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The real-ish-like face of Mario


Black Mage
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Soooo... Anyone here familiar with the concept of the Uncanny Valley?

Here's a good write up. It's an idea directed at robotic design but fully applies to any character design.

http://www.arclight.net/~pdb/nonfiction/uncanny-valley.html

And really, this is why cartoon characters should never be represented realistically, unless of course the purpose is to invoke revulsion. This is also why the more realistic a character in a video game is rendered, the less convincing they tend to be as anything other than creepy CG manikins.

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I've heard of it, but I just now found out what it is (I used Wikipedia because your link's broken or something). It's a good point. It's my opinion that video games need to be as stylized as possible because "good graphics" just plain look bad.

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I've heard of it, but I just now found out what it is (I used Wikipedia because your link's broken or something). It's a good point. It's my opinion that video games need to be as stylized as possible because "good graphics" just plain look bad.

QFT. I knew this one guy who hated games like Mario galaxy because he said they didn't look "realistic". Mario galaxy has great graphics, regardless how "realistic" mario looks. I mean, do we really want him to like that creepy, unshaven, buggy-eyed monster?

I, personally, do NOT want games to be photo-realistic. Characters should look fun and weird. But, I have to admit, games like gran tourismo 5 look AMAZING:shock:

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I play video games to be entertained. This is often easier with something that looks "fun" than with something where I'm constantly reminded of how fake it is because of the contrast between the almost-real graphics and the completely unreal action.

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I play video games to be entertained. This is often easier with something that looks "fun" than with something where I'm constantly reminded of how fake it is because of the contrast between the almost-real graphics and the completely unreal action.

Yes... I find it odd how games spend so much effort on realistic graphics, but then make the most basic of game interactions incredibly unrealistic.

"Wow, those explosions look so real, I feel like I'm really there!" (Looks down) "Oh yeah right, I'm a disembodied hand holding a gun with a circular shadow underneath me. And doors open magically when I stand in front of them, and all doors can open both ways, and then the doors magically close when I leave them alone for ten seconds, and I'm carrying 15 different guns in my invisible briefcase......" =(

Maybe the bad 1990's graphics of System Shock 2 actually made it scarier??? I mean the SS2 mod with more "realistic" models just looks silly and incredibly non-scary... again the "being reminded that it's not real" by trying to make it look real. Even Bioshock; I'm not finding that game nearly as scary as SS2 (but maybe I just haven't gotten far enough yet...)

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