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Quantic Dream's "Kara" Tech Demo

Revealed at GDC last night, the real-time tech demo showed version 1 of the company's future tech in motion (which is now in version 3). A statement from David Cage is available on the PlayStation Blog.


 

Comments

Our Take

Nick DiMola Director

03/08/2012 at 02:51 PM

This was pretty amazing and quite touching at that. I love Quantic Dream's work - still need to play Heavy Rain though.

Angelo Grant Staff Writer

03/08/2012 at 03:04 PM

You know the closer we get to immitating real human beings, the worse the uncanny valley experience is for me.  This one made me way more uncomfortable than usual.  While I appreciate innovation, I personally prefer it when games look more like, well, games.

Nick DiMola Director

03/08/2012 at 03:05 PM

I have to wonder if part of the problem is that this one looks so close to real and is also depicting a robot that it's like double time on the uncanny valley experience.

Angelo Grant Staff Writer

03/08/2012 at 03:15 PM

Remind me again why everybody is talking about the need for new hardware? 

Michael117

03/08/2012 at 06:23 PM

I've watched real life footage of ultra real Japanese robots at expos, and it makes me really scared and apprehensive. When I saw footage of the robots I felt like I was in the room with them and it engaged my animal instincts. All I wanted to do was back into the corner of the room, crouch down low, not take my eyes off the anomally (possibly a percieved threat), and I didn't feel comfortable at all.

When I watched this tech demo I didn't feel uncomfortable at all, there was no uncanny valley negative reaction. I thought this was beautiful visually and especially animation-wise. Most importantly of all it moved me and made me feel, a great deal. A 7 minute clip of characters I know nothing about in a context I know nothing about, made me feel intensely emotional. I honestly probably would've cried if he "killed" Kara, disassembled her completely, and ended her consciousness. I felt like I was watching a Pixar animation, and I just wanted it to keep going and learn more.

Nick DiMola Director

03/08/2012 at 07:57 PM

I agree Michael, I was moved by it as well. I felt some definite panic as they began disassembling her and I'm sure it would've been heart-wrenching to have seen her totally destroyed.

Joaquim Mira Media Manager

03/08/2012 at 11:12 PM

I was impressed by the scripted performance, but by no means do the visuals look that real. Alas, you can make a puppet seem real, yet you can see it is not.

Michael117

03/09/2012 at 11:03 AM

I agree Joaquim, I thought the scripted performance was amazing, and I think that's what the demo was all about. I agree it didn't look that real but I'm not sure it was meant to. It was beautiful and artistic like a mash between a Pixar production and Portal 2. The presentation is realistic in approach, but it enhances real life, dramatizes it just enough, and provides you with something beautiful you'd never see in real life. Honestly I don't care much about resolution and photo-real visuals. I think were getting closer to them and I can't wait for us to just reach them, have the opportunity to have them as opposed to search for them, and branch out to improve all the other areas of design that have slacked off over the years.

This demo to me was all about animation and it was incredible. To me animation is more important than photo real visuals. It's not as good as an animated movie, but as a video game equivalent it's not that far off. It won't be too long before we are able to play our video games and have it be as smooth and sophisticated as an animated film. Except you'll be able to interact with it like a game. Video game animation won't always just be a quick couple of rigid frames seeing something put their fist out real quick for a punch and then go back to a generic idle pose. When you go to pick something up or shake somebodies hand it won't always have to just skew it from your view or bring up a text box to tell you that you did something. Eventually you'll be able to see it happen. That's a ton of work on the animation side and making a whole game like that would take a while, but it would be worth it.

ShyGuy

03/09/2012 at 05:32 PM

That robot needed to be destroyed for the good of humanity.

Jesse Miller Staff Writer

03/09/2012 at 05:36 PM

I really hope that this short touches on the themes of Quantum Dream's next game.  It would certainly prove to be a thought provoking experience.

Angelo Grant Staff Writer

03/10/2012 at 10:48 AM

Not for me, I'd choose "burn it with fire" every chace I got.  That thing freaks me out.

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