Thursday, April 26, 2012

Uncanny


In recent news, Valeria Lukyanova become somewhat a sensation because she aims to look like a Barbie doll, the iconic plastic girl who many women had when little. The fact is that, to me, is weird to look at her. I never thought that a real human could cross the uncanny valley and look unreal(I don't know if those photos of her are photoshoped, and she claims they aren't, so I will go with her for now).

Looking at her photos, my brain cannot just decide if what he is seeing is right or not. Her belly and curves are unnatural, her face have weird symmetry and her eyes seems to be too big. sure, I don't doubt that there is plenty of people who find her attractive, but I would have trouble talking to her, because I would always being trying to find if she is real or not.

It is the big eyes. 
While she is unsettling, some animation studios and game developers do a way better job of scaring the shit out of me with the uncanny valley. Take Brütal Legend, for example. The game don't use realistically human beings, but cartoon-like ones. The uncanny come from the use of realistic textures for the main character, to the point of we being able to see his skin. It is the skin with defects we expect from realistic characters, but on him it become very weird.

His 5 o´clock beard is the thing who more trouble me. It is a very realistic texture, but on a cartoon character like him it is troublesome. Every close-up makes me look trying to find all what puts me off on him, wishing that they have used simpler textures on the character. It would help a lot.

He looks like Jack Black and Jessica Rabbit lost son...

Heavy Rain is another game who is a bit scary. Playing the game and them seeing the actors whose characters where based on is somewhat downright creep. you start to wonder if any of those people really exist or if they are just computer generated. You doubt me? Look at this video and tell me you don't get a little weirded out...





It is the most bizarre thing I have ever saw.

I think everyone who makes this kind of thing must be very cautious about how much 'realism' they want to put in their work. If you make something very realistic, be sure to make everything realistic. Even one thing slightly of can kill the sense of immersion because we started to look for what is wrong with that picture/scene. If you want to do something cartoonish, avoid putting realistic stuff in. It cause the same weird effect on my mind(and probably to a lot of minds).

Oh, and girls, if a videogame character like her:


Looks more real than...


I think you should stop with plastic surgery. Please?

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