I nteresting idea, but. . . I don't know. I thnk the "almost real" look is actually pretty cool, and a step in graphics progrssion until they become "photo-real." It will happen sooner or later. I'm glad I get to see it go through the stages.
Even so, there will still always be games that have cute little icons, and strange critters and stuff, so it's not like games are all going to be looking like real life anyway.
My $0.02 on the subject. . .
Posts: 1323 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I read the article earlier today, and I have experienced the exact same thing.
I am a big fan of computer graphics. Out of everything I have seen, I can only think of ONE CG character where I wasn't constantly aware that it was CG. That character was gollum/smeagol.
I submit that gollum would not have seemed so realistic if he had been more human-like.
Has anybody seen the previews for the movie Polar Express? Watching that was like fingernails on a chalk-board. It was just.... wrong. Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Gollum was so human because the animation team that did his fine movements (facial expressions, etc) closely followed the actual actor's expressions when the scenes were filmed. In other words, Gollum was so good because he was acted. Most other CG characters don't have that kind of parallel source material, so the animator has to do his or her best to inject soul into the character, and of course is never perfectly successful.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I SOOOO totally agree with you (Mr.p-h) about The Polar Express. I think that as renderings of humans reach a certain point we somewhat unconciously stop noting how much they look like people and start noticing all the subtle ways in which they don't look like people.
I wonder if it's the same impulse that makes many small children terrified of people in masks or clown make-up. I'm sure it's the same impulse that creeps me out when I see displays of those hideously "life-like" porcelain baby dolls in the mall.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Yeah, the Polar Express trailer scared me. It's like they couldn't decide between cartoonlike or lifelike, so they settled somewhere in between. It's like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within meets Toy Story.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Actually, I almost never notice that computer animations are fake--at least, not at the time they're done, and some not ever. (Sometimes I'll see an animation from a movie done a few years ago and wonder how I could have believed it.) There are exceptions, mostly in totally animated movies, but not all that many.
Posts: 1114 | Registered: Mar 2004
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