The Uncanny Valley writ large

The Uncanny Valley, the place where 3D CG characters so closely resemble humans yet not, giving everyone the creeps, is now being generated in real time, something not thought possible until now.

Fast forward to today, and the tools that are available to budding games creators are incredible. And there’s one graphics and animation engine that is at the forefront of the advancement in realtime graphics realism. Unreal Engine.

From Mortal Kombat to Star Wars, there is no other system as ubiquitous as this, and recently demonstrations of the capabilities of the latest iteration of the system have been doing the rounds. Be prepared to be amazed.

There are three standout demonstrations. The first uses 3Lateral’s Meta Human Framework© alongside Unreal Engine to make a volumetric capture of a performance by Andy Serkis, before transposing it to another CGI character. In realtime. The final result is shown above.

This is Andy Serkis’ original performance. Note that what you are watching is still a CGI version of him!

Gotta love Macbeth. :)

Addendum: Charles Darwin capped on this in Voyage of the Beagle in describing the face of a South American bushmaster in the Galapagos. 

The expression of this [Trigonocephalus] snake’s face was hideous and fierce; the pupil consisted of a vertical slit in a mottled and coppery iris; the jaws were broad at the base, and the nose terminated in a triangular projection. I do not think I ever saw anything more ugly, excepting, perhaps, some of the vampire bats. I imagine this repulsive aspect originates from the features being placed in positions, with respect to each other, somewhat proportional to the human face; and thus we obtain a scale of hideousness.

— Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle[65]

Uncanny Valley indeed.