Scientists create animated human that bridges the "uncanny valley"

there was an animated movie i saw onetime that looked real to me. i forgot the name of it though. something about invisible aliens that jump through reality.

i think it was called final fantasy

[edit on 19-8-2008 by Scarlett Johanson]

Pornography will be one of the first to use the technology, they usually are... the first multiangled DVD was porn, and this is probably cheaper than a high paid star and I doubt the word "No way" will be uttered.

And looking at it only the face is computer animated, the rest of the body seems real enough. I still prefer the Square-Enix work, humans are so.... imperfect, who wants to replicate spots?

Take a sample of the plethora of sound bites of world officials as well a sample of their faces from the many hours of news footage, press briefings etc and you could declare war on anyone at any time in a false flag psyops project using this technology creating a desired response long before officials can sort things out.

Yep, no longer can you trust what you see on tv. Especially considering the desire to convert over to strictly digital broadcasts all you would need to do is hack a large network and insert your own intended message. It also sounds like the new law for digital compliance in broadcasting might be falling into the hands of an evil wizard of oz and a crew of animators.

Hey they can even bring Peter Jennings back to life announcing current events, holding today's New York Times as proof!

And what about the latest Bin Laden VIDEO, in the future???

[edit on 19-8-2008 by Atlantican]

Those who are afraid on the thoughts that this tech will be used for spreading false information need not worry. This is called motion capture and the tech is there since a long time.

The real danger was when this was in the dark shadows and only a select few had access to this. This was not perfect and thats why its use was restricted to art only. Now that its near perfect, there is a potential of misuse, but fortunately everyone knows that such tech exist. So people who know, shall develop counter measures and good detection methods. And in some place like youtube or ATS, these experts shall tear any suspicious content apart.

Look at the Alien/Ufo section here, we routine destroy the fakes there.

And don't forget that human cunning has no bounds, if one can perfectly fake a video of you killing someone, you can go ahead and perfectly fake an even better video of that person killing ten people. Any tech can only change situations, not human nature.

That video is very impressive. Almost to the point of not being able to tell what is real anymore.

I find this video very interesting as well, granted the renders here are not created from scratch but is basically a 3D scan of someone which is then rendered using ATI technology.

awesome i think. bring on the love-bots

If they can create this from scratch with 3d software then its a huge leap if they are just scanning someone and reproducing then a camera would do better.

my point is that if they can animate these characters or if they have to scan and capture the movements of "real" people to do this.

I've heard it said that any technology we have in public domain is 40 years behind what the government already has in use?!! If that is true, Wow, imagine what they could already be using such a technology for.

Amazing!

Being a 3D graphics artist, I can tell how it's not real, there isn't enough muscle movement, the lines in here face are really overdone and here eye's ya just can't get the realistic look in eyes for humans in 3D for some reason, maybe it's cause the eyes are the windo to the soul?

The people who wrote the article don't know what they're talking about:

For many years now, animators have come up against a barrier known as "uncanny valley", which refers to how, as a computer-generated face approaches human likeness, it begins take on a corpse-like appearance similar to that in some horror films.

As a result, computer game animators have purposely simplified their creations so that the players realise immediately that the figures are not real.

The text in bold is such BS, they simplify it because the hardware can't take 1 character that has such high mesh density.
I wonder how long that animation took to render?

Blender is where it's at when it comes to realism for games.
an example of what can be achieved (note, this is low poly so it is actually functional for a game engine):





(Non-Game Engine Internal Render)



Blender is more advanced in lighting, materials and special effects than crysis, but not physics, rendering and such.

Also, Blender is 100% free, no trial downloads or anything like that, it's a GPL or GNU (forgot which one) liscense so the source code is realesed.

-Jimmy

reply to post by thecandyman



some technologies the military have are more advanced than its counterpart in the civil world but not ALL the technologies we have access to came from the military/secret/black research.

