Comments on: Photorealistic CG?

Photorealistic CG?

Gyan — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:21:23 -0800

Still in the uncanny valley? - a great attempt at photorealism.

By: riotgrrl69

riotgrrl69 — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:24:50 -0800

We've certainly reached photorealistic still images, but movement is stuck in the valley for a while yet.

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:40:31 -0800

So does this mean we should no longer admit pictures as evidence in court?

By: kalessin

kalessin — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:41:07 -0800

I don't know. It still looks too symmetrical and too smoothly perfect to me. Just. I don't think I would object if I didn't know that it was a simulacrum.

By: Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese

Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:43:25 -0800

I'd virtually hit it.

By: Heywood Mogroot

Heywood Mogroot — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:45:29 -0800

The xbox 1080 or ps 5 might render that in realtime /scary

By: jonson

jonson — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:48:56 -0800

That's astonishingly good.

By: uni verse

uni verse — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:49:23 -0800

Not scary at all. A beaut'.

By: Espy Gillespie

Espy Gillespie — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:50:28 -0800

The still in the first link looks as real as any air-brushed photo, but his Natalie Portman has a ways to go.

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:54:04 -0800

Wow. That Natalie Portman's gonna be haunting my nightmares, ganshing at me with her iron teeth and squirting gel out of her right eye.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:54:15 -0800

The ears still need a little work; they're too perfect and evenly colored. They also don't have the right shape. Also, these JPGs are over compressed! Waaah. They would look a lot nicer if the guy hadn't tried to cram them into tiny files. I mean this guy has these huge images crammed down to like 17-30kb! The tile mosaic on top is the worst. How can you spend so much time on image details and then turn it into visual garbage at the final step?

By: mendel

mendel — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:55:57 -0800

Because perfect image details make it not look like a photo of someone on the Web, and the goal is to make it look like a photo of someone on the Web.

By: wumpus

wumpus — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:56:05 -0800

that's so real and nature!

By: eviltiff

eviltiff — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:00:27 -0800

Wow! Best I've seen. But, I have to agree with riotgrrl69. It's still a little Stepford-ish around the smile.

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:04:48 -0800

The Korean girl is the definition of the uncanny valley. Her lips are smiling but her eyes are suicidal.

By: mrbill

mrbill — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:06:35 -0800

It's always the eyes that look "off", to me.

By: rsanheim

rsanheim — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:10:59 -0800

Is it a requirement for these guys that do CG "art" that they do a Natalie Portman? Is she required to get into the cool kids club for CG artists?

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:12:05 -0800

Wow. That Natalie Portman's gonna be haunting my nightmares, ganshing at me with her iron teeth and squirting gel out of her right eye. Yeah, the Natalie portman picture just looks wrong to me. It looks like a wax statue or something, just lifeless and frozen.

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:12:13 -0800

I am going to stick my neck out here and wonder if we would think it looked as realistic if the model wasn't asian. The dead giveaway with these models seems to be the eyes - look at the portman model. A great deal can be communicated through the eyes, and, just stating the facts here, asians and non asians have different-looking eyes. Because the eyes of the asian model are obviously so different from what non-asians are used to (the subtle visual cues that we learn as infants from our parents, etc) perhaps we are not picking up on strange aspects of the model that someone who is asian would see and would stick out to them as wrong, the way the portman model jumps out to us as wrong. Just a thought. *** ducks

By: kalessin

kalessin — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:18:35 -0800

I dunno. I'm half-Asian, and I don't think it's the eyes that are squicking me.

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:25:10 -0800

For Song Hye Kyo, is it the lips that're squicking you out? They sorta feel like they're COMING RIGHT AT ME, DUCKBILL-STYLE, like she'd be more at home in a Carl Barks comic.

By: furtive

furtive — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:28:32 -0800

She's wearing a whig!

