Down In The Valley by MrGorf
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Description
What? It's just Aiko. Everybody loves Aiko... right?
I've been studying the whole Uncanny Valley concept of late. I was wondering if people found Poser/DS renderings to be disgusting or horrifying as a whole. But then I thought, people consider Renaissance paintings to be an acceptable abstraction of life. Why would they freak out over Vickies?
I read further, and then last night I happened to see a TV ad. People won't remember what the ad was about. What they will remember is that a "Goldilocks" of Toon proportions had a bit too realistic of a skin texture... And was composited into a real subway.
The point is that it's not the 3D abstraction of people per se that viewers find disgusting, it's that SOMETHING is inconsistent and highly noticeable. Something is of the wrong stylistic level compared to everything else. In animations as well as with robots, it's that something LOOKS like a human, but their motion is wrong enough that people can't think of anything else.
This goes back to "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Snow White herself was rotoscoped, while the dwarfs and animals weren't. Sure, it was pretty cutting edge technology in 1937, and Disney thought the added realism would help. It didn't. The problem was that SHE stuck out as being "wrong" relative to her environment. Granted, the reaction was not nausea, but rather that she seemed to fade into the background.
So what I'm saying is that with Poser and DS renderings, the people probably won't look freaky since they are the same "style" as their environment. Cut out the person and stick them into a Pointillist painting, and, well...
That's why I made this picture. I wanted to find the nadir of the Uncanny Valley by making a picture that would disturb ME, which is a tall order since I'm the one making it. The only thing that would make this worse would be if her elbows and knees were bending in the wrong direction, but that's more "Exorcist" than Uncanny Valley. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
By the way, if you've ever seen the book "A Fragment: Fei Fei Photographs" you might understand. I showed this book to someone and they literally had a panic attack. Amazing... we didn't even get to the shot of the rendered supermodel hugging a real kid...
Comments (7)
MKeyes
Yikes! However once more, brilliant lighting, but the character, YIKES!!!
Knechtruprecht
She has nice boobies, round hips, and a well fitting jeans, so what? Ok, honestly maybe I am old - huh? IMO many 'pretty' Aiko figures let me drop down into the Uncanny Valley. Also I crater when Vicky looks obstrusively like Vicky. Then even the most perfect character becomes a robot - without variations and imperfections. Guess the inversion of the Uncanny Valley can be found here: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2166268
galung
the skin texture is look real... i like it...very sexy back part hahahahaha
Faemike55
At first I thought you had gon off the deep end or I had! Then I readyour narrative.. from the neck down, she is pretty standard, as it were, for a Digital Girl. it was the head/expression that sent it off to the side realms. Excellent work and a great way to wake people up
DangerousThing
I will state first that I don't like the new Aiko 4. Aiko 3 was nice with some nice realistic morphs and textures. And yes, the picture is very disturbing, from two fronts: 1. The huge eyes. 2. The smile. It's too big and the bottom teeth don't show as a real person's might. 3. The head texture is too shiny, as if she polyurethane'ed her face (it works well to keep the makeup in place). I agree with Faemike55 that from the neck down she's a fairly normal digital girl (though I think the figure is too barbie dollish, but that's Aiko 4 for you. The uncanny valley comes in when we recognize something as something that is trying to imitate a human. We learn how to interpret drawings and such, but sometimes things appear too real without being really real. This is just a very well done and contrived example (you should write a tutorial). As one aside, I was in a store near Christmas and saw a display of singing elves that almost made me physically sick because they were residents of the valley.
phfrancke
What is she looking at!? About uncanny valley, I never heard of it, (and now I need to read up and see what's going on about that). Often I (try to) composite and getting things to blend in a manner that works is never easy. Your observations about this are keen and useful.
KatesFriend
I remember our local animation network had an anime festival. It was hosted by this one girl who, at the end of the intro, picks up this life sized anime girl mask and pulls it on to her head. Even the eyes blinked. It was at once funny, cute and a little creepy.