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Comment by charlesabarnes | Hacker News Reader

Seems like they just posted a video about the new Atlas https://youtu.be/29ECwExc-_M

Wow, the ways All New Atlas can move in are really something else. Really channels that Star Wars battle droid vibes.

I actually find it less creepy than the original atlas for some reason ha. It looks like there is a chance this one will be able to unpack the dishwasher, until it decides it doesn't want that job anymore :)

The original was at the edge of the uncanney valley in the way it moved. This one seems a lot less human-like in its movement so doesn't conjure up those feelings for me.

I found it creepy at first, then I saw a comment saying it looks like the lamp from the Pixar intro and now I can’t take it seriously. Beautiful movement, though. I hope one day they’ll be simple and powerful enough to replace people in high-risk jobs, where you could even just control one remotely and perform tasks that way.

Years of sci-fi made the “wait till the light on its head turns red” comment resonate more for me.

It reminds me of these battle bots built out of servo motors, which is basically what this is in terms of construction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09ekK2QgflM

Maybe we need life-size robot battles? Would love to see son-of-Atlas suplexing TeslaBot like that mini white one does!

Interesting how left and right arm are exactly the same. Probably also applies to the legs.

Ah, the Robots movie meets the Exorcist.

could they have come up with a more terrifying way for it to standup? I can't think of one.

I think this is on purpose to show the extra freedom of movements of the new model compared to the hydraulic one.

Also, it can get up off the ground by itself. I don't think I ever saw any of the previous Atlas robots doing that, and it's an important feature, since the primary failure mode of a bipedal robot is falling down.

... a rendered video, i.e. it doesn't exist.

What makes you think this is a rendered video?

Because he's seen a few 'shops in his time.

This doesn't look like a rendered video to me at all. I'm not enough of an expert to point to specific reasons, but the lighting, reflections, shadows, etc just seem 100% real to me. I feel it in my gut.

You apparently disagree? Was there something in the video you think marks it out as CGI? Or do we just have differing gut instincts about it?

> the lighting, reflections, shadows, etc just seem 100% real to me. I feel it in my gut.

I’m the exact opposite. My gut says it’s rendered. The graininess, the odd chromatic aberrations, the shadows that are too clean, the “head” being way too physically clean (like if the modellers got sloppy with the thousands of pieces), something odd about the fps of the robot vs the fos of the background, and there’s something odd about the physics of how it gets up (yes, beyond it’s horror-movie sequence)

The new video might help you see it.

It is a bit funny though, the company renowned for walking robots posts a video of a robot walking and many people just can't believe it.

To me it was way more surprising that they got walking (and more) working with hydraulics, a much more unwieldy and heavy technology than servos and batteries. This is obviously more refined but perhaps to me, a little less surprising and so definitely believable.

Nonsense, there's nothing here that betrays a CG look. This is very obviously real footage.

Odd to get downvoted for adding my perspective on why it feels rendered.

Even more odd to get a response like this that has certainty without any facts or debate.

You should watch this Corridor Digital video explaining why the Boston Dynamics videos aren’t CG: https://youtu.be/HQ1WEiMwV7Y

thats just not in the BDs ethos. They have been the only company really trying to physically build these kinds of robust, dynamic systems for the last 3 decades (almost to a fault).

I should post this to r/nightmarefuel

This is going to haunt my dreams.

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