I've noticed this big thing.  I'm sure some of you elders noticed it long before me ; p

But whats the deal with the realism obsession?  Did anyone ask what was the light source on the Mona Lisa?

What about the floor reflection nonsense?  Fine sure, there are some BLURRY reflections on some floors, but I have never that I can recall in my entire life seen a floor where you can literally put your make up on looking at it.

Has anyone?  Am I missing all the floors in the world?

Seems like every single floor I see in the gallery now has this uber super duper reflection on it, and if it dont someones gunna say something.

As far as I can tell in the real world A: floors don't look like mirrors.  Generally only mirrors look like mirrors but sometimes a very clean window with dark on the otherside looks like a mirror.  
and B:  the imagination don't need no stinkin light source.

That's the end of my rant on this one.  Forgive me for posting it here if it bugs you, but my hubby couldn't handle hearing it one more time.

Gotta subscribe to this one.  Good points there!!

I'm guessing it's the Gee Whiz Bang factor behind it all. The, "Look Ma! Reflections!", behaviour of those with attention deficit disorder. If I followed the comment crowds of the galleries, I guess it would be a big deal. To me, it's not. Then again, I don't really go looking at the Whiz Bang images unless they're Sci-Fi. :m_toocool:

I'm interested in realism - not so much as a pursuit I/m engaging in, more as something to keep tabs on - because it's stretching the capabilities of what is, afer all, a very low cost, low end product.  Poser 4 wasn't capable of the amazing stuff Poser 6 and 7 can do and I have a feeling that people have only scratched the surface of its capabilities.

I have seen many ridiculously shiny floors in real life but maybe I go to weird places. :)  OTOH, not many of my images have floors like that.  I do, however, agree that it's getting a touch overused.

note to self. wear something under kilt when on these poser floors.

Wonderful point.  Come to think of it, the only mirror-like floor I've ever
seen was in a museum, which is hardly a realistic environment.
Most businesses have short "indoor-outdoor" carpet; most houses 
have dusty tile or dusty hardwood or carpet stained with dog pee.

I can understand it being annoying to some people, but although I'm not particulary trying to reach realism myself, I do like to see what others can achieve.
A simple 2D drawing can have more artistic impact on me than a photorealistc interior which took many hours of modelling & rendering to create. However, I do appreciate the work people put into it.
I love to see variety in art, even if it means some people going too far with it.

Oh I definately understand the point of artistic choice, where the person just wants to see how far they can go - how real they can make it.

The problem is those that don't - or those that disagree on what makes something realistic.  To me a reflective floor is not realistic, nor is a lightbulb in every picture.

It goes well past floors and lighting too.  Any hard surface, it's almost to the point of being expected now and if you don't produce that reflection your art is "flawed".  If you don't have a black arrow pointing out the lighting your art is somehow less.

I guess what I'm saying is my opinion of realistic reflections apparently differs from what others think.

Then also you take into consideration the "art is beauty" point.  Fine if your going for that just leave the realistic idea out of it because honest to god a 38DDD woman with a 20 inch waist doing her hair in the wood table reflection is just not realistic no matter how neato her skin shader is.

I probably shouldn't have gone there with the boobs because that's a whole different topic in the realism discussion but I don't feel like rewording now.

well i like shiney floors, 

if i could be arsed i'd shine up my kitchen floor to be like my poser floors, but that isn't gonna happen anytime soon!!

also uber-shiney floors are essential to extreme sock skiing, 
which is fantastic for crashing into stuff at hundreds of MPH (rough estimate)

Quote - also uber-shiney floors are essential to extreme sock skiing, 
which is fantastic for crashing into stuff at hundreds of MPH (rough estimate)

Very true.  Great fun when yer absolutely bollocksed.

Quote - most houses 
have dusty tile or dusty hardwood or carpet stained with dog pee.

When did you come to my house, ockham?  :b_funny:

Quote - also uber-shiney floors are essential to extreme sock skiing, 
which is fantastic for crashing into stuff at hundreds of MPH (rough estimate)

I prefer watching cat's and dogs running at high speed on shiney floors! It's much more entertaining!

