"The Uncanny Valley"

**Son of Bryce** · 12 Dec 2005, 04:31 AM

Originally Posted by TrialSword

Half-Life 2 is the only game I've ever seen cross over this "Uncanny Valley" by even a considerable amount. There were only a few humanoids that weren't in masks or anything like that, but the facial expressions were utterly amazing on Alyx and Barney especially.

In Gamespot's The Final Hours of Half-Life 2 article (awesome article, by the way), they mention the psychologist that helped them develop the facial animation system for the game. You can play with a little facial demo here. Doesn't it remind you of Alyx? I think it's amazing how believable the simple flat shaded face is.

I think it's very possible to create fully believable realistic CG characters. The big problem is having skilled enough artists/programmers to do a full length movie/game at that level of quality.

**Giga Power** · 12 Dec 2005, 05:01 AM

I dunno if anyone in the thread already mentioned it, but they did a really interesting article on this in Game Developer several months ago.

**Compass** · 12 Dec 2005, 05:13 PM

Originally Posted by TrialSword

Half-Life 2 is the only game I've ever seen cross over this "Uncanny Valley" by even a considerable amount. There were only a few humanoids that weren't in masks or anything like that, but the facial expressions were utterly amazing on Alyx and Barney especially.

Bah. HL2's characters looked better than most, maybe all, that have come before, but still painfully fake at every moment of the game. The insistence on injecting these overexagerrated facial expressions at every turn just made things worse.