The uncanny valley

Robotics

Robotics

魔女旅人
Joined
Mar 9, 2012
Messages
1,800
Location
Taipei City, Taiwan
I dislike how many CGI animated films now veer towards the aspect of being ultra-realistic, and it ends up being uncomfortable as hell to watch. This is the uncanny valley... ugh...
CGI-Face-640x353.jpg


What are your thoughts on this?



And what if animation becomes so advanced that live-action and animation become indistinguishable?!
It scares me to even think about it...
 
I've heard about this before. This phenomenan always creeped me out. It's hard to make something look right when you're going for a realistic look because human's will notice even the minute detail if it's off, and the whole character will end up looking creepy from it. There's a very thing line between making something look completely realistic and so close to being realistic that it's creepy.

I think it's kinda weird that people are going for the super realistic look nowadays when it comes to video games. Wheres the fun it that? It kinda limits your creative mind because you can't stylize things. That's the problem with it. If you stylize something realistic then it looks off and you're in the uncanny valley. You can only stylize cartoony things and imo that gives you more creative freedom to be original and unique in your style. Lots of video games look the same now because of this strive to be realistic and it just seems bland to me. This is why I much prefer independent stuff.

I think pixar is doing it right with their cartoony characters in 3d. It gives off more of a cute and appealing demeaner than the creepy uncanny valley effect.
 
why try to make it ultra-realistic? why not just do live-action? not to mention a live-action movie takes less time to make.

that picture is a poor example. imo. doesn't really look uncanny enough.
 
I think, like anything else CGI is a tool. And in the right hands it can be fantastic, and in the wrong hands it can be abominable. Without CGI we wouldn't have movies like Gravity, which while I thought the movie in general was just OK (in terms of acting, script, etc), the experience of it all was very cool and unique, and sometimes watching great cinematic experiences is just as interesting as watching a compelling drama. It really opens the door of cinema to endless possibilities which is exciting.

The uncanny valley is obviously something that's ridiculously tough to overcome, as the closer it gets the creepier it looks. However there have been CGI creations that are virtually indistinguishable from reality, and someday CGI humans will be too.
 
The Ninja Turtles movie coming out has this imo

* shudders *

i don't see the point in either, just hire real actors.
 
Swoony said:
I think pixar is doing it right with their cartoony characters in 3d. It gives off more of a cute and appealing demeaner than the creepy uncanny valley effect.
Click to expand...

Maybe it's just me, but the human characters seen in Pixar's older films (Toy Story to Finding Nemo) still looks kinda creepy.

(And better examples of uncanny valley than the pic above can be found in Robert Zemeckis' motion-capture movies).
 
Swoony said:
I think it's kinda weird that people are going for the super realistic look nowadays when it comes to video games. Wheres the fun it that?
Click to expand...

Because there's a horde of little bastards out there that only care about graphics when it comes to games. Not a shit to be given about gameplay, story, voice acting, music or anything else. As long as it looks super real, is a first person shooter and has an online mode where you can run around calling people little bitch ******s through the headset while bragging about your sniping skills you can be assured it'll be a winner.

Now, moving away from the extreme annoyance of that particular mindset and onto the Uncanny Valley itself. While I can appreciate the attempts to make something look that realistic for the purposes of testing the limits of the latest technology, I do think that it's far too overdone in terms of the growing need to make video games that are essentially interactive movies with little to no involvement from the player outside of QTEs and choosing things to say. Stuff like "Heavy Rain" and "Beyond Two Souls" where it just doesn't feel like you're even playing a game half the time is the most extreme example I can think of. If you wanna do that, then just make a fucking movie.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top