Is La Perla using Poser CGI virtual models in its New York Times ads?

Man, I have to try and find an online image of this.

I have been looking at a lot of ghastly book covers made with the "Poser" human 3D modeling program. It has kind of sensitized me to the poser physique and posture, and especially the awkward, stiff hands.

So this morning as I was reading the physical New York Times, the corner of my eye was caught by something screaming "Poser."

Down at the bottom of page three of today's paper is an ad for La Perla showing a model in a bra.

She looks like a very high end Poser ... thing. She's got the Poser button nose and the Poser preternatural skin and the notorious Poser shoulders and the featureless stiff Poser hand. They are all skillfully done, better than most Poser stuff, but I am looking at this and thinking "My gods, it's Poser."

So maybe I am a madwoman. I'll see if I can get an image up.

The Poser program of virtual three-dimensional human figures was originally meant as an aid to artists. Unfortunately, many people take it as a super easy drag and drop way of depicting human figures without needing to know any art.

Unfortunately, you really do need to understand art and anatomy to make the program produce acceptable ( I will not say brilliant) results. Otherwise they can be just plain terrifying.

Poser figures are immediately recognizable and are offputting in an uncanny valley way. Their hands are especially horrible, but they also have distinctive knobby shoulders and some common postures which show up again and again. Hair is often very weird.

Here are a couple of places which collect offputting Poser art:

http://lousybookcovers.com/?tag=pseudohumans
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?523232-ENOUGH-WITH-THE-BAD-3D-POSER-ART!

I have seen better uses of Poser, but not as yet any that really overcome the weaknesses of shape and especially those hands. Looking at these and many other examples, I began to be sensitized to the particular Poser aesthetic.

And here's the ad that screamed Poser (albeit really good Poser gone over by a pro) to the corner of my eye this morning:

Good grief. It's like they Photoshopped all the personality out of her.

Sorry then. Clearly my eye was mistaken.

This is the best-looking Poser-generated cover I've found to date.

It's not a bad cover, but even here the anatomy is off and those hands are just not working.

I wonder if we are seeing a convergence of the aesthetics of virtual pseudohumans and drastically Photoshopped real humans.

Poser or Photoshop, I suspect that in a hundred years these images will look as bizarre as this sort of thing does to us today.

ave said:

If done well you can get good results and it doesn't cost that much. I would be happy with any of these on my cover:

One
Two
Three
Four

Click to expand...

"If done well" is the tripping point there.

The finest examples of experienced professionals look pretty good.

The trouble with Poser is that it feels like it ought to be easy even for the untrained nonprofessionals (much the same way it feels like writing is so easy anyone ought to be able to do it).

People who don't have any training or understanding or even awareness that they need any understanding of anatomy, composition, lighting, color, space, perspective, layout, and typography are given the false impression that this program will take care of the hard stuff for them.

It seems to be analogous to self-publishing. For every one cover that looks like one of those links, there are hundreds that look like this one.