Digital characters

Sergi Villagrasa Falip, Jaume Duran Castells, Isidro Navarro Delgado

Research output: Book chapterConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

In this paper, we will focus on the study of digital characters and existing technologies of creation. The type of character is increasing and in the future, they may assume many main roles. Digital characters must overcome issues, as Uncanny Valley to ensure the viewer does not reject them because of their low credibility. This statement makes us challenge the need to work with metrics to measure the degree of plausibility of a character. The android, Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) in Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) claimed to have seen things we would not believe⋯ He said that he watched ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, and C-beams glitter in the darkness at Tannhäuser Gate. Nevertheless, he had not passed the Voight-Kampff, a polygraph-like machine used to assist in the testing of an individual to see if he is a replicant (or android). The fiction of Philip K. Dick that presents us in the book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheeps? (1968), on which Blade Runner is based, placed us in a nearby future coexisting with androids almost impossible to detect opposite to human flesh and blood. This would take time to become reality, but could Roy's conflict with humans, happen inside cinematographic fiction? Are we close to seeing virtual actors together with real actors in fiction movies without perceiving them? And what is needed and how much would it take to see it? Can we predict the death of flesh and blood's actors? Is so, how would this change the film industry? Following Blade Runner's paradigm, one finds that Roy's conflict was not in the human aspect but in the supposed absence of his emotions and in what the Voight-Kampff machine could detect. We conclude that a tool like that for testing and detecting avatars in the movies of fiction is needed.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationIMSCI 2011 - 5th International Multi-Conference on Society, Cybernetics and Informatics, Proceedings
PublisherInternational Institute of Informatics and Systemics, IIIS
Pages247-249
Number of pages3
ISBN (Print)9781936338344
Publication statusPublished - 2011
Event5th International Multi-Conference on Society, Cybernetics and Informatics, IMSCI 2011 - Orlando, FL, United States
Duration: 19 Jul 201122 Jul 2011

Publication series

NameIMSCI 2011 - 5th International Multi-Conference on Society, Cybernetics and Informatics, Proceedings
Volume2

Conference

Conference5th International Multi-Conference on Society, Cybernetics and Informatics, IMSCI 2011
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityOrlando, FL
Period19/07/1122/07/11

Keywords

  • Characters
  • Computer Animation
  • Emotional Usability

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