The Uncanny Valley - Where things are creepy.

LAGtheNoggin · Post by **LAGtheNoggin** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 8:52 am

An interesting little read about realism and its folleys. Found it on Evil Avatar in reference to all the realism chasing in games these days.

http://www.arclight.net/~pdb/glimpses/valley.html

Note how much emphasis there is on movement for a reaction; this is probably why a lot of people don't like sprite comics. It's not as bad as 'flat movement' (realistic movement but something's missing) which is when things dwell into Uncanny Valley territory, but sprites are pretty low, whever they are.

I sort of knew this kind of thing was going on but it's nice to see it all in graphs and with the Dr. prefix ^_^

So. Um. Yes. Discuss.

PDI · Post by **PDI** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 9:52 am

I love that article. It explains so much.

Hank · Post by **Hank** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 10:01 am

...Such as why these kids have been giving me nightmares.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 10:25 am

All explained scientifically.

Amberchrome · Post by **Amberchrome** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 10:31 am

Hank wrote:...Such as why these kids have been giving me nightmares.

I wouldn't know how much to make from just the trailer, but that kid is definitely missing some essential qualities, at least from what I saw. His face was lacking in animation - in life, boys that age have faces like rubber. In my own comic, my robot character's design, among other things, deliberately pushes artificiality into your face, so that people deaing with her get over it in two minutes and then get down to business.

Fadedflame · Post by **Fadedflame** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 11:23 am

It makes sense, though I'm not sure I agree with movement being more important than apperance.

Anthros, well that's just a well known fact with the creative community.

Though, it's also good to note that this chart works on the 'normal' or 'average' human, but not everything. Least I think so. Alway good to know that you don't have to play by the chart, there are always going to be people who perfer the exact opposite.

~Faded

LAGtheNoggin · Post by **LAGtheNoggin** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 12:20 pm

Being a self proclaimed animator I have to disagree and say movement is definitely the big thing. Just think of a beetle walking on its hinds legs and sipping tea; the look and aesthetics of the bug doesn't count for a huge deal, it's mostly about how it moves and what it does that makes it endearing. In the same way a corpse is creepy simply because it doesn't move correctly, it's about as real a human as you can visibly get but it ain't moving and that's what counts. By moving I'm not really refering to animation and actual movement though, just the feel that this thing can move, it has the right stance and pose for its weight and life etc.

And yes, it's definitely true that the chart doesn't apply for everyone. Enough exposure and familiarity with something and you can take them becoming more real, heck, it's how I'm so used to Furry porn.

Fadedflame · Post by **Fadedflame** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 12:43 pm

LAGtheNoggin wrote:Being a self proclaimed animator I have to disagree and say movement is definitely the big thing. Just think of a beetle walking on its hinds legs and sipping tea; the look and aesthetics of the bug doesn't count for a huge deal, it's mostly about how it moves and what it does that makes it endearing. In the same way a corpse is creepy simply because it doesn't move correctly, it's about as real a human as you can visibly get but it ain't moving and that's what counts. By moving I'm not really refering to animation and actual movement though, just the feel that this thing can move, it has the right stance and pose for its weight and life etc.

And yes, it's definitely true that the chart doesn't apply for everyone. Enough exposure and familiarity with something and you can take them becoming more real, heck, it's how I'm so used to Furry porn.

I guess that's more of a personal view then. Corpses, zombies, bugs walking on their hind legs don't phase me. Huh, maybe I just see things differently. (THough I think the Dawn of the Dead remake follows more along my line of thinking, they move like humans but don't look right.)

~Faded

JexKerome · Post by **JexKerome** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 4:44 am

Except, of course, that furry porn along with the walking dead and tea-sipping bugs are not real; the fact that you know this is what makes you able to accept them easily.

The doctor is talking about the effect REAL artificial beings will have on people. One good example is the Polar Express trailer, since the animation tries to be realistic. Another more visceral example, in my opinion, would be the talking "girl" doll from the movie "The Sixth Day". The latter has more impact since it's a live action movie; the doll is supposed to emulate a living being as close as possible, and so the differences to a real child are the more jarring; I couldn't help but wince everytime it spoke up or appeared onscreen. It just felt wrong, even though I knew I was watching a movie. The characters in the movie were also reacting to it the same way.

It seems the doctor's point is that R2-D2 style robots will be more easily accepted by humanity than life-like androids, since the latter would inspire in us feelings of repulsion due to the incongruity of what we're seeing and what we know, or rather what we're seeing and what our brains tell us we SHOULD be seeing. A duck that looks like a duck but doesn't quack like a duck is going to make you uncomfortable. And even if you could get used to it, this big "acceptance gap" could spell the success or failure of the android as a commercial product, specially since humanl ooks would only be of use among humans; a robot in a fully-automated factory would have no use or need for them.

IVstudios · Post by **IVstudios** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 9:56 am

I always thought it was racist to assume all zombies and orks were evil.

JexKerome wrote:Except, of course, that furry porn along with the walking dead and tea-sipping bugs are not real; the fact that you know this is what makes you able to accept them easily.

I don't quite get the point your trying to make with this. Are you saying that zombies are less scary because we know that they

Fadedflame · Post by **Fadedflame** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 12:09 pm

ivstudios wrote:I always thought it was racist to assume all zombies and orks were evil.

JexKerome wrote:Except, of course, that furry porn along with the walking dead and tea-sipping bugs are not real; the fact that you know this is what makes you able to accept them easily.
I don't quite get the point your trying to make with this. Are you saying that zombies are less scary because we know that they

JexKerome · Post by **JexKerome** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 11:37 pm

The point was: since you know they are not supposed to make sense (as they are inventions of the human mind) not one of those has the capacity to really unnerve you, unless you willingly suspend your disbelief. Once you know they don't exist, they can act as posh as they want, and you'll just go "cool special effects/animation" rather than "Is that corpse really moving?!".

IVstudios · Post by **IVstudios** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 7:21 am

Maybe, but have you ever played Fatal Frame 2: Crimson butterflies? Me and my friends know that wasn't real but it scared the crap out of every one of us.

It's called the "plausible impossible." It works because our rational tells us it can

Phact0rri · Post by **Phact0rri** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 12:04 pm

thats pretty neato, I definatly liked the part about robots (for obvious reasons). I try to maintain more strict and less fluid movements for my robotic character in the comic. though it doesn't always work so well I like the concepts of Androids moving at a quicker and more uniformed pace than a normal human.