People should design monsters to be in the uncanny valley on purpose for horror games more. I suppose Alien: Isolation did that with the "Working Joe" androids among other monsters.
+Twinsen It's actually a very common way of creating horrific characters. Although not a game character, the Babadook (from the movie: the Babadook :P) really stuck with me, part because of how deep it lies in the uncanny valley. It looks sort of human, but it's got an unnaturally large smile, way too bright skin, large eyes, and it's whole shape is just wrong, but what really tops it is his tophat. Without it, the babadook would just look like some sort of monster. With it, however, it adds just enough humanness to drop it deep into the uncanny valley. What's more is that is can move fast, in a way that's honestly just footage turned up to 400% while it's environment act under standard, 100% speed. Thanks to this, as well as some awesome cinematography, allows the Babadook to only appear on screen for a split second, never giving the viewer enough time to really look at the Babadook, and only to notice it's off traits. The traits that put it in the uncanny valley, and 'cause a sudden jolt, a feeling of unknown danger, for the viewers. Seriously, that movie played the uncanny valley perfectly.
Oh God oh God oh God. Why did I Google it. Why. Whyyyyyyyy I didn't even look at a video! Just one glance at a still was more than enough for me. Screw this, I'm gonna look at puppies.
+Twinsen You have one of them as your profile image- Silent hill used the uncanny valley, not so much in monsters, (though I suppose one could argue the bubble head nurses, perhaps) but in the animations and voice acting of the human interactions. Those people didn't move right, didn't behave right and didn't speak right- and I think the uncanny valley might have at least been a little to do with that. After all, if the voice acting in the early silent hills (Especially 2) had been slightly more human, it would have been mistaken for bad voice acting and probably been funny, but if it was slightly less human, we would have been able to definitely say that something was wrong with these people. As it was, I think it was a purposeful uncanny valley effect.
This reminded me of the time I watched Turbo (you know, the movie with the racing snails). I remember watching it an thinking that the _snails_ looked more natural and human than the _actual_ human characters.
the lowest point of the uncanny valley is also one of the best tools for horror that can possibly exist. that's why zombies are so popular. It's automatically unsettling to us without having to rely on some other thing to explain WHY it should be scary. You don't need to hide your horrors if they're completely unsettling just being there and trying to act vaguely human-like. You also don't need story elements to explain it. I'll go back to the zombies example - no zombie game I've ever played needed to hide the zombies to make them scary as with other monsters. You don't need to imagine something worse. You also don't need to tell someone that a walking desiccated corpse is not friendly because it's already unsettling to begin with.
I feel like the Uncanny Valley doesn't just apply to realism or human characteristics. Take the Simlish in Maxis games, for example. That made-up speech sounds absolutely horrendous because it sounds so much like normal speech but really isn't.
Odd, I've always found Simlish fine - on occasions endearing - and Kerbal weird and off. I've played Sims a long time, so maybe I'm just desensitized, but Kerbal is so obviously something else backwards that it feels wrong. The fact that backwards speech sounds uncanny to me already might help. [Casually replying to three-year old posts]
Stylized visuals also age a lot better. Graphics will always improve, so a stylized approach using what we can comfortably use will look much better in time than visuals that USED to push the limits.
This is a perfect video explaining the concept, thanks so much, this is something I noticed with alien isolation. The graphics were beautiful, but their animations felt off and unnatural.
I for one couldn't even tell that CLU was a CG effect. But, this was mostly due to the fact that I saw the movie on a tiny in-flight entertainment system (and not even one of the reasonably nice modern ones, this was one of United's "we haven't updated our interiors since the 777 launched" 5 inch wavy blurry mess screens where you also can't pause and only have 9 looping channels to choose from rather than a menu system). :P
Azmodan's Monologue from Diablo III. Blizzard found the other side of the valley with that game's cinematics, and that one in particular is a shining example of animated people who look more real than actual human beings.
some of the stuff that was done for halo 4 is on the other side of the valley. Halsey will fool you into thinking that they used an actual actor but she is just a motion capped human
I would propose a spike at the beginning of the curve; a Rudimentary Mountain, if you will. Kirby, for example, does not appear remotely human, but is for lack of a better word cuter than say, Luigi. In Job Simulator, we have the robots that are simply box computers, but their slight humanness makes them more appealing than something like Rayman.
I've suddenly got great ideas for horror themed films that use dips in the uncanny Valley to get on edge. I don't know if that's an already well fleshed out theme but I find it interesting, using near human but not quite perfect monsters.
