Virtual Models Come To Life

K. turned us on to this one: an announcement by Elite, the world's largest model agency, about a new division they've set up that supplies nothing but computer-generated models. Plastic surgeons may be in trouble if this catches on, but we all knew it was inevitable. The idea has been an SF staple since the 1930s, but this is the first time that computer-generated, animated models have been offered by a big-time modeling agency as a serious alternative to real, flesh-and-blood (and silicon) supermodels. I'd go into more detail, but you can get it all by going directly to the press release.

Comments

Women's feelings

[Kaa]

I know there are plenty of Women who bemoan the fact that they "don't look like the models do". How are they going to feel when the models are computer generated and may have anatomical configurations not even possible in real life? In the computer they can tweak everything, muscle tone, body fat, hell they can even tweak gravity if they feel like it.

Women will deal with it exactly like they deal with the rest of real life. Are you telling us that extra-beautiful is bad because it may make some people have lower self-esteem? So what? If they have a problem with that, they should go to a shrink and sort out the insides of their heads. Not to mention that too-beautiful-to-be-real women have been around for ages. Should women have fits because they don't have the eyes of Boticelli's Venus? or the smile of da Vinci's Mona Lisa? or the body of Goya's Maja? What about the Vargas girls (Playboy 1960-70s)?

To continue this line of reasoning shouldn't Arnold Schwarzenegger be prohibited from public appearances because 99.99% of male population has nothing like his physique? Shouldn't we prohibit Ferrari and Lamborgini to make cars because the same 99.99% of population cannot afford it? Should we ban the TV show "The lifestyles of rich and famous"? (actually, the answer to the last question is 'yes', but for different reasons).

Nobody is perfect. If seeing perfection gives you psychological problems, it's your problem -- fix your head.

Kaa

GPL

[euroderf]

We want source files.

Hackety-hack ...

Re:The media *is* blamed for people's self esteems

[Kaa]

Like it or not, quite a large portion of society feels this way. I know many feminists who rant on and on about how they despise models because they set "an impossible standard" against which all women unconsciously compare themselves. The feminists are certainly not the only ones who feel this is true, either.

So? There is a very old joke about an Englishman and a Frenchman watching a guy go by them in a Rolls-Royce. The Englishman says: "I dream of the day when I also would be able to drive around in a Rolls-Royce like that man". The Frenchman says: "I dream of the day when I will be able to get that man out of his Rolls-Royce and force him to walk on the sidewalk like I'm doing!".

Feminists ranting about models implicitly take a position that "if I cannot be as beautiful as that model, then that model has no right to be beautiful at all, or at the very least she should hide her beauty and not annoy me by reminding me of my imperfections". I agree that a lot of people feel that way (though most of them probably do not express it that explicitly), but that does not make them right, or make their position defensible.

Certainly quite a number of American women are obsessed with weight. I know a number of fairly intelligent women who work desperately to acquire or maintain a medically unhealthy weight. They feel they are "too fat", no matter what medical science tells them.

Certainly quite a number of American men are obsessed with money. I know a number of fairly intelligent men who work desperately to acquire an unreasonable amount of money. They feel they are "not rich enough", no matter that they are sacrificing their life in the process.

So?

Kaa

Thanks guys, but it's a bit more complex.

[fable2112]

The pressure doesn't come from most men. It comes from other women.

I'm 5'10" and last time I was at the doctor's office, I weighed 187 pounds. This makes me 15-30 pounds overweight depending on who you ask (though the doctor said not to worry about it because other than that and my ever-present hypoglycemia, I am in very good health).

When I was a 13-year-old wannabe model, I was 5'6" or so, weighed in at 115 pounds, and thought THAT was fat. It's a damn good thing I'm hypoglycemic -- the headaches and dizzy spells I would get if I skipped meals stopped me from becoming anorexic. No joke.

I was also not-particularly-attractive-to-boys. After I went to college and gained weight, I had NO trouble attracting the opposite sex, or interested parties of the same sex. (Started college at 155, ended up at the aforementioned 187.)

Those who have seen my picture will swear "but you couldn't possibly weigh that much!"

Here's a clue, guys ... make that two:

I'm 5'10", and the average woman is 5'5" or so.

Women tend to lie about their weight because the socially accepted numbers are, for some bizarre reason, 5'7" and 115-125 pounds.

A man with my height and weight might be thought to be slightly heavy but wouldn't get the "you must be a fat PIG!" reaction. Granted, women on average weigh less than men on average. But even at the IDEAL weight for someone of my height (155-170 or so), others would have the "fat pig" reaction to the numbers.

Now, all that said, I've only been told that I must be, or am, a fat pig by two groups of people: clueless net-trolls (like the one who told me I'm too fat to fence), and heterosexual women.

Anyway, guys, whatever you may have been led to believe, the ladies aren't putting on makeup, obsessively dieting, etc. for YOU. They're competing with each other, at least in part because "beauty" is one of the few traditionally acceptable areas for women to compete with each other (or at all!) in.

And ladies ... most men don't want to date someone with a perfectly made-up face who picks at a salad at dinner so she won't get fat. And the ones that DO are seriously not worth your time if doing this sort of thing makes you uncomfortable.

*grin*

Movies mirrored here

[mulle]

Just in case anybody wants them...

body.mpg
hipwag1.mpg
hipwag2.mpg
hipwag3.mpg
walk-1-dress.mpg
walk-2-dress.mpg
walk-3-dress.mpg

speech.mpg is over 5 megs but I'll upload it as soon as I get it here.

Some points to consider

[joshv]

- Is the look of the model copyright-able? Anyone with a sufficiently powerful computer will eventually be able to generate virtual models. Will anything stop them from cloning the look of each other's models?

- I think a picture of a person has a different legal status than other types of pictures or computer generated images. What are the implications of this?

- Computer porno - these girls will do ANYTHING for free.

- Clothing, in particular fabric texture and the way fabric moves on the body is devillishly hard to simulate. Sure, they will have some stock simulated fabric types but what the model is wearing will never look/behave exactly the same way the garment does in real life.

- Some other people have pointed this out already: These models are not constrained by the human genome. They will eventually mutate into a gross caricature of the human form. Each fashion mag that uses them will tweak the current look just a bit. Bigger boobs, smaller waist, etc... Presto chango, eventually we've got barbie all over again.

-josh

I Was a Teenage Modeling Student

[fable2112]

Back when I was a skinny 13-year-old wannabe actress in dire need of learning to be graceful, I was interviewed by a modeling school and told that I "had the look" and would be a wonderful model.

My family paid almost $1000 for the classes -- and that didn't include the high heeled shoes I had to bring so I could learn to walk gracefully in them, or the makeup and makeup brushes we were "required" to have, or the photo sessions.

None of it ever went anywhere, of course. And now that I'm a not-quite-skinny 21-year-old, I'm told that I'd be a good artist's model or perhaps "large size" model (I really hate that term -- the average woman wears a size 14, folks -- try "average-sized" model).

I agree with the person who pointed out that giving teenagers CGI models to "measure up" to is likely to cause more problems. It's bad enough that in some cases, men with padded bras are considered "better" models for women's clothing than WOMEN are, because men can get down to a lower % body fat without it causing health problems.

Sorry for the rant -- this just brought up some bad memories.