The Potential and Limitations of 3D Modelling and Animation Technologies and Techniques: Part 1

The Uncanny Valley is that bizarre gap that separates the realistic from the fictitious. What I mean by this is purely in a visual sense. When a character is created, a good animator will try to avoid the uncanny valley. For example, Pixar films are visually incredibly technically advanced what with their amazing landscape designs and texturing...







And yet the characters featuring in Pixar films have remained consistently visually unrealistic and cartoony...







This was not by accident. This was always entirely planned by all the animators at Pixar. The characters look visually cartoony yet their physical characteristics and personalities are very realistic. Therefore every film maintains a nice balance where the audience can easily connect with a character without becoming alienated if a character looks too realistic to the point of creepy.

But Pixar themselves cannot say they've never entered the uncanny valley...



One of their first shorts Tin Toy featured a baby that truly looks like the stuff nightmares are made of. That is when they tried to go down the route of making their characters look as realistic as possible. And, for obvious reasons, this didn't stick and they never made the above mistake again.