I just watched a trailer for Intergalactic (by Naughty Dog). For some reason the one shot of the protagonist drinking with a straw blew me away. The micro expressions are so subtle but play so perfectly in the scene, it feels incredibly real in that moment.
The rest is also incredible, but of course still has something that gives it away… It’s becoming harder for me to pinpoint what that something is, though. Something to to with the eye muscles I think?
Edit for trailer link: https://youtu.be/VLGy63pt9vA?si=FcK3nEd2_hSOYK-N
Holy moly you weren’t kidding! Mocap and graphics have came a long way!
I wasn’t very impressed at the start, but once it got to the scene you were talking about, yeah, that’s some good stuff.
Motion capture in Stalker 2 was done by obviously real human actors. It’s a video game, so you’re like “Oh cool, NPCs” but then you see the actual human actor behind the pixels and you’re like “Oh. Pre-recorded movie.”
The uncanny valley disappears and is instead replaced with mundane disappointment and a feeling of “cheapness”. Of course they used human actors for the animation, why wouldn’t they?
Never trade your magic of the unexplained for the easy disillusionment.
Most every modern game uses Mocap, is there a reason you mention stalker aside from its recency? What do you mean by cheapness? Mocap is the best means of capturing realistic animation to my knowledge.
There’s a degree of motion capture where the animations just look like 90s FMV – it stops feeling like a game, and feels more like a video, if that makes any sense: the animations are too good.
There was a clear disconnect between the gameplay / custom animations in most games of that period (90s) and FMV, and many cited the developers inability or reluctance for animation in lieu of FMV as “cheap”.
See: Mortal Kombat Sprites.
It’s a difficult thing to explain and simply needs to be experienced; past the uncanny valley is the trough of disappointment or disillusionment.
I think you’re conflating the Gartner Hype Cycle with the Uncanny Valley. At least that’s the place I’ve heard of the Trough of Disillusionment from before.
