The effect of unrealistic realism is also linked to our experiences
with current technology / movies.

Jurassic Park looked damn realistic (Dinos) when it was released.
Today watching the same movie makes you notice the CG much more oviously.

It the end, its about hov entertaining the product/movie is.
So an artistic approach does not automatically lead to the
more entertaining movie. (KungFu Panda)
And realism, even when not reached,
does not render it aqwuard when the athmosphere is believable
and entertaining. (Avatar)

Avatar also used a smart trick.
The Navi characters atually look "real" because they a closely
modeled to realistic movements, mimics and scenerendering.
But simply by the fact that they are humanoid but not all human, we
dont spot inconsistancies.
Doing the same with a "real" human remodeled character would not have worked.

Altough i completed the game same thing happened to me in Oblivion too.(getting distrubted from chaacters) But animation techology is now climbing up to the other side of the uncanny walley. Avatar had great CG i didnot even think that it is cg while watching it. Actually some scenes were too real and emotional to me.

But also in some games, they can be both realistic and dont fall in the uncanny valley. Like in ME2, there was a complete immersive universe combined with a great atmosphere and cinematic experience, i did not got distracted from the story/game/athmosphere because of the uncanny valley effects.

Looking at Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3, there is a nice
effect.

Morrowind and Fallout 3 both use a limited palette, (brown / grey tones)
whereas Oblivion is much more coloful and brighter.

In the end this made Oblivion look more artificial than the other two games. It looked like a plastic world.

I found Fallout 3 worse than Oblivion. The characters really looked odd, there are clear cuts at the throats, the mapping was bad and the detail level was mixed on several textures. The skin folds looked strange, materials were unrealistic.

But I agree, the same happened with Oblivion. But the characters in the "Witcher" game looked very good to me.

Thanks all for your extensive input. I am reading all you say, and noting it down .

I find it also interesting that Frank thinks the first shot looks better, and that Frank thinks oblivion is better than fallout probably has the same reason. I have no opinion about oblivion and fallout as I didn't play either of them, but while disagreeing on the first image being better, Frank is not the only one who think it does look better.

Apparently opinions are divided on this matter, but I can't imagine why. To me it is clear that the second screen I posted is better than the first, yet others think otherwise. So I can't deny it has become an opinion rather than "fact" of what looks better (while I assumed otherwise).

This is what I conclude so far, but feel free to continue the discussion on the matter. I find it very interesting.

Hiya.

For me, what 'kills' a game is the use of motion capture. To me, when I see an obviously 3d character (re: pretty much all of them), and then it starts to move around in a realistic manner (re: MoCap)...the disjunction of those two aspects kinda squick me out. It's the same kinda thing (although less intense) when I see those pictures or TV adds for those kids who are doing 'talent pagents' when they are 7 years old...but trying to look and behave like 25 year old...er...'women with loose morals'. Eeeeewwwww!

Take a style and go with it; as long as that style isn't trying to look like *actual* reality, all's golden. As soon as someone tries to duplicate reality, things go downhill fast. We still don't have the tech to pull off "perfectly realistic with no discernible difference". Maybe in 15 to 30 years...but not now.

Thats my thought exactly Paul. I am impressed with where technology is now as far as style goes, but that "uncanny valley" is very ugly. I feel uncomfortable sometimes watching a movie like beowolf that tries to "look" real, but still has that quirky, fake look and feel to the characters(although angelina looked awesome!). we have a long way to go, so if i had a preference, I would prefer style over realism. a movie like the incredibles or other pixar works because of the "style" of the characters, often show more"realism" than the cg movies that are trying to really look life like. but thats my opinion.

As a small independent developer I also would not dare to implement some realistic human characters in a production.

But if you ever played Crysis then you know it is possible and I did not feel a single uncanny valley moment while I played it.

yes crysis did pull it off, and even the call of duty games which arent even close to crysis, pulled it off great.

EDIT: in fact one of my complaints when i first started playing COD: MW 4 is that it is hard to see enemies because the whole scene blends together so well that characters dont stick out.