Meet Saya, an Ultra Realistic, Computer Generated Japanese Schoolgirl

Jake Martinez

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Creepily enough she looks identical to a girl that I dated in college, right down to the tiny mole under the left eye. I'm actually weirded-out right now.
 

Jake Martinez

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Cowabungaa said:
Also, goddammit, why a school girl again? Get over that creepy obsession already Japan, please.
You should write the Diet (国会) and suggest a saturation limit for the representations of schoolgirls in Japanese media. After all, you appear to be some sort of authority on what's acceptable, so why would they argue with that solid reasoning?

o_O
 

Cowabungaa

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Jake Martinez said:
You should write the Diet (国会) and suggest a saturation limit for the representations of schoolgirls in Japanese media. After all, you appear to be some sort of authority on what's acceptable, so why would they argue with that solid reasoning?

o_O
Oh definitely, because my 'reasoning', of which there was none as I only gave a curtly worded opinion, also apparently implies calls for censorship, which it doesn't. Come now, surely you're better than playing rhetorical games.

More ontopic:
I wonder if they want to take this to the next level, aka get it animated. Then we'll see how well her realism holds up.
 

Casual Shinji

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McElroy said:
Casual Shinji said:
I've seen in-game character models that look more realistic than this.
Really? I can't say I believe you. Pics or gtfo didn't happen.
There's two kinds of 'realistic' in this regard; Physical realism, and the impression of life. If you told me this was the newest real-doll I'd be inclined to believe you. But anyone trying to even remotely pass this off as indistinguishable from a real life, flesh and blood human really needs to get out more. Bugs Bunny is more lifelike than this girl.

It looks very realistically rubber, but that's a bout it. Heck, even rubber has texture.

I'm sure a lot of work went into making this, but it looks too pristine, which is likely due to Japan's obsession with girls being all pure and demure.
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

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Casual Shinji said:
There's two kinds of 'realistic' in this regard; Physical realism, and the impression of life. If you told me this was the newest real-doll I'd be inclined to believe you. But anyone trying to even remotely pass this off as indistinguishable from a real life, flesh and blood human really needs to get out more. Bugs Bunny is more lifelike than this girl.
You're only saying that because you know that she isn't real. If you saw this picture somewhere on the internet you'd probably think it was some kind of fashion model. Heavily Photoshopped and with a lot of makeup perhaps, but real nonetheless. There's nothing about her that looks like CGI or plastic.
 
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Adam Jensen said:
If you saw this picture somewhere on the internet you'd probably think it was some kind of fashion model. Heavily Photoshopped and with a lot of makeup perhaps, but real nonetheless.
Funny since that's exactly what happened to me yesterday. I had to doublecheck after reading the comments underneath the picture, and i'd still say the stillshot has jumped over uncanny valley, even if it currently is standing on it's verge.
 

BX3

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Calling to question how it'll look in motion is pretty fair. I honestly don't think there's a computer that'd be able to handle it even if they got the animation itself perfect. Too much info, too many bones, most computers would break, the ones a couple of freelance artists can afford anyway.

Calling straight-up bullshit on the skepticism of the photo itself, though. I'm with Adam Jensen, I've seen made-up models and cosplay artists that look exactly like this. The only thing that really bothers me is the ever-so-slightly off shadowing, and even that i had to spend a good 3 minutes searching for.
 

McElroy

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Casual Shinji said:
McElroy said:
Casual Shinji said:
I've seen in-game character models that look more realistic than this.
Really? I can't say I believe you. Pics or gtfo didn't happen.
There's two kinds of 'realistic' in this regard; Physical realism, and the impression of life. If you told me this was the newest real-doll I'd be inclined to believe you. But anyone trying to even remotely pass this off as indistinguishable from a real life, flesh and blood human really needs to get out more. Bugs Bunny is more lifelike than this girl.

It looks very realistically rubber, but that's a bout it. Heck, even rubber has texture.

I'm sure a lot of work went into making this, but it looks too pristine, which is likely due to Japan's obsession with girls being all pure and demure.
Alright, makes sense. Comparing Saya to photoshopped pictures of models, I can't tell much difference. But comparing it to the promo render of new Nathan Drake... well, there are more "mistakes" in Drake that make it look less like a photomodel, but more like a person who has been through stuff.

I jumped on the word 'realism' as the commenters seemingly use it to mean different things than the article's title. Another thing is that I kinda like trying to visualise fictional characters as how they would look like as a beings standing next to me. Bugs Bunny in that case is a complete no show whereas Saya defeats the purpose.
 

Terminal Blue

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It's good enough that I suspect I wouldn't notice it was a synthetic image if it was shown to me blind.. Looking very, very closely, I find the skin to be a bit off (I think my brain can't decide if she's meant to be wearing a ton of makeup or not, because there's visual cues going both ways).
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Casual Shinji said:
And I can still easily tell, even in the pictures. Just a tip; It's the imperfections that give something realism. You look at her hair and not one strand is out of place. Even her shirt looks unrealistically pristine. I've seen in-game character models that look more realistic than this.
Personally I am fan of more "Realistic" CGI like this. I have a dislike of recent animated CG movies like Pixar and Dreamworks for being too cartoony. I have more respect for animator that worked painstakingly hard to make a realistic looking human with skin textures and individual hair strands and realistic proportions. Its why I like movies like 2007 Beowulf and Jim Carrey's A Christmas Carol.