AnomalyFM Zombies. Or even just a cadaver. They basically set off all the warning lights in your brain to GET THE FRIICK OUTTA THERE, because rather than looking like something inhuman that's sorta human, you end up with a human in a state that is very much not one you want to be in, If it's caused by disease
After seeing the newest Final Fantasy movie, Kingsglaive, I realised that Square have actually successfully broke through the limits of the uncanny valley! Not just the limits that the other FF movie you mentioned showed but the limits that the majority of the industry is still struggling with today! I mean you don't really see movies or CGIs in games with the quality of Kingsglaive in terms of photorealism that often, in fact I can't seem to think of any production that can compete with it, good job Square!
"If you see something that looks human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and you feel for your hatchet." - Mr. Beaver, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
I think the reason the realistic characters look the most unrealistic is because they lack any extreme emotional projection. In the cartoons, you get grumpy and frowning along with joyful and smiling whereas the characters in Tron or Spirits Within had minimal expression.
I think there's an uncanny valley when it comes to game mechanics, where things get *really* close to working like real life, but then you see something that makes you think "that's not how that works..." Think of all the new survival/worldbuilding games with mining: the character swings the pick in a realistic way but then the wall just busts out all at once, you go "hey wait, he didn't hit it that hard," but when the same thing happens in Minecraft, nobody thinks twice. Anyone else see this and have better examples?
1) Why is this already at 1.5x - pretty uncanny! 2) The crying baby was awesome - at the peak before the valley 3) Keanu reeves is not real? 4) Photo realism is meant for the post covid world - to replace real people and real places!!
It’s too bad this was before Rogue One. He could’ve used Tarkin and Leia from that as examples of successfully achieving the life-like visuals through animation. The only reason they put you off a bit is because we know that Peter Cushing was already dead and Carrie Fisher no longer looked like that, which means we know it’s animated, but still those successfully crossed The Valley, I think
I have never experienced the "uncanny valley" in video games. The game designers know how to avoid the uncanny valley. This guy is a nice talker, but has lots of things wrong.
araknidude I've played lots of games, old ones and new ones with humans, and none of the faces look creepy. An older game, mount and blade has fine faces, not creepy at all. www.google.ca/search?q=halo+3&rlz=1C2ASRM_enCA636CA636&biw=1920&bih=955&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjo86Wr2qTKAhVD6x4KHQtpAnUQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=halo+3+face none look creepy. Some look odd, but not creepy.
Actually, using not quite humans as parts of games can be useful for giving off the uncanny energy to horror games, making the experience seem not quite right and therefore making the player of said horror game uncertain of their feelings. After that, the horror of the game will subtly resonate inside the player as a constant reminder of a phrase : *MOMENTO MORI*
while this video was made a whole 6 years ago, FF15 (which ironically a slide of it's previous form, FF13-versus, was shown in this video) is one of the few games to claw past the uncanny valley on the "photorealistic videogame" end, even with it's obvious fantasy elements. the associated Kingsglaive movie in particular is an amazing example, though as a movie it gets to avoid several of the movement issues by having less moving parts in terms of the world interacting with them.
I think Uncharted is one of those franchises, (The Last of Us as well), where they reached such a perfect state of stylization that you can tell it's not quite human, and yet, it's clearly not cartoony, and proportionally, at least, looks realistic enough and still the characters look nice and likable.
Disproves the hype on the Mass Effect 3 boards that sad ending isn't necessarily a bad one :P Imo, any ending, happy or sad, will ultimately be decided by the writing quality behind it.
ann3tt It can still happen, yes, but not as deep a curve. You'll probably notice the difference but it won't be as disturbing as with a human that looks like the spend all their time recieving plastic surgery, but is actually an android.
Fusion14N Their proportions and shape is a lot different from a human though, which doesn't make them 100% realistic, but also doesn't put them in the valley.
also i say that the far peak of the uncanny valley will not be as high as the peaks that are for things that are clearly not human, as the things that aren't human are parodies of what humans look like and are actually more attractive because of it.
Actually some games are trying too cross the valley as we speak. They know it is hard to do but with quality animations, good voice acting, and top of the line tech, some are pretty damn close. For example, the tier 0 models for star citizen. No matter how much I look at them, it is becoming harder to distinguish odd things about them.
this world has more color than what most game worlds perceive (i.e. muddy, dark colors), and it's nice to remember that "hey, games can't be restricted to one side of the color spectrum too!"
it depends on what the game is trying to accomplish, games that use muddy darker colours have a tendency to try and be gritty and "real" and dark anyway. your perception of it is supposed to help make the situation more intense as a result.
ellies face in the last of us is a sticking point for me. while the voice acting and model are technically believeable it falls victim to the fact that joel and ellie end up seeming like massive sociopaths by the end. their lack of human reaction to unfathomable horror of the human condition plus the really wierd moist skin textures end up making ellie look like someone stuck a porcelain doll face on a human and painted it to look like a face
Yeah, I know what you mean. By the end, I felt the whole thing was some weird Kick-Ass spin-off thing (_The Apocalyptic Adventures of Big Daddy and Hit Girl_) that nobody asked for. Personally, it seemed like the game was trying to treat Joel as this Wounded and Tragic Figure, when he's really just a violent sociopath. Nothing he did was justified and he was incredibly unsympathetic of a character.