I don't really think it's a "realism" movement but more of a "Hyper Realism" movement where the goal is for the image to be better than a photograph. I'm only on the edge of this movement seeings as I go and brush out moles and ect from face maps. Reflective floors are cool, especially when it's on of the first things you figure out in the material room with P5 and up. I'm obsessed with the perfect Poser Water even though my loving partner is sick to death of pictures with water in them. Hee, hee!

jj - I see where you're coming from now. I agree in alot of ways with you. I wouldn't like to see someone's work criticised because it wasn't realistic enough even though they were never trying for realism in the first place. I've been quilty of stating that someone's work had nostril glow. Hey, maybe that's how they wanted it!
Now regarding huge boobs & tiny waists, I don't care if it's real or not, I demand more of it! :thumbupboth:

vince - Ha ha, the memories of sock skiiing. Where did my youth go!

Yeah, but there's no excuse for nostril glow unless you're in an old Bowie video. :D

(Loving The Alien - he has a ridiculously bright blue light in his mouth.)

It's nothing more than the Bryce effect: playing with a new toy. People are finally breaking out of the P4 trope. Right now its raytracing and reflections. Next is going to be a lot of HDRI. Then it'll be into the SSS effects, as people figure out how many things actually -have- subsurface scattering. You are finally seeing the same thing with dynamic hair and cloth. Once the 'See what I can Do!' wears off, things will settle back to a more reasonable level across the board.

Well I think it's because you have a great variety of mindsets all playing with a limited (comparatively) amount of softwares. At one extreme are the technicians, and yes, they tend to worry about lightsources, absolutely correct shadows, the right degree of reflection, the size of the pores, the elevation of the bump... The other extreme are the people looking to create an evocative end product, willing to have unknown lighsources, imperfect shadows, incorrect reflections, etc. If in the end the image works,

Most of us are somewhere in the middle.

yeah I agree its a what effects I can do in my image trend, the first month that people got Ambiant Occulusion in poser it was what can I do with AO?. people were using AO to an extreme, to the point that every crevase seemed to be caked with potting soil.

I think the pursuit of realism is a noble goal with Poser, since it makes the rendered image more agreeable to our eye, and thus enhances it's "artiness".  A poser render with nostril glow, poke-thru's and no shadows is not going to look that appealing, whereas something that is well put together has the potential to be very appealing to look at.

I think that is probably the extreme of the spectrum - of what I was talking about anyway.  not sure that poke through is = to surfaces you can eat off of.

It's more like what is, and what is not truly realisitic and within that realm how far can a person go with thier individual tastes and stay in that group.

I kinda think that realistic within the artistic community is just alot different than realistic in the world.

well i reckon you lot are bonkers....all the real ppl i know have wings and antenae.......aint none of them in the really reflecty floors!

*also uber-shiney floors are essential to extreme sock skiing, 
which is fantastic for crashing into stuff at hundreds of MPH (rough estimate)
*Straying wildly OT, but with memories prompted by this, we had a house with a back-door that was actually at the side, rather than the back.   The kitchen was tiled;  then there was a corridor with a carpet, then a narrow hallway with a polished wooden floor, then the lounge (carpet again), terminating in a pretty solid brick wall.    The corgi puppy started at the back door and launched herself along the axis of the house, Dumbo-sized ears flailing .   I think she started to lose control on the wooden floor, so, even though the end room was carpeted, she tended to hit the wall with a bit of  a bump.

She learnt her lesson, even if the taste for eating live bumble bees proved more enduring.   I think she made it to seventeen years (human, not canine), which is pretty good going for a "dwarf dog".     I still miss her.

I suppose, in context, that I should add that the wooden floor wasn't so polished that any of us, canine or human, could see ourselves in it.

jjroland, you are my hero! I've tried to express several times, that we're attempting to make hyper-realistic renders that put actual photos to shame. Never seemed to say it the right way. I'll plead guilty to having some stupidly shiny floors in some renders. If the RL floors can't be squeaky-clean, the digital ones can. Dust bunnies are hard to make in pixels! (Anyone seen a PS Dust Bunnie brush out there?) Ever sit down and look at your family photo album, and critique it? hmm.. lighting is too flat.. no reflections in the eyes... skin doesn't look real.. Uncle Bob's toupee doesn't look right.. Rover's eyes make him look like a hound from hades... At the other end of the spectrum, watch some films with really eye-popping visuals..the old black&white ones like Casa Blanca or Citizen Kane, and try to apply real physics. To paraphrase James Wong Howe, the heck with source-lighting, just make it look good.

