Uncanny Valley... or just bad hair?

[robcat2075]

An interesting blog entry by Ward Jenkins in which he declines to accept the common wisdom that "the Uncanny Valley" is the main reason things like Polar Express look odd.

 

He retouches several shots from the movie and suggests that it might just be... bad eyebrows!

 

The Polar Express: A Virtual Train Wreck

[TeresaNord]

Wow, those changes he made were really good. It's too bad they didn't have him working on the movie.

[Dhar]

Thanks for sharing that article Robert. He touched on the one thing that disappointed me about Polar Express, the liflessness looks of the characters.

 

I think everyone who is working on TWO should read this.

[oakchas]

interesting read... thanks for the post...

[Rodney]

I'm bumping this topic up to add this link to a video from penny arcade that explores that dreadful pit in CG animation that lies between Photorealism and Stylistic Rendering known as the Uncanny Valley. It covers the general history of the term, it's background and a look toward the future. It's one of the better explanations of the Uncanney Valley I've seen:

 

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-uncanny-valley

 

 

Link found at: www.onanimation.com

 

 

Oh... and I think the eyebrow thing Robert links to above has a whole lot of merit!

[jason1025]

Wow that was video was really well written. Although he did say it was unsettling in real life to be caught in the valley I don't think he emphasized it enough.

 

I came across a young girl one day who had had her jaw and half of her face removed from a rare form of cancer. If you had put a normal looking head on her body you would say wow she has a hot 18 year old body. She was wearing trendy form fitting cloths as young women do.

 

But her face and head was so different from the surgery my instinct and first reaction was not that she was a person but some sort of gag or pupet like Kermit the frog with no jaw bone. I was deep in the valley and panic stricken. All sweaty because I could not understand what I was seeing. I could not even breath or talk.

 

It was not just me everyone I saw that she walked within range of had the same reaction.

 

Very sad. but from a philosophical and scientific, anthropologic point of view I found my and other reactions fascinating. The only thing I could find to describe it was Uncanny Valley.

 

 

Let me be clear, She did not look like a monster. WHat caused the reaction was that she was obviously alive and looked perfectly human from the neck down but the neck up was somewhere between the 2 peeks surrounding the valley