People are just afraid of something that looks better than themselves, is able to think smarter and is much stronger & faster than they will ever be. It's really a survival mechanism! We see something that can replace us, we eliminate it before it has the chance or make it life-like but with no actual AI.
A video of a creepy Japanese humanoid hotel robot led me to looking up videos about the uncanny valley. The subject being about video game graphics was a bonus.
Primalxbeast I'm pretty sure that my computer is more comfortable with the stylized side of the valley. Not everybody can afford a super expensive computer for the more realistic graphics. And maybe I'm squeamish, but I preferred Mortal Kombat fatalities when graphics weren't so detailed.
How about The Last of Us? It may not be as perfect as to fool us into thinking it is real, but I think it is a good example of how climbing that curve on the realistic side can, if done right, give us that truly believable characters and character-focused moving stories...
Stefan B Until some a$$ tries to take a shit on your carpet and walks off with your food, and forces him self on your back side ! oh yes and he burned down your house for $hit$ n giggles
Choose characters 1. Mario 2. Kratos 3. Some final fantasy people And this was the point I knew he was a playstation owner/gamer Now the correct list 1. Master Chief 2. Commander Shepard 3. Sgt Johnson 😀 😃 🙂
I believe we've clearly passed the lowest point of the uncanny valley and we're moving up again. Can't wait to see the next gen consoles move us forward.
There truely is no wrong answer for this. Both sides of the valley are lovable in their own way. To be honest even the uncanny valley can look great as long as a great story is attached to it.
I think it was a joke on how modern games that try to be 'realistic looking' tend to have graphics that are typically many boring shades of brown, as oppose to more stylized modern games that usually incorporate numerous colors in the graphics.
meh.. i think that will only affect a much smaller group of people. my evidence? when we see an uncanny valley character in a movie (such as some psychotic robot with eyes and teeth), we freak, but when we see an overly human character (such as, for example, a robot that looks and acts exactly human) we don't mind, and even in the story itself the only people who dislike these fake humans are often portrayed as close minded at best and downright crazy at worst.
Check the video date. Springtrap is also not human or meant to look human. It may have a decomposing corpse inside of it but it doesn't change the fact that it's an animatronic designed to look like an anthropomorphic rabbit so it wouldn't apply to this video anyways.
the game i am working on is but a simple dungeon game, the characters are slightly silly and expressive in their text, with that said, they are also kinda dumb, I'm afraid that's all i can share.
Of course horror games often times use the uncanny valley to make very life like things that are scary. If used correctly the uncanny valley can be a huge boon for horror games.
Dargonhuman That's exactly the point. In fact, the uncanny valley could possibly prevent a photorealistic horror game from aging horribly, as the uncanny valley is already in use.
Rachel Steiner since the characters are based on the looks of their actors, it's intentional as the death scenes look like the actors are getting killed
As much as I love photo realism, I think that stylized graphics hold up better over time. Bioshock Infinite is probably one of the best examples of stylized graphics that still look beautiful even though graphics technology has already come so much farther since then.
I think a better example would be games like Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Okami, and Katamari Damacy since they've been out for far longer than Bioshock Infinite but still hold up quite well.
+Dingu There might be something to both points. The games you mention are highly stylized, which makes them memorable and able to withstand the passage of time, but do so easily. Being more "stylized realism", Bioshock Infinite has more of a risk of falling into the uncanny valley over time, so the fact that it hasn't is not insignificant. :)
Agreed, I find highly stylized games (or any art, really) far more engaging and memorable than realistic ones. Two examples that pop to mind are Okami and Peria Chronicles. When it comes to realistic looking games, they all tend to look the same-ish to me. Which I guess isn't surprising since they're all trying to imitate the same thing, reality. Of course there's variation in how that effect is achieved and the graphic fidelity, but stylized games will always have a wider range of options to be distinct (and therefore memorable) because they're bound to reality in a far looser way. I also notice this heavily in my enjoyment of drawings. When I see a hyper-realistic drawing, I'm definitely impressed with the end product and the skill required to pull it off, but at the same time it's not particularly memorable, because it's just reality. I could achieve the same effect by opening a photo in Photoshop, converting it to grayscale, and applying a simple filter. Of course, that's beside the point for the author as he does it for the challenge, but for me as just an observer there's nothing exciting about it. For me, trying to achieve realism in art is counter-productive, since I see art as a tool to materialize things that AREN'T reality, and therefore couldn't exist otherwise.
