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[team_q]

Sorry about that. As an apology, here's another awesome robo-animal video.

hahahahaha, awesome, I wish they had a speaker built into it so when it slips it would swear, I think that would be extra funny.

[fish]

haha omg lol at heavy rain.
ok, first off all, david cage is the biggest fucking douchebag in the industry.
now that this is out of the way.

remember the super creepy E3 06 heavy rain demo?
with the crying girl with the horseface?
that's uncanney valley.
you look at some grunt in halo 3n and you'r eobviously looking at a game character. nothing on hi will register as being "off" because you're clearly in this polygonal fantasy world and everthing just meshes. like derek said, it's the small things. when everything is almost perfect and then this one tiny little thing clearly isnt human. that creeps you out.

a while ago, david cage proudly proclaimed that they had passed through the uncanny valley, and that their game was perfectly photorealist. obvious giant pile of lies.
because then, all they had to show for it was that super close up of some girl's eye moving around. it was perfect! so good!
but ill bet you a million dollars that has the camera zoomed out to reveal the girl's entire face as she started to talk... you would have been creeped out.
they have the perfectly modelized and mo-caped EYE, but i bet if you look at the WHOLE, there would be a tiny little telling detail, and fuck david cage.

[Steve Swink]

Fish: Seconded. 

Remember, though, that the extremes of the uncanny valley as originally described by Mori were essentially "zombie" and "healthy human." That part often gets lost in translation - it's not about the appearance of being a human so much as it is the instinct to feel revulsion when you see a human corpse. Human-looking things that move and act unnaturally are like animated corpses to us, apparently.

[fish]

solution: make all games zombies games?

[Bree]

solution: make all games zombies games?

Fish: 1
Game Developers Trapped in the Uncanny Valley: 0

[Steve Swink]

solution: make all games zombies games?

Braaaains.

[Seth]

Actually I think the real solution is to hire actors and use full motion video instead "graphics"

[Bree]

Actually I think the real solution is to hire actors and use full motion video instead "graphics"

Night Trap remake, anyone?

[moi]

Actually I think the real solution is to hire actors and use full motion video instead "graphics"

I take it that you were not born in  1995?

[Golds]

I can sympathize with it more than that supposedly happy baby (fucking creepy) in the Tin Toy short.

Bear in mind that the creepy baby was done using techniques over 20 years old, I actually think a lot of its creepiness may be due to some of the unnatural folds produced (I assume) as artifacts from trying to model and animate it using bezier patches (?).  those with better 3d knowledge might know better.

[increpare]

Actually I think the real solution is to hire actors and use full motion video instead "graphics"

I don't know, I find that actors rarely across in their performances as being convincing humans.

[William Broom]

I think the Uncanny Valley can be quite subjective, but holds up as a general rule. For example I don't find the Heavy Rain trailer weird at all, but I really hated the characters in Oblivion and Beowulf. Who would have guessed that a topless Angelina Jolie could be so repulsive?

[Bree]

I think the Uncanny Valley can be quite subjective, but holds up as a general rule. For example I don't find the Heavy Rain trailer weird at all, but I really hated the characters in Oblivion and Beowulf. Who would have guessed that a topless Angelina Jolie could be so repulsive?

On a side note, did anybody else find the fact that Grendel had high heels for feet incredibly hilarious?

[Snake]

The uncanny valley commes up only when characters or robots try to *be* human. I noticed Advent children mentioned as being 'less creepy', and it's simply because the humans in the move are subtle abstractions.


(random google image despire fear of hotlinking)

It might not be as appearant looking at the pictures alone, motion is an added factor, but the characters don't appear out of place due to consistancy. They're blended with lighting and designs, as well as simmilar characters and movement that make them fit in. If you placed one of the models in real life next to an actual human, the illusion is broken and you get a puppet, regardless of the lighting. It might be possible to actually create a fake human in CG (not counting people wearing cloaks, Gollum or something like the Hulk, but a normal human being) But the slightest error will give it away, which gives it a colossal probability for failure. I've found 3d artworks that I actually thought were photographs, and could barely believe it when someone pointed out that it was 3d, but of course, this isn't a complete impersination.

Robots are the perfect example, because they can't be taken out of context. Now, we've made great progress with motion capture, so subtle full-body movement can now be captured, but the really subtle details are what's going to be the challenge now. Unless you actually completely fool the viewer into thinking an object is human, you miss the mark.

[William Broom]

Now I think about it, the only characters in Advent Children that I found 'uncanny' were the children. I think it's because they had a more realistic look to them, partly due to the lack of outlandish character design. Whereas the main characters looked much more like anime due to the spiky hair, sunglasses, excess belts and so on.

[medieval]

It's probably real, but we're nearly through that stage.

I find this quite on the convincing side.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/24386.html


Oh by the way,

has quite some good emotions in it.

[Bree]

This is mighty impressive as well.

I haven't seen Kung Fu Panda yet, but it looks like fun.

[muku]

Also makes me think of the work of Steven Stahlberg:

http://www.androidblues.com/gallery/5/

From the hair and face, one can still see that it's CG, but for me there's nothing uncanny here. In fact I don't really believe in that whole Uncanny Valley business, there are no scientific results to back the theory up.

[Derek]

http://kotaku.com/5034534/these-talking-heads-are-freaky-real-mostly-freaky

Okay, now we're gettin' somewhere!

[Snake]

Also makes me think of the work of Steven Stahlberg:

http://www.androidblues.com/gallery/5/

From the hair and face, one can still see that it's CG, but for me there's nothing uncanny here. In fact I don't really believe in that whole Uncanny Valley business, there are no scientific results to back the theory up.

The 'uncanny valley' is just a term used to describe when fake humans try to actually mimic humans, but fail to do it completely, and thus breaks the illusion. In that sense, the only question you need to ask is: Does a near perfect human stand out?

Like it was mentioned earlier in the topic, this was mostly centered around robotics, and it's really the only arena you can properly test it because it's impossible to take real life out of context, whereas graphics can always be put in a setting that somehow justifies the mistakes.

Even though it's not the best example since it's a picture, I'm still going to use Derek's vid as an example. The motion caputre and models are amazingly lifelike and  human-like, but then you try to take it out of context:



Anyone that can't spot something that's wrong here? 

Not the best example, but still pretty effective.