Continuing along the thread of human simulacra this week, I’m struck by the advances in rendering human faces and figures using 3d computer graphics software. There’s a thriving international community of 3D artists out there with simply astonishing work. A couple of good places to go to have a gander at the best independent work are 3D Artists and CGTalk, which is a creative board. The image to the left is one such sample by Andreas Hebel. It has a nice illustrated quality to it. Try browsing the thumbnails on 3D Artists…they’re in reverse chronological order. You can go all the way back to 1995 and see how computer graphics rendering has improved over the years in the hands of dedicated artists. Pretty inspiring stuff, with a range of subject matter.

The quest for realistic human 3D modeling has been in progress for quite some time. Perhaps the first female character to pique universal–well, male–interest was the venerable Lara Croft (right). And then there was Square’s 10-year mission to create a compelling photorealistic 3D animated feature, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. That fell pretty flat on its face, unfortunately for Square. Dr. Aki (left) is probably the best known virtual actor from that film.

The public fascination with 3D femmes continues to grow, particularly in places like Japan with their virtual idols. It’s just starting to go mainstream here in the US; Playboy even had a video game character centerfold spread, and a couple of books have appeared.

This stuff is pretty hard to do well: not only do you need to have a fantastic sense of anatomy, you have to be an expert 3d modeller, animator, and texturer lest you fall back into the Uncanny Valley. Check out some of the work at 3dshop…it’s good stuff, but the best characters are a bit more stylized than photorealistic.

On the photorealist front, Kaya (left) is a well-known independent effort to create a photorealistic human (I believe only the head was done back in 2001 when she debuted). I also was checking out the work of Liam Kemp (right).

There’s more to be seen on 3D Artists and CGTalk. Check it out. The Uncanny Valley beckons!