

Quote - I think a lot of people want sharp focus from one corner of their renders to the other, from the closest flower to the fatherest mountain peak. They want vivid colors. They want dramatic lighting and poses. They want their figures to be of heroic proportions and form.

Indeed!  Often of completely unrealistic proportions and form . . .

:)

Quote - They want what I call "hyper-realistic" renders. They may say they want realism, but they clearly want to borrow from realism, not duplicate it. The best fantasy artists made their pictures look "believable." The genre esteemed by many Poser users is fantasy art. But, they want their work to be "believable," so the users and viewers can join the fantasy.

This is a statement I can certainly agree with, and it's probably more attainable, too!  Personally, I strive to avoid that plastic "Poser Look" that prevailed in nearly everyone's rendering from many years ago, and try to evoke some kind of emotional response in my viewers.  I don't think anyone with a reasonably sharp eye would EVER mistake one of my renders for a photo.

I believe that the term "photoreal" is subjective.  Your Tyrese looks good, but when I render, I find it far easier to get the lighting right with my dark-skinned characters than I do when using my light-skinned ones.  When I combine the two, I have a REALLY hard time getting the light to look good on both shades of skin.

Yet, I can stand next to my best friend--who is a dead ringer for Will Smith--in front of a camera, and the resulting photo looks "real."  (Ok, I'm pale enough to cause glare on a sunny day, so the photographer DOES have to accommodate my skin tone.)  And one of the earlier posts in this thread mentioned that many photographic effects are not naturally discerned by the human eye.  What are we trying to accomplish when we're seeking to emulate a photograph?  Aren't we just trying to portray a subject as we see it?

If there was a singular set of parameters that could be used to define "photoreal," I think many of us would use them.  The problem is, every render is different.  Lighting that works well in one instance will look terrible in another.  It's self-evident that every pose has to be different, too.

So, while some of the contributors to this thread decry the consistent return to "What is Art?" the simple answer to photorealism involves using a camera.  Since we can't photograph trolls and other mythical creatures, and the subject matter of many renders could never be adequately explored using a camera, the issue of artistic expression in our rendering shall forever be closely affiliated with the desire to attain "realism."

If we're going to use photography as the standard by which our renders are measured, then surely, some brilliant person should be able to create a solution to the ongoing dilemma that Poser renders approach reality, but don't quite emulate it.

Any takers?

Depth of Field.

Every render presents a different set of demands.  Personally, I struggle with lighting more than anything else, despite working with Poser since version 3.  When I look back on early renders, I roll my eyes in disgust.  However, that work represents a "place in time," and all of us who persist at this will improve, eventually.  (There's also a fairly substantial difference between my renders done in P6 and those I created when I upgrade to PPro 2010.  The creative tool improved significantly, and now, bagginsbill says the newer version will be even better!)

Photorealism is a bit of a slippery term.  I have a collection of photos that I took in high school that are uniformly blurry (I needed glasses, what can I say?) and often suffer from exposure problems.  I can do bad lighting in Poser without difficulty, too!  (I'm highly skilled at that, in fact . . .)

:)

Having written all of this, I try to evoke some kind of response out of the viewer when I create renders.  Most of you are much better at the technical aspects of the program than I am, and honestly, some of the talk in this forum lies beyond my ability to understand.  But if I look at the figures I was using a few years ago and compare them to the quality of the figures we have available now, the difference is quite glaring.  Clothing is better, too!  (In some cases, a LOT better!) Those of you who are pushing the frontier of what is "photorealistic" wind up dragging people like me along for the ride.  Personally I'm grateful for that, because the less my viewers have to complain about with respect to realism in my renders, the easier it is for said viewers to understand what I'm trying to portray.

Soft tissue dynamics?  Nice!  Improved rigging, so that elbows, knees and shoulders don't distort when they're bent?  Yeah, I can handle that.  Bring it on, ladies and gentlemen . . .

Thank you, Arcadia!  I re-worked some of the glitches, only to create new problems in the process.  I'm beginning to wonder why I'm doing this . . .

Quote - Excellent work Robert!

Thank you, Snarly!  I'm trying to get the glitches out now . . .  If I can make it work like I WANT it to look, I'll use it for my upcoming revision of "Meet the People."

Attached Link: Dancing Final

Thank you!  It took 12 hours to render the final version.  This one is full speed.  I don't know why there's a glitch in Brenna's turn, nor can I figure out what the deal is with the flashing lights.  There's nothing in the animation palette that explains it . . .  Oh, well!

Quote - Meet the People...  a pretty cool vid as well. Thanks!

You like that one?  I'm going to re-do it as soon as I get permission for the music.  My latest one, the "Crisis" presentation, has animations in it, too.  Enjoy!

Thank you!  Changing the camera angle helped with the gliding feet.  I don't use IK at all.  I'm not sure what you mean by "foot objs."  Animation is relatively new to me, and the learning curve is very steep!

Normally, I simulate my cloth props at a .25 collision offset and a .2 collision depth.  Sometimes that works well, sometimes it doesn't.  In this case, I had to simulate the skirt at default values and bump up the cloth density in order to avoid poke-through.

These project DO drag on!  Someone has encouraged me to animate ALL of the images for my book promotions, but the thought of trying to pull that off gives me a headache!  Right now, I'm working on a dance sequence that's consumed my attention for the last three days.  It's hard enough to animate a single figure.  Doing two, especially when they're touching, is the sort of thing that inspires migraines . . .

:)

Quote - I cannot stand to use Poser Pro 2010 anymore. It will not be launched by me again except to test compatibility.

Relax.

Ok, coming from you, this is a very serious remark.  I use Poser Pro 2010 all the time, I really like it, but it sounds like the new version of Poser will be an improvement.  That pleases me greatly!

:)

I find it VERY hard to emulate background lighting in Poser.  I probably spend more time trying to get the lighting right than any other single aspect of using the program.

Note that what really clued them in to the falsity of the footage was lighting . . .  Gotta love Poser for its lousy lights!

I don't use IK.