Uncanny

 

In internet terms, we call this 'nightmare fuel'.

Watching all of those Pixar shorts was yet another step back into my childhood. Geri’s Game, For the Birds, and Luxo Jr. were all little gems that I seem to have pushed into the back of my mind in favor of the feature-length films they accompanied. Geri’s Game is my personal favorite, and watching it again nearly killed me from suppressing my laughter, while Tin Toy nearly killed me by stopping my heart with that…thing.

On the subject of the Uncanny Valley, I don’t think Professor Leeper fully realizes how far games have come in terms of overcoming that obstacle. Granted, it’s only recently that we’ve been able to produce some truly life-like characters, but there have been some massive leaps in technology. Let’s compare, actually. Let’s take this guy from the original 1990’s Half-Life game…

 

…to this guy from the upcoming Halo 4.

 

 

Both of these characters are generated by their respective in-game engines, not through pre-rendered cinematics. This is about 12 years’ worth of differences being compared here. That is a huge leap in quality. Combine this with the fact that video games do all of this in real-time while dealing with artificial intelligence and player input, both of which are also becoming more and more advanced, is a feat just as impressive as any movie. Video games can be just as technically marvelous as any CGI film or effects in terms of sheer man hours put into creating them, and unlike pre-rendered film footage video games have to deal with dynamic events that require intense sessions of de-bugging.

Video games still have a long way to go. They’re about ten years behind films in terms of three-dimensional models in animation (I’m going by the Money for Nothing music video by the Dire Straits, as it’s the earliest example of CGI I can think of in media), and they’re swiftly catching up. But they aren’t showing promise anymore; they’re showing results, and they’re closing the gap. Give them time, and they will match the quality of modeling, animation, lighting, and other miscellaneous effects seen in films.

Just check out this demo for the Cry Engine 3 to see further proof.