Researchers discover new 'golden ratios' for female facial beauty

They added a picture this time.

"Average" looks is a GOOD thing. :hehe:

General Picture - animating now to life itself(tm)
Member of Content Wizards

This was of course in California...  It would be interesting to see a somewhat more diverse study...

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I make pretty poor quality animations, but this research is nothing new. When I did my degree it was already known thet symetrical features were perceived more positively than asymetrical.

A more interesting experiment we did was to to take photos of people, both male and female, and mirror the faces down the centre line. It was amazing how differently the twin left and twin right were percieved even though the original looked reasonably reasonable.

I have used this trick usefully to make my avatars more or less attractive when making new faces.

Kind regards,

Alex

True about previous results, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. This finding (if true) would be a refinement on the general idea of symmetry, because it's much more specific. I linked to it in case iCloners want to use the finding when they design faces.

IF true. zuijlen makes a very good point. The picture is a youngish, white, middle-class woman, and the subjects were presumably Californians. Despite Hollywood's view of itself as the navel of the universe, there are other cultures out there, too.

The issue of twinning a face is an interesting one that we haven't really tackled on the forum. I assume almost everybody does what I do, which is to twin a face before fitting. This is artistically very artificial and robs our characters of the richness of real life.

Anybody have a take on that?




General Picture - animating now to life itself(tm)
Member of Content Wizards

I do not usually twin a face and try to keep some assymetry. However, I have used some faces that were created through FaceGen or went through some other type of process that normalized the face and made it more symmetrical.  Such faces are definitely easier to map.  However, they also have a tendency to be less interesting as characters...  

If everyone looked similarly "beautiful," it would be utterly boring; both in movies and in real life.  It's funny, I am white myself, but most of the co-workers at my day job are not; many are from India, China, and other parts of Asia.  It broadens my view, I believe.

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I concur that variety is wonderful, why any particular woman falls for a particular man, in the real world, will always be a mystery for me and definitely has little to do with geometry. However in fantasy, it seems a persistent factor so if you want to create a hero or heroine, I think its worth thinking about at least.

Kind regards,

Alex

Hi dear folks!

This subjects is of great interest to me.   I would start by saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".   Also "interesting" is one thing, "beautiful" is another.

If we observe frontal pictures of women known as being "recognized" as beautiful, we will find a definite symmetry within all facial features.   It does not necessarily implies "symmetry" is a must for facial beauty but it is possible too much asymmetry would create a "lack of beauty"; so somehow, symmetry and facial beauty are connected!

I agree it does not make sense trying to find a "set of rules for perfect faces".   My goodness!  This leaves us in a world of ugly people.    Being somewhat mystical,  "the face is a mirror of the soul",  so we can conclude,   making "interesting" faces implies having the luck of embedding some sort of "soul reflection" in them.

iClone4 "face randomizing" utility is certainly a way to explore serendipitous face creation, where we will inevitably "hit the gold pot" and will come up with "interesting faces" starting from a fair one.

Nature uses genetic and of course serendipity to create the uniqueness of human faces.  

Also, the process of making an actual iClone face, with the tools provided , has a lot of randomness in it.   It is an automated process, where the 3D characteristics of the final face come out of certain "software rules" more than anything.   Actually we cannot control or sculpt such three dimensional characteristics as there is no face sculpting features, except for a few general profile adjustments.

So I would say:   Randomize and pick!    That is the way we can come up with interesting faces!     Beauty is another thing.   It is a subjective process altogether!

Mike Aparicio-Reallusion Certified Innovative Content Developer

To follow up on this (from the Belgian newspaper De Standaard):

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Zestien babes verknipt tot de mooiste vrouw ter wereld

dinsdag 26 januari 2010

NVT - Wetenschappers van de universiteit van Toronto hebben de mooiste vrouw ter wereld gevonden. Kijken mag, aankomen behoort niet tot de mogelijkheden. De dame in kwestie is namelijk een digitale collage van zestien ook al behoorlijk knappe dames, genre Natalie Portman, Keira Knightley, Monica Bellucci of Hilary Duff.

De vrouwen werden twee per twee vergeleken, waarna de onderzoekers een nieuw gezicht samenstelden met de eigenschappen die als het mooist ervaren werden. In het uiteindelijke resultaat blijken de lippen van Angelina Jolie prominent aanwezig te zijn, evenals de irissen van Scarlett Johansson, de teint van Megan Fox en de bijtertjes van Jessica Biel. De wetenschappers hadden duidelijk alleen oog voor arische schoonheden: zwarte of Aziatische meisjes zijn compleet afwezig.  

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I guess most of you don't know Flemish, which is really a pity as it is often more colorful than Standard Dutch (oh, you don't know that either?).  Anyway, here is a rough translation in English:

Sixteen babes cut up to create the world's most beautiful woman

Scientists from the University of Toronto have found the world's most beautiful woman.  You can look, but you can't touch. She is a collage of the faces of sixteen woman that don't look half bad themselves.

The women were compared in pairs, after which the researchers assembled a new face with the characteristics that were considered the most beatiful.  In the final result, the lips of Angelina Jolie appear prominently, as well as the irises of Scarlett Johansson, the skin tone of Megan Fox, and the teeth of Jessica Biel.  Apparently, the scientists only have eyes for white [it actually says "aryan"] beauties, black and Asian girls are completely absent. 

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I agree beauty is in the eye of the beholder but culturally based, I think science does an injustice when they don't identify their audience. The application of scientific methods to define standards of beauty created by culture, while it can be used singularly within a given culture, it can't be applied to the whole.

All arts is political, otherwise it would just be decoration. And all artists have something to say, otherwise they'd make shoes.

Earl of Oxford

Agree with Somthinwong. The idea of coming up with a single definition of beauty is flawed to begin with. Based on only one race/culture and claim to be the "world's most beautiful" is way over-reaching.

I doubt these are real scientists - scientists are well trained in recognizing the limitations of their works and very careful about forming their conclusions. These are probably a bunch of guys who have not had a date for a long time. One day over beer in one of the guy's basement apartment, they decided to go through his babe photo collection and created a virtual girl.