The Tintin movie totally fooled me into thinking it was live action until I saw Tintin with his giant-ass cartoon nose, which they had to keep to make it look like Tintin. Otherwise that movie looked absolutely perfect.
I don't like the graphics a bit because the models have way too realistic textures but cartoony face features. These two don't combine to me. Personal opinion tho.
I adored the Tintin movie. It was Indiana Jones-esque adventure at its finest, and a lot of the effects shots, like the ship rising out of the sand dunes, were top-notch. Unfortunately, the character models were where things got weird for me. I might have preferred something slightly more cartoonish.
![DDG & G Herbo - Nosey [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/I9Ra0Zc2NlQ/mqdefault.jpg)
if you have a photo realistic character and the model breaks, it's terrifying
Yeah but there is some wonderful photos from that (like sims glitches)
Go to artbreeder to see perfect examples of that, there are *M A N Y*
Glad I’m not the only one that thinks that.
I said it many times and I'll say it again: The more realistic the graphics get, the more hilarious it gets when things start glitching around.
+soschar2050 I would say the more real it gets in general makes it more funny when it glitches. That's why Heavy Rain glitches tend to be so funny.
+curlytail16 SHAUN!
+TheWrathAbove Jason? JASON? JASON!!!
Charr it scares me
Charr You mean like the model swap glitch from red dead redemption that allows you to meet the taco bell dog's great, great grandfather's uncle?
People should design monsters to be in the uncanny valley on purpose for horror games more.
I suppose Alien: Isolation did that with the "Working Joe" androids among other monsters.
That's a good idea
+Twinsen It's actually a very common way of creating horrific characters. Although not a game character, the Babadook (from the movie: the Babadook :P) really stuck with me, part because of how deep it lies in the uncanny valley. It looks sort of human, but it's got an unnaturally large smile, way too bright skin, large eyes, and it's whole shape is just wrong, but what really tops it is his tophat. Without it, the babadook would just look like some sort of monster. With it, however, it adds just enough humanness to drop it deep into the uncanny valley. What's more is that is can move fast, in a way that's honestly just footage turned up to 400% while it's environment act under standard, 100% speed. Thanks to this, as well as some awesome cinematography, allows the Babadook to only appear on screen for a split second, never giving the viewer enough time to really look at the Babadook, and only to notice it's off traits. The traits that put it in the uncanny valley, and 'cause a sudden jolt, a feeling of unknown danger, for the viewers. Seriously, that movie played the uncanny valley perfectly.
Oh God oh God oh God. Why did I Google it. Why. Whyyyyyyyy
I didn't even look at a video! Just one glance at a still was more than enough for me. Screw this, I'm gonna look at puppies.
+Twinsen You have one of them as your profile image- Silent hill used the uncanny valley, not so much in monsters, (though I suppose one could argue the bubble head nurses, perhaps) but in the animations and voice acting of the human interactions. Those people didn't move right, didn't behave right and didn't speak right- and I think the uncanny valley might have at least been a little to do with that. After all, if the voice acting in the early silent hills (Especially 2) had been slightly more human, it would have been mistaken for bad voice acting and probably been funny, but if it was slightly less human, we would have been able to definitely say that something was wrong with these people. As it was, I think it was a purposeful uncanny valley effect.
+Twinsen This is why zombies exist
"We know what humans look like. We see them every day."
Unless you're me. Weeks on end spent in my house without even looking outside.
Your username wow
^
But you still see a person on your phone, or the TV, or in a mirror, or in a photo
Maybe you dont see many humans in person but the face of a human is stick deeply onto our brains since we where babies
This aged badly
This reminded me of the time I watched Turbo (you know, the movie with the racing snails). I remember watching it an thinking that the _snails_ looked more natural and human than the _actual_ human characters.
Creo
That’s a problem with many Dreamworks movies.
Austin Reed, more like what makes them great.
TickTock Bam
Mainly their early ones.
maybe that's why I prefer more stylized games over photorealistic ones.
the lowest point of the uncanny valley is also one of the best tools for horror that can possibly exist. that's why zombies are so popular. It's automatically unsettling to us without having to rely on some other thing to explain WHY it should be scary. You don't need to hide your horrors if they're completely unsettling just being there and trying to act vaguely human-like. You also don't need story elements to explain it.
I'll go back to the zombies example - no zombie game I've ever played needed to hide the zombies to make them scary as with other monsters. You don't need to imagine something worse. You also don't need to tell someone that a walking desiccated corpse is not friendly because it's already unsettling to begin with.
