[MUD-Dev2] [Design] Avoiding the uncanny valley: cartoons and animals

[cruise]

Thus spake Mike Rozak...
> I've been creating racial models for my virtual world, at http://www.mxac.com.au/mif . The game only displays heads. For a long time, I have planned to only have static images of the characters to avoid the manequin-like uncanny-valley effect. (And to lessen the amount of work for authors.)
> 
> EQII and Oblivion are prime examples of the uncanny valley. For all the millions spent, characters look like schizophrenic manequins, especially when lip synced; the mouth says one thing, but the eyes' expression is blank or contradictory.

<snip>

> What does this mean in general?
> 
> For the next 10-20 years, I suspect many VWs will either use humanoid animals and/or cartoons (WoW) in order to avoid the uncanny valley.

To be honest, I've always said the advantage computer rendering offers 
us isn't the ability to re-create reality, but to create /alternate/ 
views on the world - cel shading, pencil sketched, etc.

We should be thinking, not about how close to reality we get, but how 
much /unreality/ we can generate...