The Uncanny Valley

Continued From '3D: Nifty'….

Conversely, the 3D effect in The Polar Express was very realistic, and very enjoyable (the wayward ticket scene was particularly memorable…I'll say no more, out of sensitivity for those of you who haven't yet seen the film). I'd seen a presentation from the film's developers at last year's Siggraph, and apparently Sony Pictures Imageworks went all the way back to the 3D models and re-rendered the entire film from scratch to come up with the 3D version. Conversely, the Real D process used in Chicken Little operates on an already-rendered 2D presentation and appears to be conceptually similar to the two-channel to surround automated audio conversion processes I wrote about a few years ago.

Actually, I'll go so far as to say I don't think I would have enjoyed The Polar Express very much in 2D. It was a great example of a phenomenon known as the Uncanny Valley (I've also seen it occasionally referred to as the Realism Chasm), theorized by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970. Basically, Mori's theory says that beyond a certain point of attempted human realism, we become repulsed by still and animated images, robots, and the like; our eyes and brains know ourselves best, and they become fixated on the minute differences between a computer-generated humanoid (which appears corpse-like) and the real thing. The Wikipedia entry linked to in this paragraph is a very interesting read; I encourage you to peruse it to learn more about this topic.

Speaking of the Uncanny Valley, my wife and I also saw Peter Jackson's version of King Kong a few weeks ago. I frankly was blown away by the film; both by the plot, the special effects and especially by how seamlessly the computer-generated images blended with real-life characters. Primates such as Kong are humanoid in appearance and mannerism, of course; that Jackson was able to so convincingly create Kong in the computer suggests, to me, just how close we are to crossing the Uncanny Valley.

Here's some more reading for you, from my manila folder collection:

The Polar Express
Nuance and Risk (Millimeter)
Performance Captured (Millimeter) (also see my December 23, 1999 article 'C'mon, baby, do the animotion')

Chicken Little
The Sky Is Falling (IEEE Spectrum)
The Sky's The Limit (Computer Graphics World)

King Kong
King Kong (Millimeter)
Long Live the King (Computer Graphics World)

p.s…also check out the article 'How Digital Animation Conquered Hollywood' from the March issue of Wired.