The eyes still look unreal to me--like they are not quite synced right on the face. However, if I did not know she was a computer animation and I saw her briefly in passing, I think I would be fooled.
Time to redo any of the Final Fantasy movies.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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It sort of looks like she has a muscular problem around her mouth and that she's been retrained by a therapist to smile etc.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I'm not creeped out by it, which is certainly an improvement on previous attempts at realistic animation. Uncanny Valley is behind us.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Originally posted by lem: This video is just too cool. I wonder what video games my kids will be able to play in 10 years.
The eyes still look unreal to me--like they are not quite synced right on the face. However, if I did not know she was a computer animation and I saw her briefly in passing, I think I would be fooled.
Time to redo any of the Final Fantasy movies.
I saw the video a couple of months ago from blendernation.
For me, I noticed the seam between the actress' real face and the model. The eyes were also a give away when they were doing the short, emotive cuts. But as a whole, I agree that this is freakishly impressive. But there is a pretty big drawback that I see to this so far, the technology requires an actor for the facial animation. While this isn't a bad thing for all projects, I think it's perfectly reasonable to record actors giving their lines in a studio and using the video to make the facial animations. But to really excel, artists should be able to use tools that recreate human emotion without using a direct reference.
Perhaps drawback isn't the right word. I think the better word would be that while this is really impressive, I think we still have a lot we can and could achieve with CG animation. (Makes me sound less cynical, see. =P)
Oh, and on the FF movies. I vote yes on 'Spirits,' no on 'AC.' Advent Children wasn't designed to go for the realism that Spirits did. It was purposefully stylized to avoid the creepiness, and I think they succeeded and don't need to redo that one. Posts: 1831 | Registered: Jan 2003
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It is very impressive work, but I agree that the eyes aren't 100% there, yet. I think something about the way real human eyes catch and reflect light is really hard for CGI to do.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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A lot of the time, CG movements are just unnaturally smooth. Like an actor who has rehearsed way, way too much. It's a LOT better in the Emily video, but it's still there. Even the way she blinks is a just little too inhumanly graceful.
EDIT - they should study the way a total klutz moves. Or maybe a drunk person. I think it might help. I'd volunteer.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Let me try again. I think if you were to measure the speed at which her eyelids open or close, for example, you'd find the acceleration and deceleration much more uniform than in an actual person. It'd be a tiny difference, but I think it shows. Also, the middle portion of her upper lip moves slightly funny.
Then again, I'm not 100% confident that I would've realized she was computer generated if I hadn't been told, so go figure.
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I probably wouldn't have been able to figure it out on my own, but as far as Uncanny Valley goes, I think we passed it in Benjamin Button.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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I don't think the uncanny valley issue really applies when (as in parts of Benjamin Button) you have a real face superimposed on another person's body.
At any rate, I was creeped out by the fake age makeup on both of the main characters; it didn't look real. I actually think it's less distracting to use a different, older actor to play the old version of a character, instead of attempting to make a young actor look old.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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<shrug> Yeah, I was fooled, sort of. I thought they had taken video of Pitt and manipulated it to splice it into other footage. It didn't look like a real person, though.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I must say that I did, in fact, find Benjamin Button somewhat eerie. Bear in mind though that the uncanny valley doesn't just apply to CGI. Actors with makeup can have the same effect, if the makeup doesn't quite achieve the effect they're trying for.
Raymond would remember the story about when his sister achieved a high degree of uncanniness in person.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Edit: Random tangeant - I paused before hitting the "post" button because writing "Lol" on a fairly sophisticated forum where people actually type stuff out felt wrong. But I honestly cannot think of another phrase that conveys the specific connotation that Lol has.
Although this particular forum DOES have fairly adequate smiley technology to accomplish the same thing:
Anyways, there were times when I didn't think Benjamin looked correct from a "realistically aging a person" perspective, and I think there was one specific timezone (the one where he was old but with long hair) that irked me, but I don't think that section was CGI. Regardless, I didn't have a problem with the way he looked in his early life.
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