Holy Uncanny Valley

[n0wak]

So Quantic Dreams, of Indigo Prophecy infamy, has a sort of real time "virtual actor" demo for the PS3. The video is kinda large:

http://rr.download.xferla.com:65530/mirror/britishgaming.co.uk/HEAVYRAIN_THECASTING_AVI.zip

And it is so freaking creepy. Not because of any content in the demo, but because the character just looks so... close but way, way wrong. As developers push for more realism, especially with human rendering, is this kind of uncanny valley going to restrict them? Is it going to turn a lot of people off? I hope so. I can't imagine every other game with "actors" like this

[schepton]

The movement of the character looks spot-on as do the backgrounds, but the facial features seem to be out of proportion. Still impressive in every way though.

There was also alot of potential for a cheap scare in there.

[Oath]

Yeah, it's a bit creepy, but man, those tears really gave an emotional impact. They do need to work on improving the facial animation, connecting it all together a bit more.

Since I watched this the first time I've played a bit of Dreamfall, and now more than ever I'm getting really pissed of at the poor level of animation in that game. It has a bit of uncanny valley feel to it too, so maybe that's why I think that this isn't all that bad. If every game featured actors like this, I wouldn't complain very much, since it's leaps and bounds better than most content featured in today's games.

HL2 got it all right in terms of animation, in my book. No creepy feelings or "wow, that looks so fake"-moments anywhere. They all need to get some pointers from Valve, I guess.

[Roderick]

I think the player is willing to forgive a lot in terms of not-quite-realism. But it'll increasingly be about very little things that will bug the player increasingly more. The contraction of a persons lips, how she shakes her head... The next generation is in the dangerzone and more than ever, good modelling and animation is needed to battle this.

[DanJW]

Yeah, the face is way too plastic. The lip syncing is off and the eyebrows hardly move. Also she doesn't seem to actually touch anything, the actor looks superimposed on a prerendered background. Good that they're trying though. They could benefit from doing the same as HL2 and getting a phoneme and facial expression expert in as a consulaltant.

[SiW]

It's a fascinating subject, one that I've studied as a computer graphics coding guy, and one that I'm interested in personally. In this example, you can see that it's technically great, with the camera shake and blur being spot on, but the actress is just some grotesque thing.

As we get closer to being able to render everything down to skin pores at 60fps, our game actors are looking more and more like Real Dolls. There's a creepy disconnect, one that as gamers we've put up with for a while but is immediately noticeable to non-gamers. My wife used to point out the horrible unnatural animation in that Max Payne ad every single time it came on.

It's for these reasons that I've moved away from games that strive for photorealism. Probably the most "realistic" game I've played in recent memory is Half-Life 2, and that works because of well-defined art direction and characters that are designed to give the impression of being human rather than look "real".

Man, I'm a wordy bitch.

[loonyboi]

That was creepy.

Not creepy good, just creepy.

It's like some horrible zombie person. Why would they release that?

The best on-screen acting i've ever seen is still Half-Life 2. They got the eyes right.

Or The Darkness, but that's not out yet. For that game, Starbreeze did mocap and voice recording at the same time. So the gestures and voice all sync up. It's really, really, really cool to see in real time. They still have some work to do on the eyes and lips, but the body movements are awesome. There are lots of little subtleties to the acting i've never seen in a game before.

[loonyboi]

Also, she has donkey teeth. What's up with that?

[brkl]

I see Quantic Dreams will continue to make experimental games without the expertise required to make them.

She should join the Gamelife team.

[Marek]

Someone use that as your avatar. K thnx

[Oath]

Also, she has donkey teeth. What's up with that?

That's actually what the actress they used looks like, but they really should have toned it down a bit.

[netmonkey]

I'm scared. It's sooo creepy.

[n0wak]

Yeah, for reference here's the actress

http://comoedia.fr/afficheActeur/7008

[loonyboi]

Yeah, for reference here's the actress

http://comoedia.fr/afficheActeur/7008

I see no donkey teeth.

Okay, maybe a little. But they exaggerated it too much.

[Jayel]

Her complete lack of ability to make an "o" shape with her mouth is totally disconcerting. If Max from the new Sam & Max trailer can, why can't her?

Edit:

Oh it's motion captured. I thought it was hand-animated or something. What's the big deal then?

[brkl]

Quantic Dreams discovered a new technique for making bad games!

[Lechimp]

Someone use that as your avatar. K thnx

Done, although I'll probably change it in a day or two because it scares the crap out of me.

[loonyboi]

Done, although I'll probably change it in a day or two because it scares the crap out of me.

Seriously. Those eyes...they follow you!

[netmonkey]

Someone use that as your avatar. K thnx

This one is for you, buddy:

[hermes]

This one is for you, buddy:

that's hilarous!

Anyways I think it was kind of cool that she had donkey-teeth - I mean some people have them and why should photo-realistic also always be photo-model-realistic...

But the eyes and especially the mouth-animations when she speaks is really really disconcerting - especially the mouth -I couldn't stop staring at the bloody mouth....

There was some quite good emotion in that scene - but they should really fix the face-animations....

EDIT: I was just thinking that it actually fascinated me - catched my attention in some weird way... Maybe it's the first time I really experienced the legendary uncanny valley.... cool

EDITEDIT: judging by the amount of avatar-action going on, it seems I'm not the only one fascinated...

[miffy495]

How's this? It was really hard to even get her to fit on Gir's body, but I gave it the best that 15 minutes would allow.

Yeah, that is downright creepy. Although that moment where she's right up in front of the camera and the single tear comes out shocked me. That seemed quite realistic to me. It was the only bit in the whole thing that did, but nevertheless it was there.

If this guy is so obsessed with movies why doesn't he start making those instead? I actually enjoyed Indigo Prophecy, but still...

[DanJW]

Yeah, the tear worked, but partly because the rest of her face wasn't animated at that point.

Having watched it again, I also think that her jaw is hinged oddly. But then I've been studying anatomy for drawing lately.

I'm guessing they did the audition thing inspired by the "virtual actor" conceit. Of course, a better metaphor is puppetry.

[Jayel]

I didn't think the tears were realistic at all. You don't see tear pooling up in her eyes before they streak down her face, so they seem to come out of nowhere...

[David]

Yeah Agreed. I thought there was a blending problem with the tears, but then felt maybe they were going trying to go for some serious make-up streaking...

[miffy495]

This one is for you, buddy:

A quick idea for you. On that head, she needs a mustache. Just a thought.