In this day and the foreseeable future video games will continue to push the envelope of photo realism and, no doubt, continue to send the occasional victim down into the Uncanny Valley by accident. Of course, as technology and associated animation techniques advance, the game industry's ability to fool us will get better. I say, more power to them, but...
...let's not put photo realism on a pedestal as though it were the goal of visual artistry.
Every game project is an opportunity for artistic expression, a chance to create something unique. There is a near infinite variety of styles out there to try. While it is certainly true photo realism suits some types of games very well, especially anything trying to simulate reality, there are so many other interesting choices. Anything can be created in a game, so why are we (we as in Americans for the most part, the rest of the world seems less fearful of whimsy) currently obsessing over imitating the real world? I'd like to see a little less dirt and grit and a little more...
...ink and watercolor...
...crayon...
...cartoon...
...comic book.
And the list goes well beyond what has already been done in a video game.
Okay, I admit it, I have a rather strong bias against photo realism. As an artist, I've always been attracted to stylization and the current trend toward photo realism seems less about artistic possibilities and more about graphic processing power. Reality is limiting by nature but art is limited only by imagination. Also, in line with this post series theme, stylized characters are much more forgiving to design and animate. What I perhaps find most offensive about photo realistic graphics is how they more often than not fail to fool my eye and jar me out of the reality of the game than draw me in. But I have to ask, are people these days becoming numbed to the Uncanny Valley affect?
More now than at any point in the past, in everything from movies to games to robotics, we are exposed to visual frauds asking that we suspend our disbelief and simply accept them. Is the Uncanny Valley reaction becoming lesser as a whole? Of course, your mileage may vary when it comes to personal reaction towards the pretenders, so I shall end my series with a question to my readers: I've shown a variety of video clips and alluded to others as examples of both the Uncanny Valley and its cousins like clashing juxtaposition, but did you react to them as I did? Where I was bothered, did you see nothing wrong?
Related Links:
Crossing the Uncanny Valley: Part 1
Crossing the Uncanny Valley: Part 2
Crossing the Uncanny Valley: Part 3
Crossing the Uncanny Valley: Part 4