uncanny valley...

[random_bars]

Maybe it's just me, but does anyone else think we've already passed it? Maybe this is just because I played it retrospectively, but I thought Ocarina of Time looked positively disgusting - the character models especially, adult Link with his stupid pointy carrot nose, everyones' hands having crudely drawn lines to represent fingers, and the bottles which, for whatever reason, are cone shaped.

I can think of countless games with less lifelike graphics which look far better, and countless games with more realistic graphics which also look far better. But there's something about OoT's graphics that is just... uncanny. Don't you think?

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Ever since the Gamecube-PS2-XBox era, when graphics were smoothed out and weren't "blocky", I couldn't tell you if any game had good or bad graphics.

If you popped in a PS2 game and a PS3 game, I probably couldn't tell you a the difference. I can't tell for the life of me the difference between standard TV and Blu-ray.

I (personally) think we're past it, but mainly because of my bad disguisement of graphics.

As for OoT: Yeah, lots of blockiness: Most things were 2D and the 3D models were... bad.

 

[The Madman]

Not at all, the entire point of uncanny valley is that the closer CG visuals get to reality, the more our brains tend to notice the tiny flaws in every last detail. Arguably Crysis is the closest a game has gotten to life-like visuals, but even then there's never really any sense that you're doing anything but playing a game. The little details stand out all the more as flaws and every one of those tiny flaws adds up.

There's a difference between 'really good graphics' and breaking the 'uncanny valley' effect.

So far the only thing which for some has surpassed that little oddity in our silly simian minds would be Avatar, and that's the most expensive movie ever made. So it's gonna be a looooong time before games even come close to reaching that level.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

I gotta say the face models in Bullet Witch ('cept for Alisha) and in Army of Two (cept for Salem and rios) Are just strange as shit.

 

[Alleged Despair]

Don't forget old Ganondwarf's pentagon ears that stick out like a monkey.

 

[Booze Zombie]

I think one of the best games for doing 3D right was Metal Gear Solid 3, I honestly didn't notice anything other than a few muddy textures and even that was rare.
Which is saying something, considering it was on a PS2.

But a lot of games, yes... they do it.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I think we're just before the uncanny valley. Because things look good, but not absolutely realistic.

 

[GiantRaven]

I don't know...Bethesda games still exist...

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Ever since the Gamecube-PS2-XBox era, when graphics were smoothed out and weren't "blocky", I couldn't tell you if any game had good or bad graphics.

If you popped in a PS2 game and a PS3 game, I probably couldn't tell you a the difference. I can't tell for the life of me the difference between standard TV and Blu-ray.

I (personally) think we're past it, but mainly because of my bad disguisement of graphics.

As for OoT: Yeah, lots of blockiness: Most things were 2D and the 3D models were... bad.

You can't tell the difference between Standard and Bluray? Please tell me you only own a SDTV or I will cry...

I only own a SDTV, but I do have a lot of experience with HDTV and Blu-ray; my friends have HDTV and Blu-ray. I noticed a slightly different color spectrum and some depth but that was all it.

I'm sorry, here, take these.

Spoiler

 

[Grygor]

Ever since the Gamecube-PS2-XBox era, when graphics were smoothed out and weren't "blocky", I couldn't tell you if any game had good or bad graphics.

If you popped in a PS2 game and a PS3 game, I probably couldn't tell you a the difference. I can't tell for the life of me the difference between standard TV and Blu-ray.

I (personally) think we're past it, but mainly because of my bad disguisement of graphics.

As for OoT: Yeah, lots of blockiness: Most things were 2D and the 3D models were... bad.

You can't tell the difference between Standard and Bluray? Please tell me you only own a SDTV or I will cry...

For movies, yes, many people cannot tell the difference between the two.

DVD video is 720x480 as it is. A 55" TV, to take as an example, is 48" wide (and 27" tall), with a recommended viewing distance of 7' to 12'. On such a TV, DVD video has 15 pixels per inch horizontally, while the highest BluRay resolution, 1920x1080, has 40 pixels per inch. Most people simply can not tell the difference between the two resolutions from 7 feet away during general viewing - the difference is actually most noticeable in wide shot and extreme long shot scenes with a stationary camera.

 

[RatRace123]

The good graphics are part of the uncanny valley.

Seeing something that looks so much like a real person act in a way unlike any real person is what causes the uncanny valley

And the uncanny valley causes insane amounts of soul shitting terror.

Yeah, in terms of where we're at, I wouldn't say we've passed it, I'd say we're right in it. Especially with the industry's hard on for "realism", "realistic" game characters, while very good, still look creepy.

It's those dead eyes, we still can't make people who don't have a dead zombie like stare.

 

[ZephrC]

Ugly and uncanny are very different things. Yes, early 3D graphics were pretty terrible, but the whole point of the uncanny valley is that it's at the point where your conscious mind loses the ability to distinguish the difference, but there's some unconscious bit that still sees things wrong and you get this horrible creepy feeling and you don't quite know why. So no, games haven't even reached the uncanny valley yet.

 

[Lullabye]

I couldn't play Star Ocean because of how they animated the characters. It just weirded me out to much. To bad since for what I did play, it was a good game.

 

[Syphous]

I think we're getting closer, but not there yet.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Maybe I'm hypersensitive, but I still get it all the time, especially when games try and go 'sexy' on me..

Case in point. The sex scenes in Dragon Age. I found them fucking skin crawling. Mass effect just about passed, but only because of the clever camera effects.

I don't see how you'd get it with Zelda though. The characters don't look remotely human, hence there's not really much potential for the uncanny. It might look shit and vaguely creepy, but that's not really uncanny.