I don't think that most who use  the glass-like reflective floor are going for realism. I think it's just something that looks cool an at one time different, but now everyone and their mother are doing it. Heck, I even gave it a try,  LOL

Bagginsbill has a great thread at RDNA about getting realistic floor reflections.

http://www.runtimedna.com/mod/forum/messages.php?ShowMessage=266073

BB is a genius don't get me wrong, but it was some of the things said in that very thread that prompted me to finally post my thoughts on this.

It's what I call the 'new convertible on a freezing winter day' syndrome.
Sometimes people do things just because they can, regardless of whether it makes sense. Especially the newer ones, newer to 3D or newer to artistic expression. 
Hopefully, it's a phase people go through.

It's like why does a dog lick it's balls?

Quote - It's like why does a dog lick it's balls?

yep, exactly :)
or... erm, to make them shiny, of course ;)

"It's like why does a dog lick it's balls?"

hmm - so the dog does because it can.  I wonder if that means that if a man could he ...... aww nm : p

jj & Connie - Remember the great Bill Hicks & his "s&ck your own c&ck" joke? I must admit if I could, I wouldn't. I mean come on, I know where it's been! :ohmy:

Now that's what I'm talking about. Thanks team!

Quote - "It's like why does a dog lick it's balls?"

hmm - so the dog does because it can.  I wonder if that means that if a man could he ...... aww nm : p

Ron Jeremy could and did, and does!
DPH

Geez! This thread has gone down a trail not for the queasy or faint of heart! :blink: Should I at this point say, let's see a show of hands from the guy's who've actually dreamt they could and did? :scared:

Oh, yes! Guys would never leave the house if they could. :)

7/26/07

An image (or render) is a small window view of a much larger world. The image should suggest at least a little of what cannot be seen. No matter how great any graphics software becomes, it will not produce images as large as the world. How then does one make a little image as big as your imagination?

Highly reflective surfaces give the illusion of more space, which is how they are used architecturally, in the furnishing of a room, or in art. No matter how they are used reflections are NOT realistic, but give the illusion of another world just beyond this one (Through The Looking Glass).

Not many things in nature are as reflective as a mirror, but when you find that perfect lake, at just the right time of day, it is magic. A mirage is very natural, but also very mysterious, transforming an ordinary scene on a hot day into a moment of surprise. In the constructed world where most of us live, reflection is not always unnaturally manmade. The wet street on a dark rainy night that catches the imperfect reflection of city lights is poetry.

In architecture, an abundance of reflection is used to suggest opulence. Most grand buildings or homes will have a lot of reflective surfaces. In more ordinary homes (such as mine) the occasional shiny object catches the eye and suggests an environment that is a little less ordinary. To the unsophisticated eye the metallic frame of a black velvet Elvis portrait is a gilded treasure in an otherwise drab room.

The shiny object or the mirror surface is always a surprise to the eye. The surprise should not be a distraction to disguise a poorly composed picture, but a part of the story that an image captures. If one is a minimalist in style, reflection to make an image more interesting is probably a poor choice.

With Raytracing, Poser allows the graphics artist the opportunity to explore the use of convincing reflections, but this should not become an end unto itself. Objective comments and observations from peers should help guide this community of artists to develop a sophisticated use of reflections. Good to superior photographs can just happen, but great renders must be composed. Again, reflections are magical not realistic.

LMK

You people have filthy minds, this forum is corrupting me!

Good points LMK.

I would use reflections to have impact, not neccessarily to make my work look realistic. I have tried in the past to work on some realism but it just bogged me down & frustrated me. I guess it was because at a certain point the artistic side of things just diminished & I lost interest.

Yay, thank you, lkendall, for bringing this post WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY back on subject!  :D

(ahem)  Let's keep it clean, folks.  :lol: :lol: :lol:  Or, at least, let's go PG.  (Plus, all mention of Ron Jeremy, EVER, should be banned.  And not just from forum conversation.  The man gives me the heebie jeebies.)

My last OT post here, just to say Ron Jeremy proves that if he can make it, any man can!

I agree that some people, in an attempt to achieve an increased level of realism, overdo the reflections and therefore fail.

Regardless of what you seek, realism, artistic painterly expression, cartoon, there is something you seek to adjust that has a right amount. Any amount OVER OR UNDER that amount is the wrong amount. For realism, zero reflection is wrong. 50% reflection is wrong. Somewhere in between is right, and it has to be based on viewing angle - the Fresnel effect.