By: MetaMonkey

MetaMonkey — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:29:41 -0800

I still vote for uncanny. The only reason this one seems better than most is because the face is near-expressionless, with little contrast and only really resembles the highly-manipulating images of bored fixed-featured celebrities we have become used to from the media. The eyes and mouth are almost passable but still don't feel right, and the hair is doesn't work if you actually look at it. I think we're still a long way from true (rather than at-a-glance) photorealism of this kind, and video-realism is way off with intelligent robots and flying cars.

By: nasreddin

nasreddin — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:32:49 -0800

Oh, Robert Walpole, whither hast thou sunk to.

By: quin

quin — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:44:14 -0800

I dunno, I think it would help to see an actual picture of the actress, but if I saw that picture on the front of a magazine, I very much doubt I would notice that it wasn't a real photograph. Guy who did this has got some skill. That said, Greg Nog is right. That Natalie Portman is my new boogieman.

By: Chrischris

Chrischris — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:12:07 -0800

meh. A nice attempt but certainly not state-of-the art. Notice how in all the reference photos (2nd link), except in the one where she's applying makeup, her lower eyelid has a pretty sharply delineated bottom fold which the CGI fellow completely ignores. Also, there is no shadow depth in the space between the bridge of her nose and the inside corner of her right eye--it's dead space which looks like it was clumsily retouched in Photoshop. Also, the phong highlights reflected in both her eyes are exactly the same--in a photograph they would be different and subtly deformed to reflect the angle of the lightsource and curvature of the cornea. The hair is terrible--no single strand flyaways (and there are always flyaways), and insufficiently complex shadow architecture from her bangs on her forehead.

By: VulcanMike

VulcanMike — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:13:51 -0800

certainly an intriguing mile marker on the road out of the valley -- would have been interesting to introduce the image without the up front uncanny valley reference to better measure initial reactions... the distance to cover is not irrefutable realness, but sufficient realness to not stir suspicion -- the uncanny valley is most relevant in terms of gut reaction as the input jumps across one's brain... you see the likeness of a human, but are repulsed by some subtle aspect that gives away the simulation. claim that a real picture is a rendering and you'll likely find plenty of people to cast it in doubt. heck, i'll stir a little conspiracy and claim that the "rendering" is the real picture and the reference pics are digitally generated, but i'd have a hard time convincing myself of that.

By: nixerman

nixerman — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:18:01 -0800

The smile if definitely off. But it's only a matter of time before thse arrogant photographers are end-of-lifed. Good news, I say.

By: bobo123

bobo123 — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:26:34 -0800

Still think this is the most realistic cgi I've seen in a film, from A Series of Unfortunate Events.

By: Brainy

Brainy — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 21:24:00 -0800

The site is down. How sad.

By: killdevil

killdevil — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 21:30:05 -0800

Supertoys last all summer long.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 21:32:10 -0800

How can you spend so much time on image details and then turn it into visual garbage at the final step? The first link is the only one that is a final result, and you can click through that JPG to get a larger one. The second link is what he posted as he went along, so it's not really about quality.

By: painquale

painquale — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 22:22:37 -0800

On first glance I thought it was phenomenal and not at all uncanny. But then I read the comment in the thread about the corners of the mouth, and now that I've taken note of them the face definitely looks a bit freaky.

By: blacklite

blacklite — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 22:47:53 -0800

I think the first link is tremendously awesome, although the hair's a bit off. Hard to do, though, and it doesn't really detract that much. The Natalie Portman image, on the other hand, is oh god bad oh god.

By: effugas

effugas — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:24:48 -0800

bobo-- Real baby's face, fake body. Agreed though, insanely well done.

By: unmake

unmake — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 01:53:41 -0800

It still looks too symmetrical and too smoothly perfect That's kind of the ideal look of celebrity make-up work tough, isn't it? - the shallowest valley to overcome.

By: missbossy

missbossy — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 02:12:49 -0800

>...would think it looked as realistic if the model wasn't asian Interesting idea but I think not in this case. I live in Singapore and her eyes work for me... but the smile and the weird ears lurking in the hair I find odd. Altogether not a bad effort. You don't notice the strangeness unless you look for it. On a daily basis you see more weirdness in the flesh. Now THAT would be a challenge... Instead of reproducing a symmetrical beauty, how about bringing back Rodney Dangerfield?

