Star Wars: Rogue One and Hollywood’s trip through the uncanny valley
newatlas.com
newatlas.com
To avoid an outright spoiler, the other application, right at the end -- ugg! Queasy uncanny valley visage. I'm amazed they didn't revisit that; I saw some obvious tweaks that would have improved things.
Also, not even CGI (I think), but Vader's frame and stature / postural aspects differed enough to look like a different person, despite the costume.
Again, just a person looking at the result should have been able to see the discrepancy and the room for -- in my opinion, readily achievable -- improvement.
Back in 1991 Robert Patrick was an outstanding T-1000. Did anyone experience an uncanny valley for that character? I didn't, and that was 25 year old CGI.
For me the transitions were seamless and very convincing between "real" and "shapeshifted". So is there no uncanny valley if transitions occur quickly enough? Or is it that we know he's a shapeshifter that keeps us from being disturbed at any point during a transition?
The other is that Tarkin interacts substantially with the other characters, and close up. There are a lot of additional opportunities for us to see behavior that doesn't look quite right, especially facial expressions during conversation.
When thinking about this, I compare the differences between how I reacted to K-2SO and Tarkin. I never thought once about the K-2SO effects until after the show: he blended right in. Perhaps it was just that I knew Peter Cushing was dead, I know I was always aware that something was just a bit off. I also thought that there was a little too much detail in Tarkin's face, but I think that be me focussing on it too much.
For me, it was the movement that felt unnatural. I think I would have been covinced by any single frame, they did a superb job on the modeling, texturing, and lighting. But the way his jaw and lips moved when he talked felt like a video game, not a person.
The 'uncanny valley' term applies to a model that should be 100% human but isn't. It's off in a way that humans notice but the CGI designer couldn't correct for.
The shapeshifter transition isn't human, you know it isn't human, you are meant to see and experience it isn't human, so cannot be in the uncanny valley.