Time doesn't seem to be on my side. As my day job devours so much of my time I tend to wait until the weekend to do the majority of my writing which means that sometimes somebody else writes about what I was planning to write about. In this case, it would be the Uncanny Valley; a theory concerning design (mostly visual but it can extend to the other senses as well). The Uncanny Valley is an incredibly important concept for artists in the video game industry to grasp. With today's systems being as powerful as they are, photo realistic graphics are not simply possible but becoming ever more common, and if I had my way, no artist (or director, or producer) would be allowed to work on a game project without having a solid grasp of what the Uncanny Valley is and how it relates to the art assets used in video games.
Seriously, somebody has already done the heavy lifting for me in describing what the Uncanny Valley is. Go here. The article even includes an awesome little video that explains the theory in simple, clear, and entertaining terms. Do it, I'll wait...
Back already? Okay then, let me add to what we've learned.
Photo-Realism: The Devil is in the Details
It isn't difficult to make a still image look like something from real life. This is why it's easy to be impressed by screen shots. As the video pointed out, it's mostly in the animation that everything goes to hell. The problem is one of subtlety. A program that perfectly simulates the way living flesh moves does not exist yet. It's mind boggling how many subtle interactions occur between skin, bone, and muscle in a gesture as simple as a smile. Skin stretches a bit here, puckers up there, and creases elsewhere. A footstep causes the concussive force of the foot impacting the ground to travel up the leg, resulting in fat, muscle, and skin jiggling in a particular way (interactions of other objects, like cloth, only complicate matters further). These are not things most people are conscious of noticing, but the eye picks up on them and the brain files them away; categorizing movements as natural or unnatural, healthy or ill, familiar or foreign. The moment the eye spots something that's not quite right, alarm bells go off in the brain and what was a subtle error becomes a glaring deformity.
Why do we have such a strong reaction to these subtle errors? I don't know, but I can reason the root of our pickiness lies deep in our evolutionary past. Imagine an individual of an ancient hominid troop looking for a mate to start a family with. Let's say our hominid is very cavalier in its attitude towards mate selection. Not particularly caring who he/she hooks up with, our hominid picks out somebody who's sick. The sickness causes this person to move a little stiffly, or smell slightly odd, or something else that's not quite right. Alas for our hypothetical hominids, it's a bad pairing and they fail to produce many children, resulting in a genetic dead end.
Another couple have much better luck. These hominids are very particular in who they bond with, rejecting anyone who's not perfect in health and form. They have a pile of children and grandchildren. Their picky tastes are passed on, coming to dominate the genes of future generations. A few thousand such generations pass and that eye for detail has been reinforced again and again, ultimately resulting in modern human beings who are not easily fooled by mere imitations.
Interestingly, this eye for detail is not limited to us recognizing our own species, rather, it's a matter of familiarity that extends to us recognizing errors in other animals as well. In Part Two, I'll tell the tale of the horse, and how much trouble it can give video game artists.
Related Links:
The Uncanny Valley: Tomb Raider and Lara Croft Are Starting to Freak Me Out
Feeling It: Social Versus Primitive Emotion in Videogames
The Contrarion: The Future Brings Hi-Res Emotion