More Realistic Rendered Flesh

The Renderman writes "Check out this ubercool new rendering technique for skin from the guys who invented photon mapping. They also have several animations to demonstrate the technique - all rendered using Linux :) It makes those faces in Final Fantasy look like plastic. This technology should make the actors in Hollywood more nervous than what they saw in FF." The examples prove that human skin needs more blemishes. Without zits, pimples, moles, or scars, the skin still looks fake, it is definitely a cool step forward.

Comments

I beg to differ...

[pelrun]

If that were the case, then how come animation does so well? Even series/movies from american studios which tend not to have the dramatic range of anime.

I know *I* have been deeply affected by some of the anime I have watched, and I know many other people that have as well.

Secondly - your basic assumption is faulty. Even with animated works (cel or cg) there is a real person behind each character. Because whilst the image may be completely fake, the VOICES are not.

Now, given the current speech synthesis technology, if a series was voiced using it I *would* be put off. Because the voices have just as big an effect on the emotional impact of a show as the visuals. Hell, I think they have more. Many a fantastic anime series/movie has been ruined by a pathetic english dub cast.

And there is another medium for stories that has NO dependence on live people for the telling - BOOKS. By your reasoning books must be the most boring things in the world, because by definition all the characters in them are entirely fictional. And if none of the people you talked to are interested in books, they are hardly a representative sample, are they?

Read the article and don't "Assume"

[mauddib~]

If you had read the article, Commander, you had found out that this new technology in rendering is based on subsurface scattering.

Instead of assuming that light will scatter to all places on top of the surface it also scatters inside the material.

This is, because not all materials are non-translucent. For example: milk looks as a non-translucent white, but a very tiny drop of milk is actually translucent.

The same goes for skin, Guinness and snow. By assuming that the light will not scatter back at the same place as the light impacts the material, but also makes a little travel inside the material, the overal image looks much more confincing.

Please read before commenting, Taco :]

Re:the obvious applications

[j7953]

There was an article a while back about someone using a game engine as a basis for the production of a motion picture.

Oh, you mean Tomb Raider?