I feel like the Uncanny Valley doesn't just apply to realism or human characteristics. Take the Simlish in Maxis games, for example. That made-up speech sounds absolutely horrendous because it sounds so much like normal speech but really isn't.
language is a very weird uncanny valley, simlish is horrible despite being made up, yet kerbal is fine even though its just Spanish played backwards
The Uncanny Valley can't not apply to realism or human charicteristics because it exists specifically to measure it's effects.
Odd, I've always found Simlish fine - on occasions endearing - and Kerbal weird and off. I've played Sims a long time, so maybe I'm just desensitized, but Kerbal is so obviously something else backwards that it feels wrong. The fact that backwards speech sounds uncanny to me already might help.
[Casually replying to three-year old posts]
Stylized visuals also age a lot better. Graphics will always improve, so a stylized approach using what we can comfortably use will look much better in time than visuals that USED to push the limits.
Also the "better" graphics are the more quickly they look outdated, stylized graphics are better because they can be appreciated for longer.
This is a perfect video explaining the concept, thanks so much, this is something I noticed with alien isolation. The graphics were beautiful, but their animations felt off and unnatural.
I for one couldn't even tell that CLU was a CG effect. But, this was mostly due to the fact that I saw the movie on a tiny in-flight entertainment system (and not even one of the reasonably nice modern ones, this was one of United's "we haven't updated our interiors since the 777 launched" 5 inch wavy blurry mess screens where you also can't pause and only have 9 looping channels to choose from rather than a menu system). :P
Everyone is commenting about the polar express and how creepy it is. I have loved that film since I was a young child XD
Azmodan's Monologue from Diablo III. Blizzard found the other side of the valley with that game's cinematics, and that one in particular is a shining example of animated people who look more real than actual human beings.
some of the stuff that was done for halo 4 is on the other side of the valley. Halsey will fool you into thinking that they used an actual actor but she is just a motion capped human
I was about to comment, when I first saw the first trailer for Halo 4, it took my a very long time to realize that it was not acting.
I would propose a spike at the beginning of the curve; a Rudimentary Mountain, if you will. Kirby, for example, does not appear remotely human, but is for lack of a better word cuter than say, Luigi. In Job Simulator, we have the robots that are simply box computers, but their slight humanness makes them more appealing than something like Rayman.
I've suddenly got great ideas for horror themed films that use dips in the uncanny Valley to get on edge. I don't know if that's an already well fleshed out theme but I find it interesting, using near human but not quite perfect monsters.
AnomalyFM
Zombies. Or even just a cadaver. They basically set off all the warning lights in your brain to GET THE FRIICK OUTTA THERE, because rather than looking like something inhuman that's sorta human, you end up with a human in a state that is very much not one you want to be in, If it's caused by disease
The first time I saw this video, I didn't notice how you used a picture of Keanu Reeve for your robot indistinguishable from a human. Smooth.
After seeing the newest Final Fantasy movie, Kingsglaive, I realised that Square have actually successfully broke through the limits of the uncanny valley! Not just the limits that the other FF movie you mentioned showed but the limits that the majority of the industry is still struggling with today! I mean you don't really see movies or CGIs in games with the quality of Kingsglaive in terms of photorealism that often, in fact I can't seem to think of any production that can compete with it, good job Square!
I loved the "Rejected" slide. Awesome that someone still remembers that awesome short.
Not just that, but if we see a stylized character doing realistic movements (like motion capture animation), we find it weird and unsettling.
1sonicthe
I think it comes across a little less freaky, though. Still weird, but not something to send chills down your spine.
Yes, not as uncanny, but still weird
Yes, not as uncanny, but still weird
"If you see something that looks human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and you feel for your hatchet." - Mr. Beaver, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
I think the reason the realistic characters look the most unrealistic is because they lack any extreme emotional projection. In the cartoons, you get grumpy and frowning along with joyful and smiling whereas the characters in Tron or Spirits Within had minimal expression.
8 years later, and we still haven’t fully beaten the uncanny valley in games
I think there's an uncanny valley when it comes to game mechanics, where things get *really* close to working like real life, but then you see something that makes you think "that's not how that works..."
Think of all the new survival/worldbuilding games with mining: the character swings the pick in a realistic way but then the wall just busts out all at once, you go "hey wait, he didn't hit it that hard," but when the same thing happens in Minecraft, nobody thinks twice.
Anyone else see this and have better examples?
3:18 this stuff is funny. please more of this stuff. there are less of these stuff in newer extra credits
1) Why is this already at 1.5x - pretty uncanny!
2) The crying baby was awesome - at the peak before the valley
3) Keanu reeves is not real?
4) Photo realism is meant for the post covid world - to replace real people and real places!!
Keanu "Indistinguishable From Human Beings" Reeves killed me.
