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Comment by hastur | Hacker News Reader

Well, a great idea, but I don't agree that they've crossed the "uncanny valley". Quite far from it.

Really? I was completely undistracted by the fact that I was watching CG. Obviously I was not fooled into thinking that I was watching live action, but that's not what it means to cross the uncanny valley. The point is that you are able to focus on the emotions and expressions of the character you're watching rather than struggling against an urge to warn the others... to protect the children.

The point is that you are able to focus on the emotions and expressions of the character you're watching rather than struggling against an urge to warn the others... to protect the children.

But that can happen after or before the valley, and I personally think they're still before it. It's closer to a cartoon or animated being like Wall-E than to a real human.

The Uncally valley has to do with causing "a response of revulsion among human observers" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley). It's when the robot / fictional character feels real enough that it's not obvious it's a robot anymore, but weird enough that it looks like a real creepy human being.

The rendering being cartoon-like or the shading not being realistic has nothing to do with it.

How does it not have anything to do with it? To me, it's exactly the cartoon-like appearance that makes it feel unreal enough that it's obvious it's not an human.

It is very creepy to me and I happen to have a very hard time remember people's faces and recognizing them. I wonder if my brain is just worse than average at face processing, and that's why this becomes uncanny to me? Whereas to someone who has a better than average eye for faces, this is clearly a cartoon.

From the Wikipedia article you linked: "Avoiding a photorealistic texture can permit more leeway."

For me, this goes nowhere near the uncanny valley, for the reason icebraining points out. The coloring and visual tone of the whole piece says "cartoon" to me. It's a different aesthetic than, say, Tangled, but the effect is the same for me. Perhaps this is partly because, as a frequent gamer, that aesthetic is very familiar to me.

Yeah I actually didn't voice my opinion in my parent comment but I agree, this doesn't feel uncanny to me either. Whether something is uncanny or not is probably a subjective assessment.

You were able to focus on the emotions and expressions of the character. The uncanny valley is different for everyone, because it expresses a subjective emotion.

I chose to stop watching about half way through. It made me feel very, very uncomfortable. This has to be near the nadir of my familiarity/revulsion curve. I can't explain why, but that's how I felt.

Well I certainly didn't mean to discount your experience. I was just surprised.

I think where the uncanny valley falls is different for everyone.

Obviously many people enjoyed watching the Final Fantasy movies as well as the Polar Express movie, and many will enjoy watching Tintin. I can barely get through the ads for these movies. Even the short Tintin preview is cringe inducing to me.

For me the face was convincing. I was lost as soon as the "robot skin" started changing to "human skin". My suspension of disbelief failed utterly then.

I'd be interested to know more about the tech - is there much pre-rendering going on? How reactive could this be to human users?

The fact that the character was an android rather than a human made it easy for me to forget that it was CG because I expect an android to be somewhat artificial looking or acting. If they had shown a human character, I imagine the effect would have been less dramatic.

If the CG doesn't make you squirm then the subject matter will, so it may not have been the best choice for demonstrating the absence of revulsion.

Really I was expecting more from a tech demo. The quality felt about the same but a little better than Mass Effect or the last Deus Ex.

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