Too Scary to Be Real, Research Looks to Quantify Eeriness in Virtual Characters
Indiana University (09/22/09) Chaplin, Steve
Indiana University professor Karl MacDorman, director of the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Android Science Center, is researching human photorealism in robots, androids, and computer-generated characters. He questions whether people actually are unsettled by slight imperfections in human-looking technology, a reaction known as the uncanny valley. Developing perfectly human-like computer-generated characters that do not fall into the uncanny valley is the ultimate goal for animators and video game companies. MacDorman has discovered that many of the traditional rules of art school do not apply to computer-generated characters.