It’s too bad this was before Rogue One. He could’ve used Tarkin and Leia from that as examples of successfully achieving the life-like visuals through animation. The only reason they put you off a bit is because we know that Peter Cushing was already dead and Carrie Fisher no longer looked like that, which means we know it’s animated, but still those successfully crossed The Valley, I think
This reminds me of the blackface bug from FO4, their face just looks really unsettling
I have never experienced the "uncanny valley" in video games. The game designers know how to avoid the uncanny valley. This guy is a nice talker, but has lots of things wrong.
Well, they do now in 2016. But go play a game from 2007 like Halo 3 and zoom in on any human's face. I dare you to tell me that isn't uncanny.
araknidude I've played lots of games, old ones and new ones with humans, and none of the faces look creepy. An older game, mount and blade has fine faces, not creepy at all.
www.google.ca/search?q=halo+3&rlz=1C2ASRM_enCA636CA636&biw=1920&bih=955&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjo86Wr2qTKAhVD6x4KHQtpAnUQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=halo+3+face
none look creepy. Some look odd, but not creepy.
Try playing any Creation Engine game.
Rangaman Like skyrim? The only way I can get a creepy face is with mods.
Maybe give an example of something creepy?
weterman4320 You don't find the animatronics of Tamriel creepy? That's weird.
Actually, using not quite humans as parts of games can be useful for giving off the uncanny energy to horror games, making the experience seem not quite right and therefore making the player of said horror game uncertain of their feelings. After that, the horror of the game will subtly resonate inside the player as a constant reminder of a phrase : *MOMENTO MORI*
3:14 Priceless. XD
But I like all those qualities.... Still, pretty damn funny.
3:26 I wish he had touched more on game mechanics and the quality of games hitting an Uncanny Valley of sorts, because imo it's definitely a thing.
while this video was made a whole 6 years ago, FF15 (which ironically a slide of it's previous form, FF13-versus, was shown in this video) is one of the few games to claw past the uncanny valley on the "photorealistic videogame" end, even with it's obvious fantasy elements.
the associated Kingsglaive movie in particular is an amazing example, though as a movie it gets to avoid several of the movement issues by having less moving parts in terms of the world interacting with them.
I think Uncharted is one of those franchises, (The Last of Us as well), where they reached such a perfect state of stylization that you can tell it's not quite human, and yet, it's clearly not cartoony, and proportionally, at least, looks realistic enough and still the characters look nice and likable.
Toejam and Earl outro music. Awesome.
I loved this video from “Classic” Extra Credits! It was my first intro to this concept!
One of my favourite episodes... mostly because i got an A on a project i did wich had to do with The Uncanny Valley, and i used this video alot...
3:11 :DDDDD /)
You just earned yourself a subscriber
Slay the brownies!!!!!!
Nevermore941012
But the delicious chocolate treats have done nothing wrong!
Brian Seaman well on the bright side you cant kill something that's not alive...
***** Blame autocorrect.
Jennifer Kelly never you must learn to autocorrect your autocorrect
Disproves the hype on the Mass Effect 3 boards that sad ending isn't necessarily a bad one :P
Imo, any ending, happy or sad, will ultimately be decided by the writing quality behind it.
Is it possible to cross the valley without being a real human?
Perhaps if the general public would chill about the creep factor and embrace our mechanized brethren.
ann3tt It can still happen, yes, but not as deep a curve.
You'll probably notice the difference but it won't be as disturbing as with a human that looks like the spend all their time recieving plastic surgery, but is actually an android.
Yes
Dishonored characters perfectly land themselves on the first peak of the graph
Fusion14N Their proportions and shape is a lot different from a human though, which doesn't make them 100% realistic, but also doesn't put them in the valley.
I was looking for the Perturbator album, but this is great too.
Sometimes the uncanny valley can be used on purpose like the terminator movies where it’s human but odd and cold too.
also i say that the far peak of the uncanny valley will not be as high as the peaks that are for things that are clearly not human, as the things that aren't human are parodies of what humans look like and are actually more attractive because of it.
Damn't they got me , I actually liked this and was educational 😮😮😮😮😮😮😃😃😃😃😃
Lol should've drawn the art in that uncanny valley for this episode. You can have the toon, the uncanny real, and the actual live vlog footage
Thumbs up for the un-Keanu valley :D
You don't like keanu?
My only explanation would be that CLU was a duplication and was not an original.
"So, enough beating around the bush... (whatever that means...)"
I love the old days of EC.
