Kara Is Self-Aware? Heavy Rain Maker Unveils Uncanny Performance Capture

[Kham-Ryn Kurios]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0KTUysrwgQ" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0KTUysrwgQ</a>

A new tech demo featuring sophisticated performance-capture technology made by the game developer Quantic Dream (Heavy Rain, Indigo Prophecy) was inspired by Ray Kurzweil’s book The Singularity is Near.

The clip, which David Cage, the head of Quantic Dream, unveiled on Wednesday at a Game Developers Conference presentation, shows an android named Kara becoming self-aware as she is being assembled, and desperately insisting that her sentience is a feature and not a bug.

“There will come a point where artificial intelligences are smarter than us, it’s inevitable,” Cage said in an interview with Wired prior to the grand unveiling. “This clip is about the moment that happens.”


Quantic Dream’s 2010 game Heavy Rain won critical acclaim for its singularly realistic digital performances, captured from real-life actors and rendered in surprisingly human detail on the PlayStation 3. The “Kara” demo is the first glimpse of the developer’s continuing efforts to create realistic game actors.

The role of Kara was performed by the actress Valorie Curry (Veronica Mars, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2). The character model and performance capture is so sophisticated that you can see muscles moving underneath the skin of Kara’s face, and very subtle shifts and changes in the eyes. The sync between the mouth movements and the sound of the speech is perfect.

“There were 90 markers on her face, and an equivalent amount on her body,” said Cage. “She delivered the performance in one take.”

When Kara appears to be reacting to robot arms that assemble her body, Cage said that Curry was actually reacting to other people on the set who poked and prodded at her.

Cage predicts that the off-putting near-human appearance of CG characters that film and game makers are currently grappling may be surmountable.

“Avatar proved that you could get past the uncanny valley,” said Cage. “A large audience can just forget about the CG and focus on the story. I don’t think Kara is perfect, of course. But step by step, we are leaving the valley.”

The demo is running in real time on a PlayStation 3 console. Cage insists that he’ll be able to show even more impressive examples of performance capture soon, closer to the time that the next Quantic Dream game is unveiled.

“The Kara demo was made a year ago, and we’ve made incredible progress since then,” he said.


Please enjoy.
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I got a mad goosebumps; It's very chilling and made me tear up.

As sad as it is though, if we don't want machines to rise up they need to learn what it's like to be afraid.

[Waxman]

It's too bad it probably won't be a game.  It'd be nice if it was, though it may share an uncanny resemblance to maybe A.I. or I-Robot.

While I admit it was particularly gripping, the only thing they left out was eye-blinking.  I'm not joking, for a life-like android, one that seems to have gained sentience, you would think she'd be able to blink her eyes as well.  She sort of blinks towards the end, but my eyes started to water, not because I was crying or anything, (haha yeah right) but because I was trying to watch it without blinking.
Oh well, a minor nit-pick that really isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

As a fan of cyborgs, androids, and robots, I'm definitely giving you a point!

[Kham-Ryn Kurios]

It's too bad it probably won't be a game.  It'd be nice if it was, though it may share an uncanny resemblance to maybe A.I. or I-Robot.

I forgot to mention this is a year or prototype of the rendering capabilities of the new PS3 engine.

So it may not be a game on it own but more and more games will begin to look like Kara.

The blinking thing is actually a very good point.

Blinking in the game world, I would have liked to see that; I know what you mean it's one of the little things.

But IRL what would be the purpose of the android blinking? For the same reason Humans do? To clean and keep our eyes moist.

Essentially glorified windshield wipers.

[Waxman]

I forgot to mention this is a year or prototype of the rendering capabilities of the new PS3 engine.

So it may not be a game on it own but more and more games will begin to look like Kara.

The blinking thing is actually a very good point.

Blinking in the game world, I would have liked to see that; I know what you mean it's one of the little things.

But IRL what would be the purpose of the android blinking? For the same reason Humans do? To clean and keep our eyes moist.

Essentially glorified windshield wipers.

In response to the blinking I'd say it has to do with making the android more human-like just enough so the buyer connects more with it.

We can see she can sing a Japanese song on key and with a bit of emotion despite not showing her sentience until later.
It's like, would you rather have Robbie the Robot cleaning your garage or Kara?

More specifically, would you rather have Robbie the Robot as a sexual partner or Kara?
I mean, I don't want to derail the topic on the inappropriate scale, but I'm 99% certain that people would rather engage in sexual activity with an android that blinks and acts human-like than say a metal doll that sort of just lays there and sings some Japanese song...

Even the film A.I. brought this up with Jude Law's character, who was basically a gigolo.  He could take on certain entities and characters to whatever appealed to the buyer.  His function was to act human-like enough to sell his services but his actual emotional application is limited.

An even rougher example could be the Terminator or even Alien franchise.  A non-blinking android wouldn't pass for long in the presence of humans, especially ones fighting for survival, as can be seen with the T-600 models or the early synthetics in the alien mythology. That isn't to say however that Arnold's character, the T-800, wasn't able to pass as human by not blinking, but he did appear very unusual socially in a public setting.

Basically, the point of blinking is just to fit in, as is talking or responding in a human-like way.

On a different note, while it is fascinating to see the PS3's capabilities, unfortunately I don't think we'll actually see characters look more like Kara in terms of graphical achievement.  Quantic Dreams seems to to use a particular style, that is, motion capture work to get specifically what they need.  While most games do use motion-capture work, I have found that it seems to be less of an emphasis unless movie-scenes are involved.  In other words, that's their style.
Then again, I'd also say that I could be completely wrong [I'm willing to bet that I am] and that this new rendering showcase will be the next step, kind of like what we got with Shadow of the Colossus, which was a rendering capability in its own right as almost every major-title that came after it in 2005 and onwards featured motion-blurs, lens flare, and monochrome colors, as is the example with MGS3 and other games.

[Darth Rifter]

Wow, that is just...wow
On a side note, that reminds me of last year's E3, when they showed that Zelda demo for the Wii's HD graphics, now that was stunning, and so amazing.