By: jam_pony

jam_pony — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 02:56:31 -0800

quin answered the interesting question - if these pics appeared in some completely other context, maybe accompanying an article to show a person referred to, how many would notice they weren't photos of humans? I wouldn't have spotted any of the better ones without being alerted to look for it. Definitely on the far side of the valley and about to climb out and head for Blade Runner.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 04:10:21 -0800

How many actors work in the porn industry? Because that's exactly how many porn actors are going to be out of work as soon as they can make full-motion video with characters that look as real as that Song Hye Kyo still, assuming the fakes won't cost too much to generate. The required initial investment in technology might be high and the initial processing might be extensive, but then they could use the same "characters" and "acts" over and over again with slightly different settings and angles and dialog. There would be fewer legal restrictions (because everyone and everything is make-believe) and no diseases, no aging, no fluffers, no sets, no mess... it would be like just making cartoons, only the scripts and voice talent wouldn't have to be as good.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 04:22:24 -0800

pracowity: I wonder what the implications of CGI-porn would be on child pornography laws.

By: snofoam

snofoam — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 04:41:29 -0800

oh man, all asians look the same...even virtual asians. why don't they commit more crimes? no eyewitness could possibly identify an asian suspect. it is pretty darn realistic, though.

By: snofoam

snofoam — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 04:43:03 -0800

also, since we only need one super realistic computer generated asian, now we can start working on other races.

By: RufusW

RufusW — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 05:11:32 -0800

all asians look the same......nope

By: pax digita

pax digita — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 05:49:15 -0800

C_D, I've wondered the same thing myself, and if it can be proven that the artist totally made up an image without using any sort of model, some @$$hole DA is going to try to prosecute anyway, and it'll get overturned on appeal but the DA will have still advanced his/her political career. I'm waiting for a totally CGI full-motion Lillie Langtry, myself. That gal was hawt.

By: kalessin

kalessin — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 06:10:12 -0800

C_D, it was my impression that most modern child porn laws were against the portrayal of the illegal act, not against whether or not the actors existed. But maybe I'm wrong there. I haven't been paying a whole lot of attention.

By: MattD

MattD — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 08:15:38 -0800

Virtual child porn could, and will, be easily prosecuted under existing obscenity statutes and precedents, which attend to content, not the process whereby the content was produced. Don't forget that obscenity law for most of its history was mainly used to prosecute text. Virtual images do create appreciable First Amendment stress but only on threshold matters -- material that is unambiguously child porn will far fall from that threshold. Politics will make this so as much as anything else: the liberals on the Supreme Court want Democrats in the White House, if for no other reason than that Ginsberg, Breyer and Souter want to be able to retire when they've still got a few good years left.

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 11:23:22 -0800

Portman looks like she's 1/2 Jimmy Carter. Also - I miss Max Headroom. That'd be a nifty (and appropriate) live action CG.

By: LeeJay

LeeJay — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 12:14:09 -0800

Wow, that's incredible. I agree that once I start to hunt for things that are off I can pick them out and say, yeah, CG, but if I had stumbled upon that image out of context I would definitely assume it was a photo. That guy has crazy talent. The little details are great, like the slight asymmetry of her nose and the subtle dimpling of the skin on her chin. Actually, the least realistic part of the entire image to me is the fabric of her shirt, which looks too smooth. But again, I only spotted it because I stuck my face up to the monitor and hunted for flaws.

By: poweredbybeard

poweredbybeard — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 14:00:54 -0800

There is still very little can in that valley.

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 17:55:38 -0800

y'know who else is in the uncanny valley? Walken.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 06:11:00 -0800

Virtual child porn could, and will, be easily prosecuted under existing obscenity statutes and precedents, which attend to content, not the process whereby the content was produced. Yes, but the penalty for violating common decency statutes would be far, far less than you would receive for the "real thing." Just sayin'.