Actually some games are trying too cross the valley as we speak. They know it is hard to do but with quality animations, good voice acting, and top of the line tech, some are pretty damn close. For example, the tier 0 models for star citizen. No matter how much I look at them, it is becoming harder to distinguish odd things about them.
this world has more color than what most game worlds perceive (i.e. muddy, dark colors), and it's nice to remember that "hey, games can't be restricted to one side of the color spectrum too!"
it depends on what the game is trying to accomplish, games that use muddy darker colours have a tendency to try and be gritty and "real" and dark anyway. your perception of it is supposed to help make the situation more intense as a result.
This is why a lot of people fear clowns.
It took me like half an hour to realize that Beowulf was animated
ellies face in the last of us is a sticking point for me. while the voice acting and model are technically believeable it falls victim to the fact that joel and ellie end up seeming like massive sociopaths by the end. their lack of human reaction to unfathomable horror of the human condition plus the really wierd moist skin textures end up making ellie look like someone stuck a porcelain doll face on a human and painted it to look like a face
Yeah, I know what you mean.
By the end, I felt the whole thing was some weird Kick-Ass spin-off thing (_The Apocalyptic Adventures of Big Daddy and Hit Girl_) that nobody asked for. Personally, it seemed like the game was trying to treat Joel as this Wounded and Tragic Figure, when he's really just a violent sociopath. Nothing he did was justified and he was incredibly unsympathetic of a character.
Your uncanny valley chart... it.... it goes back in time... they "valley" moves slightly to the left... I'm going to have a stroke :C
ToeJam and Earl music at the end!
you guys should do one on realism in games
The new spiderman game is like the most beautiful game I've ever looked at
2:19
That's how they made Polar express?
2:48 Were there now. The game Detroit: Become Human
muh 3 favorite video game characters: solid snake, big boss and venom snake
People are just afraid of something that looks better than themselves, is able to think smarter and is much stronger & faster than they will ever be. It's really a survival mechanism! We see something that can replace us, we eliminate it before it has the chance or make it life-like but with no actual AI.
A video of a creepy Japanese humanoid hotel robot led me to looking up videos about the uncanny valley. The subject being about video game graphics was a bonus.
Primalxbeast I'm pretty sure that my computer is more comfortable with the stylized side of the valley. Not everybody can afford a super expensive computer for the more realistic graphics. And maybe I'm squeamish, but I preferred Mortal Kombat fatalities when graphics weren't so detailed.
How about The Last of Us? It may not be as perfect as to fool us into thinking it is real, but I think it is a good example of how climbing that curve on the realistic side can, if done right, give us that truly believable characters and character-focused moving stories...
Is anyone else honestly not freaked out, disturbed, etc. by the uncanny valley?
Man i never thought mario and kratos could ever be put in the same list
this makes me want to play a game with photorealistic player models and graphics but atrocious motion and voice acting
GODAMN ANARCHISTS! HURRAH, TO CAPITALISM!
The Barkspawn capitalism in its purest form is stateless. it is anarchy
AnarchistMetalhead What, like Quantic Dream games like _Beyond:Two Souls_?
Stefan B Until some a$$ tries to take a shit on your carpet and walks off with your food, and forces him self on your back side ! oh yes and he burned down your house for $hit$ n giggles
Choose characters
1. Mario
2. Kratos
3. Some final fantasy people
And this was the point I knew he was a playstation owner/gamer
Now the correct list
1. Master Chief
2. Commander Shepard
3. Sgt Johnson
😀 😃 🙂
Love the visuals at 0:21. X3
that's why we tf2, to ignore uncanny vally and other games
Spirits within was really interesting animation wise, some scenes where just incredibly well animated. While others where, well uhm, okay-ish.
"you may noticed its very brown-looking over there" hilarius(misspelled im sure)
I believe we've clearly passed the lowest point of the uncanny valley and we're moving up again. Can't wait to see the next gen consoles move us forward.
There truely is no wrong answer for this. Both sides of the valley are lovable in their own way.
To be honest even the uncanny valley can look great as long as a great story is attached to it.
A screenshot from My Little Pony for about 2 seconds? That means if I scroll down, ever so slightly...
I think that that tarkin in rogue one was more high on the chart
Aka, why zombies and mannequins deal people out.
I think it was a joke on how modern games that try to be 'realistic looking' tend to have graphics that are typically many boring shades of brown, as oppose to more stylized modern games that usually incorporate numerous colors in the graphics.
For some reason, I like the not-very-real side of the uncanny valley more then the real one, even for things that actually look real.
meh.. i think that will only affect a much smaller group of people. my evidence? when we see an uncanny valley character in a movie (such as some psychotic robot with eyes and teeth), we freak, but when we see an overly human character (such as, for example, a robot that looks and acts exactly human) we don't mind, and even in the story itself the only people who dislike these fake humans are often portrayed as close minded at best and downright crazy at worst.
