crossing the uncanny valley

[egypturnash]

We were sitting around watching "Over the Hedge" with the sound low. I was critiquing incredibly subtle pitfalls of trying to let a computer in-between the outsides of objects without any clue about the basic structure inside.

Conversation drifting, we came to the way fursuiters creep some people out: They look dead. The things that creep us out most, falling right into the uncanny valley, are corpses. They look just like us, except they're not moving.

There's a slang term in animation: to "go dead". A drawing goes dead when it stops moving too long. I've seen it happen. One moment it's a cartoon creature that's just stopped moving for a moment, then suddenly, the breath of life has left it, and it's a static drawing.

I've been in the uncanny valley. I have a static, abstract, full-face cat mask. You can't see my eyes. You can't see my mouth. I move, but there's no face there. I creep myself out when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror when I wear it, to a degree.

The creepiest thing is looking in the mirror when I put it on. One moment, there's me there in the mirror. Bright and full of life. The next, there's this dead thing. It moves like me, it does what I do, but its face returns nothing. Its face is static.

"When you put on a mask, you become your own death," Es said.

Comments

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackpool_High_Tide_Organ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_organ
http://www.sounddesign.unimelb.edu.au/web/lamb/SPring.mp3

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

oooh, thanks. Oh, that's beautiful. I want cds full of that. Or just to make one.

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

You are very welcome. :D You show me neat electronic noises, and I'll show you neat organic noises. :D Aural Vouerism?

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

Maybe you need a mask like one of these?

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

Holy shit! When did they start doing that? It's like Maximum Overdrive, they're coming to kill us all. o_o

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

Just recently, from what I can tell.

[http://users.livejournal.com/innerlife_/]

Heh, I've totally noticed that "go dead" effect in animation over the years. The human brain is wacky!

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

Realdolls!

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

Experience all the fun of necrophilia in the comfort of your own home!

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TPlpQ6iL60

:D

[luoto.livejournal.com]

Usually, when one draws a portrait (or anything with a face) the character gets "a soul" the moment you draw in the pupils in its eyes, it goes from being a statue-like, dead object to something that is alive.
But with a 3-dimensional "real" object (like a furry in a fur-suit) the movement of the eyes and subtle motions in the face makes it "alive", if these things are absent, the object appears "dead" or generally scaring though it moves or acts. To "read the face" is in our genetic programming, if something breaks these "rules" we experience it as odd or scaring. This is very important to remember in character animation, it is the difference between a good or a bad animation.

[secretagentmoof]

When I've worn very obviously opaque contacts that hide the iris, that causes consternation for some people; the all-black scleral lenses really freak people out, though. (I find it damn cool, myself.)

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

That 'dead' quality is precisely why I have no interest in fursuits and never have. Even if they blinked it would be better.

[paka.livejournal.com]

Hm... Unless you're some sort of genius with servos and money to burn, you can't make a fursuit face blink or crinkle up, so it won't read as alive. And of course that's where everyone looks, is the face. Wonder if the way to deal with it is to really go cartoony in design - or possibly go for seriously realistic, with the idea that a very animalistic face won't be read as vaguely human anyway.

With the animation thing, I guess you're basically stuck adding more keyframes, where you basically use the computer to take care of the stuff that's less crucial and pinpoint where you need to be more hands-on.

[merrycalliope.livejournal.com]

Uncanny valley oddness reminds me of dolls which reminds me that I came across this which reminded me of your monster girl work somehow. Main site is here found as a link on this site which has a praying mantis girl you might like but I may have linked to awhile back.

[jirris-midvale.livejournal.com]

Oh man, seriously. OtH had SERIOUS uncanny valley issues.

I've seen a few fursuits that get around the uncanny valley thing just enough, and they are either really toony, or very realistic. And in both cases, they have moving jaws. It's just enough movement in the face to make it work for me.

But for fursuits to do much better, they need some sort of blinking or something. Something for the eyes.

I plan on making one myself, and a big part of it for me is avoiding that terrible pitfall.

[klawzie.livejournal.com]

Belated response, but:

Things that creep klawzie seriously the eff out:
(In no particular order.)
-Santas
-Clowns
-Bad, bad cosplay.
-Fursuits

Santas and Clowns seem to have a little bit of leeway. Tim Allen as Santa? Pass. Cirque du Soleil clowns/Italian clowns? Pass.

Cosplay is more hit than miss. I was more creeped out by Xena and Hercules at Universal Studios my junior (?) year in high school than I was by 90% of what roamed through Anime Expo this just-past summer.

But Fursuits? Good, bad or indifferent, I am unnerved or even deeply unsettled by them. The only exception to this rule seems to be sports team mascots who are not within about fifteen feet of me. But only the animals. Odd-shaped human type mascots are the worst.

I like masks a lot, though. :' But that may speak more to my facination with Venice and those sorts of masks than anything else. I wonder, speaking of those sorts of masks, what happened to the molds we picked up in Germany... :'

Done rambling, though. ;3