Oh yeah secularity was turned up to 22 in b & c

oops, Specularity

I think B & C look pretty good. Looks like you need some more bump though. Mike can look pretty good, but you can see his polys, particularly on the skull, which makes realism more difficult to achieve. The brows are a touch over-exagerrated. Maybe tone them down a tad.

Close to realism, very close. He still looks a bit 'modeling clay' IYKWIM..... Better than anything I could do........ The Bryster

I think the last render is awesome! Only the eyes need work, a reflection map or some kind of specularity change. To get rid of the plastic-like look to it. I read an awesome article in 3DArtist a while back about lighting and people, perhaps you can find it online... Still, the article talked about making two tiny spotlights, and smack them RIGHT in front of the eyes, tracking to the eyes objects. Screw with them a bit, and you'll get a cool effect. Another thing, are you using and rear lights? They can add to realism as well... Just some ideas!

Great lighting setups you have there. Nice fading in the back edges. Using the black background makes the figure look softer, more natural overall. I always suggest reading up on real world lighting setups, like in portrait photography. There is a lot there that can be directly applied to 3D. AgentSmith

AgentSmith, can you please explain the lighting system/arrangement you used in your pic above. If it's pure True Ambience, I'd love to know how you got round the issue of mesh non-smoothing. Being able to use imported meshes (especially Poser ones) with True Ambience would be a cheering proposition. Other than the texture map looking a bit too saturated (ouch, sunburn!) I think the figure looks realistically lit.

Yeah, the sunburn texture is intentional, lol. That's how the texture comes anyways. No true ambience used, just a dome array (around 40-50 radial lights), ambient color of the shadows at 33, soft shadows turned on at 25%. (the soft shadows aren't truly needed) I keep the radial lights turned way down, around 5 or less, and I color the lights very, very slightly yellow, and as I duplicate my radial lights into the dome, I will slightly alternate the level of that yellow. I start at R=255,G=255,B=235. I then make some of the blues = 230,235,240, or 245, etc. That's all. But I have a question...(below) AgentSmith

What do you mean by; "how you got round the issue of mesh non-smoothing"? I've used poser figures with True Ambience before, and they look no different at all, as far as smoothing of the mesh goes. Which you shouldn't have to do, by the way at all, if you are exporting out of Poser as a .obj. (Which I suggest you do pretty much always) AS

Hmm..what Poser figure version are you using? P4 male, or is it an earlier model? I may be wrong, but it looks as if it is just a lower res figure, meaning less polygons, so more facets. The figure I used above is just the P4 female, but is I were to take the camera closer you would start seeing the facets more clearly. You can see a few already at the top of the head, and the bottom of the breasts. But, I'll do a close-up render of her hand, with true ambience on, to see if there is any big change. AgentSmith

Attached Link: http://www.computerarts.co.uk/magazine/latest.asp?id=32742

Yes it was the P4 male. The same render but with normal lightning produced a smooth render.

Strange. And, you're exporting out of Poser as an .obj? AS

What's strange is, Bryce says the P4 Female has 30,074 polys, and the P4 Male has 33,234 polys. Obviously, his extra 3,160 polys aren't in his hands... AS

Hires textures may help too. I only used the default P4 textures.

;)

AS: Maybe the MALE has more bits than the female?

That thought occured to me, but I had neutered him before I brought him into Bryce...;o) AS

Ouch!