I indeed felt a disturbing kinda hard to describe feeling when I watched Tron: legacy because of young Jeff Bridges. now I get why !
I liked cus too human came up for a couple frames 😍
That... makes sense, I guess.
Well played.
DONT FORGET SPRINGTRAP! That guy looks VERY photorealistic,..jeez!
Check the video date. Springtrap is also not human or meant to look human. It may have a decomposing corpse inside of it but it doesn't change the fact that it's an animatronic designed to look like an anthropomorphic rabbit so it wouldn't apply to this video anyways.
oh no... When I saw sackboy... I just felt sad...
I got spooked when I thought of Mario and kratos, then he gave them as examples.
You should've mention freud as reading.
I was gonna ask how these guys felt about something like The Last of Us. Photrealistic, but easily resonant and believable characters.
4:00 Actually, I found nothing wrong with the FF SW characters.
I had Mario (and another Mario character) in my mind... How'd you know?
5:43
Mario Strikers?
Strives for a realistic sports simulation?
Sorry, you've lost me.
wait...
is day of the tentacle a challenge?
the game i am working on is but a simple dungeon game, the characters are slightly silly and expressive in their text, with that said, they are also kinda dumb, I'm afraid that's all i can share.
Realistic graphics + geometry glitches
That's assains Creed in a nutshell
Of course horror games often times use the uncanny valley to make very life like things that are scary. If used correctly the uncanny valley can be a huge boon for horror games.
Dargonhuman That's exactly the point. In fact, the uncanny valley could possibly prevent a photorealistic horror game from aging horribly, as the uncanny valley is already in use.
Not sure if Until Dawn used this intentionally or not
Rachel Steiner since the characters are based on the looks of their actors, it's intentional as the death scenes look like the actors are getting killed
Funny. There’s a popular Indie title known as “Uncanny Valley”.
See:FNAF
As much as I love photo realism, I think that stylized graphics hold up better over time. Bioshock Infinite is probably one of the best examples of stylized graphics that still look beautiful even though graphics technology has already come so much farther since then.
I think a better example would be games like Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Okami, and Katamari Damacy since they've been out for far longer than Bioshock Infinite but still hold up quite well.
+Dingu There might be something to both points. The games you mention are highly stylized, which makes them memorable and able to withstand the passage of time, but do so easily. Being more "stylized realism", Bioshock Infinite has more of a risk of falling into the uncanny valley over time, so the fact that it hasn't is not insignificant. :)
You can really notice it in Dishonored.
borderlands also
Agreed, I find highly stylized games (or any art, really) far more engaging and memorable than realistic ones. Two examples that pop to mind are Okami and Peria Chronicles.
When it comes to realistic looking games, they all tend to look the same-ish to me. Which I guess isn't surprising since they're all trying to imitate the same thing, reality. Of course there's variation in how that effect is achieved and the graphic fidelity, but stylized games will always have a wider range of options to be distinct (and therefore memorable) because they're bound to reality in a far looser way.
I also notice this heavily in my enjoyment of drawings. When I see a hyper-realistic drawing, I'm definitely impressed with the end product and the skill required to pull it off, but at the same time it's not particularly memorable, because it's just reality. I could achieve the same effect by opening a photo in Photoshop, converting it to grayscale, and applying a simple filter. Of course, that's beside the point for the author as he does it for the challenge, but for me as just an observer there's nothing exciting about it.
For me, trying to achieve realism in art is counter-productive, since I see art as a tool to materialize things that AREN'T reality, and therefore couldn't exist otherwise.
I'll be sticking on the stylized side of the valley. I like cartoony design way too much.
Windwaker perfected this
AnthonyM the Gamer Artist!
Yeah. Remember the travesty that was 06 Eggman.
Yep, but then you'll be labeled as a baby game by assholes, which make up a large portion of the gaming population
ECL28E SO BE IT. They'll just wallow in colorlessness while being assholes.
And pretty colors. Never forget about the pretty colors.
The Tintin movie totally fooled me into thinking it was live action until I saw Tintin with his giant-ass cartoon nose, which they had to keep to make it look like Tintin. Otherwise that movie looked absolutely perfect.
Oh yeah, it totally did! I forgot about that!
I don't like the graphics a bit because the models have way too realistic textures but cartoony face features. These two don't combine to me. Personal opinion tho.
I adored the Tintin movie. It was Indiana Jones-esque adventure at its finest, and a lot of the effects shots, like the ship rising out of the sand dunes, were top-notch.
Unfortunately, the character models were where things got weird for me. I might have preferred something slightly more cartoonish.
True that! My grandma actually thought that they were actors.
i reckon the big noses saved them from being in the pits of the valley, they look too human but the noses just reassures us that they're not.