I found a video this week describing how the LA Noire team are using advanced technology to make their characters as realistic as they can. You can watch it here.
However, when you see the demo scenes, it feels just plain weird. They can spend millions on the latest technology, I will never confuse their characters for real human beings! Why is that? It’ s a principle called the Uncanny Valley.
The uncanny valley is a theory coming from robotic engineers, that basically states that a character (or a robot) has more chance to be liked if it has some human features. However, the more the character is made to be realistic (a fake human being), the more our brain identifies every details that is wrong about this character and makes us feel uncomfortable.
The same is true with any media trying to replicate human beings. Video games are not an exception. This theory explains why we are so quick to feel familiarity to characters with exaggerate features, like cartoon characters. When a character is stylized, our brain is happy, because it understands perfectly the patterns shown and will fill the “holes” that makes that character unrealistic. Think of the Gestalt psychology theory, for instance. However, when the character is close to be photo realistic, the brains becomes really picky about the details that make this character a fake. This is truer when the character is in motion.
Movies, on the other hand, don’t have these problems. Actors are real human being and they are captured perfectly by the camera. Animated movies often use really stylized characters to avoid the uncanny valley.
What Rockstar Games team is trying to do is scanning the face of real actors and transposing them on artificial bodies that moves thanks to motion captures made separately. The idea seems good, but unfortunately, it looks exactly as it is: a face glued on a rigid fake body. And no matters how hard they will work on it, it’s just almost impossible to get through the uncanny valley. Unless they find a technology that will scan perfectly the actors in 3d and makes 3d models out of them. I’m sure this technology will exist eventually, but we’re not quite there yet. So until then, why not letting some space for imagination?
Mr Guert Said:
on December 17, 2010 at 9:03 am
Breaking the boundary between reality and virtuality to a state where it becomes almost impossible to distinguish the two has been one of the main design philosophy of the North-American market (as well as the European) ever since the first video games appeared. North-American players tend to enjoy realistic looking visuals and game rules that are closer to what they can experience in real life. It’s mostly because of their cultural background. The North-American entertainment market tends to see iconic characters (simple details, stylized look), mostly referred as “cartoony”, as something for children or as low-class entertainment. Bugs Bunny, Charlie Brown, Family Guy, The Simpsons or anything Disney fits the iconic look. Even comic books, which got a big load of bad press back in the 50′s, despite depicting their actors with a graphic style closer to realistic visuals, are viewed as entertainment for children or teenagers. However, cinema presents its actors very close to what they are in reality and many movies have grown to a state where they are considered masterpieces and made cinema an accepted and high art form.
The video game industry is much like a teenager. It wants to be big but its not. It’s trying hard but despite its best efforts, it’s not mature. Much like the kid who grows a bad teen moustache and goes “Look-a me m’ma! Imma big man now”, the game industry fails to see that more details on a face don’t make you more of an adult; it’s the intention and maturity in the themes, the way you act and the choices you make that does. Rockstar’s L.A. Noir is a great example of this: little is known on the actual game besides this new technology that allows to copy&paste actors faces on polygons. I’m suspecting that the story of their new game will be the same story they’ve been using for the past 10 years: some lone guy with low self-respect and a tough guy attitude starts hanging out with low-lives, commits crime, goes up the criminal ranks, gets the money, the women and the vehicules. Then the game ends and tells the player that doing nasty stuff is the way to go, like all great criminals that have lived wonderful and full lives that gave them riches and fame. Call in grand Theft auto, call it Bully, call it whatever you want, it,s always the same thing with Rockstar.
On the topic of the Uncanny Valley, the Polar Express and Jim Carrey’s Christmas Carol are good example of how this can happen in Hollywood too.
Polar express: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVfB6GhlwIM
Christmas Carol: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ3lr3urgDU
And here’s a Japanese android that is getting closer to what sci-fi horror flicks have been foreshadowing all these years
Anyway, keep up the blog posts!
rbpayer Said:
on December 17, 2010 at 3:24 pm
I have a little more hopes with LA Noire tough, because they mentioned interactions and lying detection mechanics based on characters emotions. Maybe it’s just vague promises, but who knows?