Tuesday Musings - The Uncanny Valley
"Uncanny Valley" - those words conjure up visions of a weird, magical and possibly somewhat dangerous place from a fantasy novel. In reality, the term came from an actual dip on a chart indicating a human observer's reaction and emotional response to something resembling a human being. As an object (say, a robot) approaches the semblance of a human but isn't quite human, we get a very strange and unsettling feeling about it. Something isn't right; it becomes eerie or creepy. We respond negatively to it. That is the Uncanny Valley. This concept was originally discussed by a Japanese robotics professor, Mashahiro Mori and the term first translated as "uncanny valley" by Jasia Reichardt. Of course, it is used when discussing robotics and AI, and there was an interesting study done where three versions of an entity were presented to people; a very realistic human lookalike robot, the exact same robot without the "skin" (so, just the mechanics) and the human on whom the robot was based. The lookalike caused a negative response while the skinless robot didn't, even though it was doing the exact same things as the lookalike. (I'm assuming everyone liked the actual human 😀).
So, why am I discussing robotics, of which I know nothing? Well, this concept of the Uncanny Valley actually applies to animation as well, especially with widespread use of advanced CGI. There are fairly recent instances where the response to "realistic" characters in animation have been negative; they've been described as "creepy", "eerie" or even "scary", when they are supposed to be anything but. It's a strange idea, this valley. If a character you create is just a bit on either slope you can usually escape that feeling, but miscalculate and let your character slide into the valley and your whole animated feature could get entirely the wrong response! It can be a real tightrope act. Next time you watch some animation using almost lifelike computer-generated characters, think about this and ponder where in the valley the animation resides.
"22 Bones", Episode 18 "In the Doldrums" has been made a semi-finalist in the Los Angeles CineFest.
ALSO - please note a new feature of this blog, a monthly screening calendar accessed in the left-hand menu. September is a busy month!!!!!
So, why am I discussing robotics, of which I know nothing? Well, this concept of the Uncanny Valley actually applies to animation as well, especially with widespread use of advanced CGI. There are fairly recent instances where the response to "realistic" characters in animation have been negative; they've been described as "creepy", "eerie" or even "scary", when they are supposed to be anything but. It's a strange idea, this valley. If a character you create is just a bit on either slope you can usually escape that feeling, but miscalculate and let your character slide into the valley and your whole animated feature could get entirely the wrong response! It can be a real tightrope act. Next time you watch some animation using almost lifelike computer-generated characters, think about this and ponder where in the valley the animation resides.
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UPDATES!
"22 Bones", Episode 18 "In the Doldrums" has been made a semi-finalist in the Los Angeles CineFest.
ALSO - please note a new feature of this blog, a monthly screening calendar accessed in the left-hand menu. September is a busy month!!!!!
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