Zev0 posted at 11:36AM Sun, 15 November 2015 - #4238739

Again I disagree. All depends on you rendering skills, and if ultra realism is your goal. In terms of physical structure, Genesis 2 and 3 can easily pass as realistic if rendered by somebody who can achieve it.

That looks good, but it does not look real. I mean no offense by that. Just look at the eyes. If you got a photo of a person to have that effect on the eyes, it would have to be retouched. It's just not what people look like.

Here's another example for the Reality site. Again, it looks good (the best example on that site, imo), but it does not look real. Matthew McConaughey does not look like this.

He looks like this.

Also note that the last two images are retouched for magazines, and they still don't have the somewhat fake look of even very good CG.

CG cannot create truly realistic skin. Perhaps it will in the future, but it can't yet.

So, I know I just came back to the world of Poser and just started the world of DAZ Studio, and that fact will likely make a lot of people not take my opinion on any of this seriously. That's fine, but here it is anyway.

No Poser/DAZ figure has ever looked real. It's not that they can't do it, mind you. You can get a lot of realism out of 10k polys in a real-time rendering engine like Unreal 4, so they could clearly do it with offline rendering, and especially offline PBR rendering like Cycles or something. They just don't want to, because realism is not what people buy. They buy a sort of stylized or idealized pretty.

Just look at the picture of Scarlett Johansson posted in this thread next to a picture of any Poser or DAZ figure from the same angle with similar lighting, and you will see what I mean. Scarlett, as beautiful as she is, will look haggard next to the render, precisely because minute facial detail (which could have been included with normal or displacement maps) was intentionally omitted. Better still, look at any of the celebrity look-alike models out there on the web next to their real life counterparts, and you'll see just how not-real the renders look. The little details are omitted because they tend to age the face, particularly on women. It's a truth that has been taught to portrait artists since the beginning of the genre.

When people say they want their figures to be realistic, 9 out of 10 times what they mean is that they want them to be believable. They want them to have a likeness of the person they represent if they are doing a portrait type piece, not a 1:1 recreation. They want plausibility, because as we all know, all art is abstraction to some degree, even in 3d.

I'm not saying it can't be very good. Just look at the CG Arnold in Terminator Genisys. That's bloody close to looking real (though in truth the hair especially leaves something to be desired). The figures, hair, clothes, etc. that we have to work with is nowhere near that level. It's not even on the level of the Neo vs. Agent Smith fight scene in The Matrix Reloaded. It's closer to the CG Superman that catches the airliner by the nose in Superman Returns, and you'll notice how far that particular effect was kept from the camera.

I love Poser and the DAZ figures, but they are not realistic.

So basically, it's meaningless to me, since I am a Poser person and buy my content legally. Thanks for the info guys.

I tried the Genesis DSON importers, and was able to get a few Genesis 1 figures working in Poser 10. That said, it's a freaking hassle. I won't be spending money on new DAZ stuff with the intent of using it in Poser. Luckily, all I used was the stuff that comes with Genesis Starter Essentials. I might still pick up a thing or two for DAZ Studio itself, if I decide to give it a real chance. I already have it, so why not, right?

As for getting my old purchases from DAZ, the login information (even the login name) has vanished to the land of wind and ghosts, never to return. Thus, I will be starting fresh. C'est la vie.

Thanks very much or the advice, both of you. This program is only passingly similar to what I remember of Poser 4. These resources will help me out a lot.