A drive through the uncanny valley.

So as I'm sure most of you are aware, there exists a pocket in the creation of cg elements known as the uncanny valley. The best way to describe it is through pictures so take a look at the image below and try to remember what your initial sensory response was.

It's kinda weird isn't it? It's hard to put your finger on what exactly it is about this picture that sets your senses screaming, but whatever it is it's certainly doing a good job. I'm sure others have posted about the uncanny valley before, but seeing as the new fast and furious movie had to have a CG Paul Walker inserted into many of the final film's shots I thought it might be worth it to have a gander at what the modern approach to avoiding the uncanny valley is.
Below are a few shots featuring the Faux Walker:

Fast and Furious 7 was very nearly finished with production before Paul Walker passed away. The studio had already invested too much money in the film so they hired Weta workshop to create a photorealistic CGI duplicate of Paul and use that instead of cutting major scenes. It's a little unsettling knowing that the character you're looking at is not only fake, but also modeled after someone who tragically died during filming.

You can find all of the shots with the Faux Walker in this gallery: http://imgur.com/a/EGj5r also the variety article they linked is a really interesting read if you're at all into VFX. Many of the shots look pretty true to life but there are certainly a few in there that set my uncanny senses off. Have a look and see what you think!

And The Survey Says... After Effects!!!

So in my random search amongst YouTube, I happened to stumble upon a really cool YouTube Channel of a foreign studio who has made videos of different movie clips. So the one that I watched the most recently was a Fast and Furious RC Car chase.

The use of After Effects in this video was quite clear and quite obvious. But the cool thing is, it's subtle enough to not know that it was an RC car race, besides knowing or clearly seeing that they were RC cars.

The use of smoke for the burning rubber in the very beginning was really cool, but I have to say that the two coolest FX that were in the video were being able to see the heat coming from the tailpipes when the cars were lined up at the line waiting for the green light. And also the fire at the very end of the clip.

The entire video featured After Effects to help enhance that feeling of being able to trick the mind into thinking you were watching a real car chase. I know that I have learned enough to be able to do some of these effects, but I hope to strengthen my knowledge of After Effects to be able to know much much more.