Chris Taylor comments on FOOL screenshots

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
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A few weeks ago, Chris Taylor commented a bit on the (quality of the) screenshots of Project V13 released earlier via Duck and Cover and the Vault.<blockquote>I'd like to point out those weren't even "alpha" screens, just "Proof of Concept".

The current models look different. We still want a somewhat stylized look so we can avoid the "Uncanny Valley".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley</blockquote>Continued.<blockquote>Yes, proof of concept artwork is usually (and is, in our case) placeholder.

Masthead has sent us new artwork and it is far superior to the proof of concept, and I liked the POC (recognizing that it was just POC and very early) so I'm very happy.</blockquote>Thanks Duck and Cover.
 
I'd be curious to see what he thought of the models in Fallout 3. One of the reasons (among many!) that I couldn't get into the game fully is that the character models seemed lifeless. For me at least they are squarely in the uncanny valley.
 
That's not what Uncanny Valley means. Nor is Chris Taylor using it correctly. It's a painfully overused term in the gaming industry.
 
I hate it when people talk about the uncanny valley in the context of videogames, especially when talking about fictitious creatures. And no, Bethesda's models aren't in the uncanney valley. They just aren't good compared to other technically-advanced videogames.

They are going for a stylized look because the graphics won't be technically good. It doesn't have anything to do with the uncanny valley.
 
Surf Solar said:
The ones he's been talking about?
We've seen them months before.
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no, i mean the ones that are way better than the pre-alpha ones we have seen ofc. or are they just rumored?
 
junkevil said:
Surf Solar said:
The ones he's been talking about?
We've seen them months before.
Click to expand...

no, i mean the ones that are way better than the pre-alpha ones we have seen ofc. or are they just rumored?
Click to expand...

What I understand is that nobody released/leaked new screens. So for the moment we will just have to take Chris' word that the new ingame artwork is better.

PS: Also, what are you guys bitching about??? He used "uncanny valley" very well. He wants the models to be good but not put people off. Remember the uncanny valley is when the "thing" looks too real but not real enough. Exactly what modern graphics could create in a MMO (or any other game), so he wants to stay in the stylized side of the uncanny valley (that is he stays to the left of the valley). They other solution would be to create photorealistic models/textures (moving to the right from the valley.) Now, if you were to bitch about the uncanny valley concept, I would be with you.... Wait a sec, you have made me bitch too, damn you!
 
If I read that valley crap one more time!

As for those Concept pieces.....They were CP, I just remember people getting bent out of shape for their lack of Being "Fallouty".....even tho nobody could define what being fallouty was.
 
So is this "uncanny valley" the new verisimilitude? I could change my signature... "The appearance or semblance of eating a robotic cheeseburger"
 
Media Limitations Through The AGES!

Media Limitations Through The AGES!




BN said:
... Uncanny Valley ... It's a painfully overused term in the gaming industry.
Click to expand...

For all the prattle of *immersion*,
for all the claims of computer graphic simulated 3D wire frames -- skinned -- in topographical textures,
still, "teh gaem" industry doesn't seem to have the movie industry CGI budget to fake what ever passes for realism de jour.

Still plenty of money to propagandize how AWESOME the latest puppet simulator graphics are ...

LOL at teasers on You Tube showing cut scenes of Bioware's DA intimate moments .

Sad.

Yes, they do look like '90's Poser Porn!

Laughter and back handed derision, that's perhaps an "Uncanny Valley" consequence to Bioware's choice of graphic limitations.

I believe that FO3 animations were judged by some to lack a media verisimilitude also.
Still B-Soft won the brass ring for that past year. So the 'bar' is not very high, if the shooter "roles" like a game.

Let's go on to another past master of illusions.

Legend has it that other money making franchises compromised to their media.


Specifically the early movie cartoon drafting of THE Mouse's hand.

handsteaser.jpg


Yes folk's,
Mickey's fourth finger was not erased to restrain him from inappropriate hand gestures,
no,
that fifth digit was chopped by the budgetary, the animation limitations, of that hand drawn age.

Uncle Walt died with a whole lot of toys, and a couple of theme parks, so by our consumer mores, he was a winner!


...


Now what kind of theme park would Chris Taylor propagate?





4too
 
TychoXI said:
Exactly what modern graphics could create in a MMO
Click to expand...

They could? That's news to me. All I've seen is human models with several often laughable flaws.