In fact, nowadays most technologies came from civil companies

Originally posted by Scarlett Johanson
there was an animated movie i saw onetime that looked real to me. i forgot the name of it though. something about invisible aliens that jump through reality.

i think it was called final fantasy

You are right, the movie was "Final Fantasy" and it was good... I don't think the demo in OP offers anything revolutionary compared to Final Fantasy (which in fact is relatively old).

reply to post by buddhasystem


Yeah, Final Fantasy was pretty good (you are talking about the movie right?), but the post pro was heavy and you cant have the dense meshes and stuff that you did in that movie, the hardware can't handle it.

-Jimmy

This is simply the best facial animation I have seen thus far.

Sure it's wire frame movements have been taken from a live actor, but the interpretation is almost flawless.. Almost...

Where can I see an application??

Hmmm...

This will be used to resurrect actors that are long past... Or to take years off current actors...

Anyone seen Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull?? Old men shouldn't do stuff like that....

In the future this tech could be coupled with Augmented reality so long as you had the real-time processing power... it could mean no more switching the light out when you go to bed with the lady wife of 25 years... you could make her look anyway you wanted her too

Seriously though, this is just a taster of things to come. We will all inhabit virtual worlds like Second life far more and with this kind of technology it will be far easier to translate the human quality in expression to our interactions with ourselves and our technology.

I can also see this being used as a virtual receptionist / Help desk / Doctor....

Has anyone here seen Red Dwarf??? Holly was so damn funny and this video kind of reminded me of that )

Anyway,

All the best,

Power to the People!!

NeoN HaZe

Originally posted by jimmyjackblack
reply to post by buddhasystem

 

Yeah, Final Fantasy was pretty good (you are talking about the movie right?), but the post pro was heavy and you cant have the dense meshes and stuff that you did in that movie, the hardware can't handle it.

It depends, but at least in one case you are 100% right -- the "hair" scene! They burnt 60% of their CPU budget on that one... Every hair was a separate model, blowing in the wind... So I agree, hardware can't touch that yet.

reply to post by buddhasystem


Are you sure about the hair?
I thought the hair was in sections mapped to plains (NURBS) and those plains were animated, that is doable in games, but seperate strands are next to impossible, well, they pretty much are unless you have an engine that can render dense meshes at at lest 25 fps, any lower and you have a terribly slow irritating game.

-Jimmy

Am I the only one who feels this is a little ironic....

The "uncanny valley" will be bridged when we don't have to point our faces at a flat electronic vision producing machine to see these things!

Until then, these "creations" will contribute to be part of a growing fantasy-world that is becoming more and more influential in everyday life.

Who makes the money and who stares motionless for hours at a screen?

Now don't get me wrong....I am a lover of CGI and animation, I have done some of my own, but the above story and clip are more than just a development of video games and movies.

They are a development of the manipulation (intentional or not) of human perception and acceptance of reality. The "bar" is constantly being raised and rather than question it we fund it's development while happily, and un-happily, forgiving the world around us for the latest blockbuster, sequel, simulation or First Person Shooter!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I would much rather look face to face into the eyes of an ugly woman and feel her humanity than a 3D creation on a screen that is "flawed" by it's in-humanity.

Fantasy only, and as one member said earlier..."good for porn".


[edit on 19/8/2008 by nerbot]

reply to post by jimmyjackblack


Sorry I can't find the original link I read a while ago, so I can't comment on further detail -- I just remember that the hair part was atrociously expensive in CPU cycles (and I do remember fin-grained hair simulation).

Originally posted by jimmyjackblack
I thought the hair was in sections mapped to plains (NURBS) and those plains were animated,-Jimmy

I think you are correct..

I remember seeing a feature on Square studio's and the hair was one of the things I remember they talked about.

here is the evidence.. Although the facial expressions are no match for the Emily animation, please bare in mind that Aki Ross was 100% animated.. There was no actor to work upon. She is pure fantasy...

Emily O’Brien however is just as her cgi counterpart looks.

Here is the scene for Aki Ross in the Spirits Within. Forgive the awful music LoL



All the best,

NeoN HaZe


[edit on 19-8-2008 by Neon Haze]

reply to post by Neon Haze


Yeah, it would've been perfect if the animation wasn't so linear and the the facial animation was more dynamic and more expressive, but hey, that stuff was top notch back then. It's still highend today even I think.

-Jimmy