5 ms·

Sure graphics are looking amazing...but I still think we are in the uncanny valley. Especially when it comes to faces.

by SubiculumCode 9y ago

arianvanp 9y ago
I agree. Rogue one was a great example. I found it very disturbing. Both Tarkin's and Leia's face
- tclancy 9y ago
  Right and even when it was just about perfect it's unsettling because you get taken out of the moment wondering, "Am I looking at a real person or CGI"?
- SubiculumCode 9y ago
  It isn't so much the faces look either, but how the faces move. Movement is often too slow, too long, too regular...and ill-timed.
  - panic 9y ago
    Yes! Motion is key. It's not enough to be photorealistic -- you need to be "videorealistic" as well.
    - iainmerrick 9y ago
      Is that something deep learning could tackle? (asking as a complete non-expert in DL) It feels like a similar problem to realistic speech synthesis, and there have been some really impressive TTS demos recently. Athough on that note, how come Google can produce these amazing speech synthesis demos, but Google Maps still sounds robotic when giving directions? Is there some big problem around generalizing or productionizing the technology? Is there some hidden trickery behind the demos?
    - SubiculumCode 9y ago
      I'd have thought that putting tracking dots on a person's face could have solved some of these things.
      - khedoros1 9y ago
        I think that's what they did, though. http://www.indiewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/an1-274065.jpg http://www.indiewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/an1-2740...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- djrogers 9y ago
  I went in to the movie not knowing that Tarkin was CGI - I assumed he was a stand-in and makeup - and came away none the wiser. After I was told he was CG, it was obvious and weird... Wonder how much of the uncanny valley stuff left is in our heads?
  - TillE 9y ago
    I know a few people had that reaction, but I went in blind too and the CGI was painfully obvious. They had close-ups of Tarkin which looked really terrible. CGI is superb at creating indistinguishable still images, but animation is still riddled with problems.
    - flamedoge 9y ago
      animation was too "perfect" in my eyes.
      - Chaebixi 9y ago
        he looked like a wax figure from madame tussauds that was animate
        falcolas 9y ago
        At least wax figurines get lit realistically, the one place most CGI seems to fail.
  - qznc 9y ago
    It is easy to A-B test. Maybe someone has done that already?
    - anderspitman 9y ago
      What would you ask the test subjects though? Seems to me as soon as you say anything regarding realism a lot percentage would notice things they wouldn't have before. I'm sure a clever experiment designer could come up with something though.
- koonsolo 9y ago
  Me too, but a friend of mine hadn't noticed that certain characters were CGI, so it must work for some of us.
dschep 9y ago
Agreed. And I always associated the uncanny valley with representations of humans, not terrain, robots, etc.
bitwize 9y ago
I urge you to watch Blade Runner 2049. Minor spoiler: there is a scene involving Rachael. They brought in the original actress and de-aged her face digitally to look like she did in her 20s and the effect was... mind-bogglingly close to perfect. Easily the best facial CG I've seen so far.
- mrec 9y ago
  > They brought in the original actress and de-aged her face digitally No, Sean Young (the original Rachael) was brought in to consult, but the CGI face was superimposed on a stand-in, Loren Peta [1]. I saw the movie on Monday and wasn't impressed with the quality there; worse than Rogue One Tarkin and on a par with Rogue One Leia. As many others have opined in this thread, the technology's fine for stills but really, really not there for animation. YMMV, obviously. I have a friend who made it about a third of the way through Zemeckis' 2007 Beowulf before asking "hey, why did it all just go CGI?", and that movie wasn't remotely aiming for photorealism. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_2049#Cast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_2049#Cast
bsenftner 9y ago
It may be a while. We have a large amount of evolutionary neural instinct when it comes to human facial recognition. Realize that camouflage in nature is very common, and as a result our ability to distinguish a real human face from a predator imposter has our entire evolution and survival baked in.

Sure graphics are looking amazing...but I still think we are in the uncanny valley. Especially when it comes to faces.

arianvanp 9y ago

I agree. Rogue one was a great example. I found it very disturbing. Both Tarkin's and Leia's face

tclancy 9y ago
Right and even when it was just about perfect it's unsettling because you get taken out of the moment wondering, "Am I looking at a real person or CGI"?
SubiculumCode 9y ago
It isn't so much the faces look either, but how the faces move. Movement is often too slow, too long, too regular...and ill-timed.
- panic 9y ago
  Yes! Motion is key. It's not enough to be photorealistic -- you need to be "videorealistic" as well.
  - iainmerrick 9y ago
    Is that something deep learning could tackle? (asking as a complete non-expert in DL) It feels like a similar problem to realistic speech synthesis, and there have been some really impressive TTS demos recently. Athough on that note, how come Google can produce these amazing speech synthesis demos, but Google Maps still sounds robotic when giving directions? Is there some big problem around generalizing or productionizing the technology? Is there some hidden trickery behind the demos?
  - SubiculumCode 9y ago
    I'd have thought that putting tracking dots on a person's face could have solved some of these things.
    - khedoros1 9y ago
      I think that's what they did, though. http://www.indiewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/an1-274065.jpg http://www.indiewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/an1-2740...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
djrogers 9y ago
I went in to the movie not knowing that Tarkin was CGI - I assumed he was a stand-in and makeup - and came away none the wiser. After I was told he was CG, it was obvious and weird... Wonder how much of the uncanny valley stuff left is in our heads?
- TillE 9y ago
  I know a few people had that reaction, but I went in blind too and the CGI was painfully obvious. They had close-ups of Tarkin which looked really terrible. CGI is superb at creating indistinguishable still images, but animation is still riddled with problems.
  - flamedoge 9y ago
    animation was too "perfect" in my eyes.
    - Chaebixi 9y ago
      he looked like a wax figure from madame tussauds that was animate
      - falcolas 9y ago
        At least wax figurines get lit realistically, the one place most CGI seems to fail.
- qznc 9y ago
  It is easy to A-B test. Maybe someone has done that already?
  - anderspitman 9y ago
    What would you ask the test subjects though? Seems to me as soon as you say anything regarding realism a lot percentage would notice things they wouldn't have before. I'm sure a clever experiment designer could come up with something though.
koonsolo 9y ago
Me too, but a friend of mine hadn't noticed that certain characters were CGI, so it must work for some of us.

dschep 9y ago

Agreed. And I always associated the uncanny valley with representations of humans, not terrain, robots, etc.

bitwize 9y ago

I urge you to watch Blade Runner 2049. Minor spoiler: there is a scene involving Rachael. They brought in the original actress and de-aged her face digitally to look like she did in her 20s and the effect was... mind-bogglingly close to perfect. Easily the best facial CG I've seen so far.

mrec 9y ago
> They brought in the original actress and de-aged her face digitally No, Sean Young (the original Rachael) was brought in to consult, but the CGI face was superimposed on a stand-in, Loren Peta [1]. I saw the movie on Monday and wasn't impressed with the quality there; worse than Rogue One Tarkin and on a par with Rogue One Leia. As many others have opined in this thread, the technology's fine for stills but really, really not there for animation. YMMV, obviously. I have a friend who made it about a third of the way through Zemeckis' 2007 Beowulf before asking "hey, why did it all just go CGI?", and that movie wasn't remotely aiming for photorealism. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_2049#Cast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_2049#Cast

bsenftner 9y ago

It may be a while. We have a large amount of evolutionary neural instinct when it comes to human facial recognition. Realize that camouflage in nature is very common, and as a result our ability to distinguish a real human face from a predator imposter has our entire evolution and survival baked in.