Y'see, when there's something obviously wrong with the fact that makes me go "fake", whether it be unrealistic skin or bad animations, that's not the Uncanny Valley, yet people keep pretending that's the uncanny valley. It's not, it's just shitty graphics.

When you create an artificial form that is similar to humans in every way yet still looks creepy simply because (of "dead eyes" and the like), that's the Uncanny Valley. Some would argue 300 or The Polar Express belong to this. I don't know, I've never experienced it.

Also, the Uncanny Valley is an unproven hypothesis that has yet to be tested, so I don't know why it's bandied around like fact anyway.
 
Rationalizing The Irrational

Rationalizing The Irrational





BN said:
...
When you create an artificial form that is similar to humans in every way yet still looks creepy simply because (of "dead eyes" and the like), that's the Uncanny Valley. ...
Click to expand...

BN said:
...
"dead eyes" . ...
Click to expand...

Take those livin' eyes and look ...
Observe the cited wiki's graph, ...
a document worthy of reverence along with all the other irrationally exuberant QED's scribed on feed lot napkins or watering hole coasters,
461px-Mori_Uncanny_Valley.svg.png

notice south of 'corpse' and the 'prosthetic hand' of 3 Fingered Mickey ...

(Warning soon engaging all cap's mode for draMATIC EMPHASIS!) The unhappy pop cultural (undead) personification is 3 .... 2 ... 1 ... ZOMBIE!

In the present marketing time and space, do not "zombies" create a 'favorable' emotional response, along with the tittering hilarity of 'asploding heads?

A 'favorable' emotional response means Zombies sell games!

So the 'art' in this tower of psycho babble , may be selecting what sells, ... this day,

tomorrow the fashion may be clubbing puppies or baby seals ...


BN said:
...
Also, the Uncanny Valley is an unproven hypothesis that has yet to be tested, so I don't know why it's bandied around like fact anyway.
Click to expand...

The silly situation is editorially selecting a finite pod of samples, and then spinning generally linked observations about fashion into pseudo scientific justification.

Where are the environmental, the cultural cues that will separate 'the living from the dead'?

Too many cats to herd , when it's all just 'poetic' license- an aesthetic construct to dangle the strange fruit, so let's all just relax ...

It's all poetry. Don't that make you warm and fuzzy?

The illicit pretense here may be eliciting as 'fact', an observation that has less art than artifice.

When the ultimate goal is to incite emotions, hype energizes hysteria, populist inertia shambles from its grave, armies of consumers march and the money flows.

On this planet of faith based economics what's more real than that? ;)







4too
 
When you create an artificial form that is similar to humans in every way yet still looks creepy simply because (of "dead eyes" and the like), that's the Uncanny Valley. Some would argue 300 or The Polar Express belong to this. I don't know, I've never experienced it.
Click to expand...

In other words, to the Uncanny Valley belong the things that look real and alive but don't act real and alive. Like wax figures.
 
Re: Rationalizing The Irrational

4too said:
tomorrow the fashion may be clubbing puppies or baby seals ...
Click to expand...

Actually, in Overlord II you DO club baby seals.

As for this valley thingy, it's not something that you could properly apply to games or animation. It's just not. The only time I'm disgusted by something like that is when it looks like crap. :P

(like Bethsoft's jumping animations)

For it to be a valley thing, it has to be 100% real, but have one distinct flaw. Like a noticeable twitch, OR wires hanging out, OR dead eyes, etc.. Unless these video game characters react to your movements in real life, the movements you take, sitting there in your chair... unless they look at YOU (not your character), then I don't see how anyone is ever gonna get creeped out about it. :P

And even if a person were to respond like that, it'd be due to some little camera thing, and I still doubt it would creep anyone out, as this uncanny mumbo humbo will most likely never apply to video games... at least not in my lifetime (or any of yours).

4too's posts maybe, but not a video game.
 
actually, i think what he is saying is that while computers can make photo-realistic graphics, albeit not real-time but pre-drawn, they make flaws on purpose to totally avoid the issue.

while yes, computer graphics can come pretty close even if not perfect, some people would still experience the "uncanny valley" issue because everyone experiences that valley at different points. so if they make purposeful flaws, they avoid the issue entirely and make it very hard for even the most "sensitive" to experience any part of the valley.

whenever you deal with an emotional concept, everyone reacts differently. the only way to make sure you totally avoid the issue, is to make it so that the issue never comes up.

as it was, people complained about several movies that were not exactly photo-realistic CGI movies, and still had this issue. that was his point.
 
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