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Imaginary Worlds

Stuck in the Uncanny Valley

Imaginary Worlds

Eric Molinsky

Arts, Science Fiction, Fiction, Society & Culture

4.82.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 March 2018

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The holy grail for many animators is to create digital humans that can pass for the real thing -- in other words to cross the "uncanny valley." The problem is that the closer they get to realism, the more those almost-real humans repulse us. Blame evolution for that. I talk with Hal Hickel from ILM who brought Peter Cushing to life on Rogue One, Marianne Hayden who worked on games like The Last of Us and Uncharted for Naughty Dog studios, Vladimir Mastilovic from 3Lateral studios who worked on Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, and SVA instructor Terrence Masson about what it takes to cross that valley.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:04.8

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0:07.6

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0:11.4

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0:15.8

with world-leading experts.

0:17.8

This is stackable learning.

0:19.8

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0:22.0

This is Warwick Business School in the Shard London.

0:25.8

Visit WBS.AC.uk

0:29.3

Now.

0:31.3

You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them

0:35.8

and why we suspend our disbelief.

0:37.8

I'm Eric Melinsky.

0:39.8

So way back in the 20th century, when I was studying animation,

0:44.3

our instructors used to tell us to avoid animating realistic human beings.

0:48.3

Because what's the point?

0:49.8

I mean, you can animate anything you want.

0:52.3

And more importantly, you can't do it.

0:54.8

No one can cross the uncanny valley.

0:57.8

Now in case you don't know what that means, the uncanny valley was first proposed in 1970

1:02.4

by a robot assistant named Masahiro Mori.

1:05.4

He predicted that in the future, as robots look more and more like humans,

...

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