Almost realistic=creepy
- Thread starter ninzel
- Start date
Nope. It's a well known phenomenon, though I forget it's conventional name. Human brains are highly keyed to study real life and its nuances. Anything very different to real life can be appreciated as false and taken at face value. But anything close to real life gets scrutinized with the same intensity as though it were real life, and that means even tiny inaccuracies get noticed. Especially in faces!
The Uncanny Valley:
http://www.arclight.net/~pdb/nonfiction/uncanny-valley.html
Heavy Rain will have to watch out for it.
http://www.arclight.net/~pdb/nonfiction/uncanny-valley.html
Heavy Rain will have to watch out for it.
Tars Tarkus
Newcomer
This was a major problem for the animated film The Polar Express. People in focus group screenings were apparently using the same thread title word "creepy" in describing the Tom Hanks character.
Creepy is as Creepy does
What's really creepy is the depiction of the North Pole as a bizarre totalitarian state with a cult of personality focused on Santa Claus. It's like a permanently frozen North Korea with a materialistic bend.
I recommend the film just for that aspect.
I saw that movie. The character rendering / animation was a bit off but not too creepy.Tars Tarkus said:
What's really creepy is the depiction of the North Pole as a bizarre totalitarian state with a cult of personality focused on Santa Claus. It's like a permanently frozen North Korea with a materialistic bend.
I recommend the film just for that aspect.
RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
I'd like to see the trailer of the Dirty Harry game... (link?) But, no.. It's pretty obvious...
The closer you attempt to get to reality, the more defined everything has to be. This has actually been discussed on here through different developer comments a number of times.
You try to make a character smile, and their smile turns out to appear to be evil or wicked or maniacal instead of just being friendly.
Why?
Because there's thousands of muscles that go into make a smile appear like a smile, and most of them don't have anything to do with "moving the lips into a smile appearance". It's the cheeks, the eyes, etc.. etc...
As games get more realistic, it becomes increasingly more difficult for developers to be able to manipulate all the muscles correctly so that they can demonstrate the same likeness.
There was actually a developer discussing this very thing on this forum previously (it was an article that was discussed here.. the developer ddn't actually have a conversation with us on this forum) where he said that they were using a great deal of muscles in the face in order to try to replicate a happy expression and when they did so, it turned out to appearc creapy rather than friendly. Why? Because the human condition is extremely complex and the closer that developers get to that complexity, the farther away they get from reality.. until they actually get to 100% accuracy.
It's better to be blurry, or not quite realistic, but still demonstrate friendliness, than it is to get closer to reality but fail to demonstrate the feelings you wanted to convey.
The closer you attempt to get to reality, the more defined everything has to be. This has actually been discussed on here through different developer comments a number of times.
You try to make a character smile, and their smile turns out to appear to be evil or wicked or maniacal instead of just being friendly.
Why?
Because there's thousands of muscles that go into make a smile appear like a smile, and most of them don't have anything to do with "moving the lips into a smile appearance". It's the cheeks, the eyes, etc.. etc...
As games get more realistic, it becomes increasingly more difficult for developers to be able to manipulate all the muscles correctly so that they can demonstrate the same likeness.
There was actually a developer discussing this very thing on this forum previously (it was an article that was discussed here.. the developer ddn't actually have a conversation with us on this forum) where he said that they were using a great deal of muscles in the face in order to try to replicate a happy expression and when they did so, it turned out to appearc creapy rather than friendly. Why? Because the human condition is extremely complex and the closer that developers get to that complexity, the farther away they get from reality.. until they actually get to 100% accuracy.
It's better to be blurry, or not quite realistic, but still demonstrate friendliness, than it is to get closer to reality but fail to demonstrate the feelings you wanted to convey.
Some people would say Clowns are in that valley too. 
I'd say that a factor they missed in those graphs is healthyness.
If something is healthy, such as nice food its lovely.
In general, repulsive things are bad for you.
eg.
a corpse crawling towards you = unhealthy
a puppet = healthy
a disabled person = unhealthy (sory)
a cuddly sort of animal like a friendly dog = healthy
I know friendly dogs can have diseases and stuff, but in general, its healthy. On the other hand, a corpse which is attacking you... :<
I'd say that a factor they missed in those graphs is healthyness.
If something is healthy, such as nice food its lovely.
In general, repulsive things are bad for you.
eg.
a corpse crawling towards you = unhealthy
a puppet = healthy
a disabled person = unhealthy (sory)
a cuddly sort of animal like a friendly dog = healthy
I know friendly dogs can have diseases and stuff, but in general, its healthy. On the other hand, a corpse which is attacking you... :<
I don't think it can be explained as a natural regard for healthy vs. unhealthy. There's plenty of unhealthy things that are attractive and vice versa. I think it's more a case of trying to reconcile what you're viewing with your understanding of the world. In the case of disabled people they don't fit the proprotions the brain understands as normal for a human, so it has to wrestle with either categorizing the figure as something or adjusting their criteria for the 'Human Standard'. Exposure to things that are unpleasant tends to lead to tolerance and they no-longer look creepy. I'm reminded of some trees I saw just the other day, Scott's ines that grow tall and straight naturally, but there were a couple that were really twisted and crooked. They were unhealthy trees but they fit a general view of 'tree'. A person equally deformed (a term that by definition needs a standard form to become deformed) would look very wrong. I'd say it's this adnormality that makes things uncomfortable. Microscopic creatures and deep-sea creatures are great ones for being ugly, and they differentiate from a lot of the standards people are used to.
In the context of faces in games, as Rancid points out it's not enough to get the smile in the mouth, but the whole of the rest of the face adjusts too (not thousands of muscles though, as there's 53 in the face IIRC ) and not having everything work together is going to reflect insincerity on the character - they're not really smiling, just turning up the corners of their mouth.
In the context of faces in games, as Rancid points out it's not enough to get the smile in the mouth, but the whole of the rest of the face adjusts too (not thousands of muscles though, as there's 53 in the face IIRC
) and not having everything work together is going to reflect insincerity on the character - they're not really smiling, just turning up the corners of their mouth.So, according to the SF author Christopher Boyce that was referred in that article, if ever we were to contact an alien life form they should be greeted by a musically talented pink pussy. Mariah Carey?
arjan de lumens
Veteran
While I don't know much about bunraku puppets (never having seen any), in the case of the handicapped person, it is fairly common for handicaps to interfere with the person's ability to engage in nonverbal communication - which tends to throw people off and IIRC is the main reason that people with e.g. cerebral palsy were universally regarded as mentally retarded until IQ tests showed that most of them weren't.Fox5 said:
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