People criticize that kind of Realistic CG as very Uncanny Valley, but persoanlly I find giving realistic hair strands and realistic skin texture to very cartoony looking characters in Frozen more Uncanny Valley than something like Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls.

Its like looking at Mario like this:

http://media.moddb.com/images/downloads/1/45/44610/mario.jpg

That is the Uncanny Valley to me not this:

http://jamestombs.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/beowulf.jpg
 

Tiamat666

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The couple announced that as their next project, they will be working on a hyper-realistic nymphomaniac octopus.
 

the December King

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I don't think this would have deceived me coming at it not having been told, personally. There is a supremely staged quality to her looks that I find leaves her 'standing on the cliffs above the valley', so to speak, but still there.

I mean no disrespect, it's still an excellent CG model- perhaps, some better environments and render software would make her feel more real? One of my biggest problems with CG works is still the need for everything to be so clearly defined... some blowout and post fx to nest her better in those stills might go a long way towards achieving that effect.

Again, just my 2 cents- when I came here, for some reason I had assumed that she was programmed to be a realistic schoolgirl, not just be (an albeit fine example of) cg modelling.
 

JohnZ117

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RatGouf said:
But does she have a sister named Diva?

On topic, yeah, we're definitely going to need to see motion and talking to decide which side of the Uncanny valley she's on.
 

Spaceman Spiff

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EndlessSporadic said:
This article seems to have selectively picked the information on this project and the two creators for a click-baity article. The two creators are freelance 3DCG artists who have created a variety of other pieces of art including men, futuristic military soldiers, orcs/ogres, and other strange creatures. A schoolgirl happens to be one of their more recent creations and it isn't all that uncommon for artists, including Western artists, to draw scenes involving a place of learning.

Do check out the website linked in the article (the first link provided). Some of their works are pretty good.
But all of that other stuff doesn't have the potential creep-factor to get a rise out of people.

OT: Pretty real looking. A casual glance and no headline and I wouldn't have suspected it wasn't a real person.
 

Doom972

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The co-star has already been announced:
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... I'll see myself out.
 

Kahani

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McElroy said:
Comparing Saya to photoshopped pictures of models, I can't tell much difference.
Sure. If you compare a computer generated picture with another computer generated picture, it's hard to tell which is real. That's because neither of them are. That's the whole point of photoshopping models - to make them look like something that can't actually exist in reality, otherwise they wouldn't need to bother with photoshop. And the amount of editing that is used these days generally means that there's no more real photo left than there is with Saya. The same goes for cosplay - people cover themselves with tons of makeup specifically to hide their actual skin and instead make them look like something that has been drawn or computer generated. It's hardly surprising that a computer generated picture can look like someone going to great lengths to make themselves look like a computer generated picture.

What would be impressive would be managing to get a computer generated picture to look like an actual person with no editing involved. And, as others have mentioned, to do so in motion and not just still pictures. Like others, I'm not saying this isn't a pretty impressive piece of compute art, but it still looks a long way from actually fooling people into thinking it's a real girl, unless the real girl you're comparing with is also going to great lengths to pretend she isn't one.

the December King said:
perhaps some better environments and render software would make her feel more real?
I was thinking that too. In the second picture in particular it's incredibly that the girl and the background are entirely separate pictures. That makes things look fake even when it's a real person being photoshopped onto a different background. A neutral background like the third picture is much better since there are less clues that make the difference between foreground and background stand out.
 

Jake Martinez

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Cowabungaa said:
Jake Martinez said:
You should write the Diet (国会) and suggest a saturation limit for the representations of schoolgirls in Japanese media. After all, you appear to be some sort of authority on what's acceptable, so why would they argue with that solid reasoning?

o_O
Oh definitely, because my 'reasoning', of which there was none as I only gave a curtly worded opinion, also apparently implies calls for censorship, which it doesn't. Come now, surely you're better than playing rhetorical games.
Well, I thought it was more humorous to be sarcastic than to point out your cultural xenophobia!

Here's a deal: In Japan, all young girls are school girls. In fact, they go to school 6 days a week and most students will have to attend bukatsu (particularly sports clubs) on Saturday and Sunday and wear either their uniforms or sports gear to school. It's almost to the point in some areas that seeing a student outside of a uniform is actually fairly rare. Furthermore, the girl is wearing a standard highschool shirt and tie and not even a seifuku which are the "sailor suits (sera fuku)" that seem to be fetishized (much like catholic school girl uniforms or cheerleader uniforms in the west). This too is fairly normal as most high schools wear standard blazer and dress clothes these days and no longer wear seifuku or the military style gakuran for boys.

So my point here is simple: This is an incredibly normal part of daily life in Japan. The "girl" in the picture looks incredibly normal and her attire is also incredibly normal. The only thing abnormal about this is someone going off on a rant about how the Japanese have a fixation on schoolgirls based off what I can only assume is an ill informed cultural interpretation based on consuming shitty anime. As someone who's both spent his entire life attending private schools as well as having lived in Japan, I don't bat an eye at this. I'd suggest that if for some reason you find this "creepy" or otherwise sexualized, then the problem might be you and your fetishes.
 

Mortuorum

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flying_whimsy said:
Checked the website, and I can still think of only one word: waifu. She'll make a lot of lonely otaku happy.

That said, I'm wondering when the hentai/jav of her will come out. That'll be hilarious.
I can't check the site at work; it's classified Pornography. I think that answers all my questions.