Digital 3D Potential and the Limitations 1: The uncanny valley

With the introduction of Digital 3D animation, we have slowly been able to animate to a more realistic level, however, this begins to have its own problems with the uncanny valley.

Originally the uncanny valley was conceptualised for robotics in the 70s by Masahiro Mori, a roboticist. The theory is, the more something is designed to be human, the higher the chance of it being creepy.

It began being applied to film after the release of Tin Toy by Pixar. The baby character is horrifying, and after huge negative reactions from viewers, the concept of the uncanny valley began being taken seriously in the film industry.

As technology has been developed to make more and more realistic models and movement for animation, the more animators have falling into the uncanny valley, usually because an aspect of real people has been overlooked (usually the eyes, as evident in games such as L.A. Noire, and films such as The Polar Express)