The little montage image is from my lousy phone camera - which seems incapable of taking a non-blurry picture or getting the colors right at all. Nevertheless, you should be able to see that this is a real floor in a real office. The doorway on the left leads into my real office. I have a real window in it which you cannot see. But you sure can see the window in my door.

Similarly, that real magazine is on the real wood floor, which is rarely polished, but still shows significant reflection of the magazine when viewed from a shallow angle. Now I understand that you don't often get on the floor and photograph magazines. But if you look down the hall towards our kitchen, which is about 100 feet away from my office, you can perfectly see people eating in there. You can easily tell what color clothing they are wearing, while only looking at the floor. And this is from a dirty, pockmarked floor. This office used to be a shoe factory. The floor is FULL of defects and black spots. But it is still shiny as hell when viewed from the right angle, which happens all the time in real life.

I understand that many people have little interest in realism. I enjoy the puzzle of realistic renders and  have little interest in cartoons, because they are not a puzzle, they are easy. The world is full of people with different goals. For those who seek renders that look more real than fake, either because it's just hard (me), or because they need it, paying attention to and using reflections is crucial.

Yes, there are some who finally figured out how to do reflections and are overusing them in their renders. This is human nature. The first time I was allowed to actually drink beer, I drank enormous quantities of it and encouraged all my friends to do the same. I no longer do that.

If somebody makes a render where the whole point is LOOK SHINY, then God bless them. They are now artistic 21 year olds abusing alcohol. In a little while, they'll calm down. But right behind them are the 20 year olds who can't wait to be 21 themselves, and as soon as they learn to plug in a Reflect node, they're going to make the same kind of render, even though their elders have moved on to morphing enormous breasts with incredibly detailed specular reflections on the nipple.

This image, one of my few attempts at "artistic expression", would not work without the reflections.

I wanted to capture the wonder of the experience my daughters had in the Bahamas, where the fish would come right up to them for food, but it was really hard to see them with all the reflections, even though the water was crystal clear. That's why I added the dog, so he could make explicit the fact that he desperately wanted to see the fish, but was having a hard time with it.

Kaibach: try this link: http://www.utilikilt.com/

Personally, I like the "over the top" realism.  But I also like a lot of other things that some folks raise an eyebrow at.  I agree that there is a "wow" factor, and a "how the heck did they do that" factor...and as an ADHD "sufferererererer" I am always looking for something to occupy my mind and time, so I try to learn what everyone else will explain.

Lets see where this all goes?!

That is a good example BB, without reflections that picture wouldn't work at all.
I must confess that I made a picture once with reflections, just for effect, it wasn't really needed & wasn't very realistic. It was the first time I had used it in Vue so it was like a new toy!
We're all guilty!

Just to add, don't mention the knee!

Wow - she's hot. Ironic - her skin looks photoreal, but her boots don't. The boots should be using Fresnel reflections.

Hrm. Someone way back in this thread told me that I had expressed this right.  Now I start to wonder because it kinda seems like a couple people got the impression that I think all reflection should go out the door.

Stormchaser did me a favor by posting that one though.  Excellent example up there.  That is the kind of reflection that I am saying does not exist in REAL floors.  Not saying someone shouldn't use it in thier art - each should do what they want.  But if someone wants absolutely no reflection - they can do that too.  Now if you are truly going for realism you want neither.

I guess I'm truly not talking about those who do it, I'm talking about the ones who criticise those who don't.

Surfaces reflect light.  I definately wasn't arguing that.  To what extreme is an interesting topic.  Most surfaces don't reflect like a mirror though.   Looking around the room right now and I can't see my reflection anywhere - shadow a couple places but that's all.

Yeah, I think you're right. Looking back now, the lights weren't set up properly, plus the boots material wasn't very good. I hope to learn more as I go along.

You're right jj about my reflection not being realistic. I must say though that it wasn't meant to be, it's just a fantasy picture. I wish she were real though! No, but seriously, if I had meant for the reflections to be realistic then I would have failed miserably.

Oh I know you didn't ; ) you were just a in the right place at the right time for an example.  That way I didn't have to wade through the gallery looking for a render.

Well I'm glad my artwork has been useful for something, LOL!

JJ - great thread.  I'm learning a lot here.

About what The Hedgehog could do in his younger and more agile days.....(rimshot)?