I had this problem with sims 3 and I think that I am experiencing it again, and so would like to know if anyone else is experiencing Uncanny Valley when they see things about Sims 4.

The uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the field of human aesthetics which holds that when human features look and move almost, but not exactly, like natural human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. (thank you wikipedia! )

I dunno to me Sims 2 looked better in some ways, both the sims 3 and 4 look plastic almost. That's just my opinion, does anyone else feel this way?

Not really. I'm kind of glad EA isn't taking that route.TS4 to me just likes like a hybrid (sim-wise) of TS2 and TS3 with some changes here and there. At first, I hated the plastic hair, but it's starting to grow on me now. This is probably just one of many of my unpopular opinions about TS4.

But Sims 3 look nothing like the uncanny valley effect, they look like blobs of playdough. So I don't really get how anyone could look at them and think they resemble real people. Sims 4 so far look cartoony which I like, so again I don't see how the uncanny valley affect comes into things. So you felt the sims 3 sims reminded you too much of real people? I don't know where you live but people sure don't look anything like them over here. To me sims 3 as packaged by the game are repulsive, but for other reasons.

So...Sims 4 characters are play-doh? You know, like Sims 3 are puddings.

No I was saying out of the box sims 3 are like play-doh, so pudding or play-doh take your pick. I have more hope for sims 4 sims so far.

A lot of games for me nowadays are giving me that Uncanny Valley effect. The visuals in most modern games are a bit too true-to-life.

Bah. Have you seen those sims 3 simblr where they make all this "unique" sims? Which look ridiculous and even without looking real human they still it causes a response of revulsion to me.

I've seen them on SS yeah... Before that is was deer, so I guess it will run it's course. I doubt they would achieve that on an out of the box vanilla game, which was what I was saying. I'm not counting on cc as that is as varied as people's games and I'm sure people will slap MM or realistic on sims 4 once it's been out a short time. Also some of us don't make sims. Yours are fab, I just roll and tweak whatever face template I get. But at least I still get something half decent looking by the time I am done, now the few sims I made in sims 3 are only sims a mother could love.

I can see why the OP would get an Uncanny Valley effect from Sims 3. I get that. But I think that Sims 4, or at least what we have seen, is as far away from Uncanny Valley as we have ever been. Oddly enough, they still give me a feeling of revulsion.

The pudding actually look better than those "down syndrome'd", and "fish-eyed" sims. I know these are unique and "realistic" sims today, but with the cartoony animation the game given, it just feels awkward. Like other video games graphic nowadays, like by Quantic Dreams, they make them realistic as possible with the human like animation as well, so that will reduce that weird feeling. And sometimes they just give us the wow factor. And make the game, much enjoyable actually, I mean, do you ever feel creeped out by NPC in Skyrim? They look realistic but won't make you go "it causes a response of revulsion"

And as for Sims 4, I agree with Butch, they are far from uncanny valley, and I think the cartoony graphic are cute and suitable for this kind of game.

I think this is very far from uncanny valley. They seem to be the follow up to the cartoonish sims in TS2, only the play-doh thing may allow you to make more realistic or extreme features than sliders would. Frankly, I don't think any game of the Sims franchise hit uncanny valley. TS3 looked like pudding, but they were far from crossing that line. That honor is reserved for the Sims's knock off, "the singles" IMO.

From what I have seen of the sims4 so far - there is no uncanny valley. They look sort of Pixar-ish to me, and that is not a bad thing. I don't even hate the hair, my only worry so far is the bloom on the outside screenshots.

http://www.pixar.com/behind_the_scenes/Sculpting#

The cartoony sims in TS4, Uncanny Valley? Get real

Agreed - TS3 sims aren't really uncanny valley. Those reborn dolls, OTOH, THAT's uncanny valley (creep the hell out of me anyway).

Everyone has their aesthetic preferences, but TS3 or TS4 sims are very, very far from being uncanny valley. They are cartoons and cannot be mistaken for anything but cartoons. Whether or not they are more or less cartoony than any of the other sims versions doesn't really matter. This is uncanny valley (Japanese robots): http://www.tofugu.com/2012/02/06/ro...st-hope-retail/

Non of the vanilla sims game is uncanny valley, but how people make them to be one. And no, TS4 isn't even a bit of uncanny valley and I doubt it will be(seeing how goddamn cartoony it is).

Human like robots, eww! Even those static mannequins creep me out a lot.

I've never been as bothered by the "Uncanny Valley" as most people seem to be. So for me, the more realistic the better :/

Same here.

Ultra-realism doesn't bother me at all if it's done well. However, the trend a few years back, where people took photos they found online and made a face-skin from it, now that crept me out a lot. There was one particular Sim which looked almost exactly like a slightly distorted photo, with eyes that didn't go with the skin-tone at all. I couldn't understand how the person who created it didn't see how scary it looked.

Fun fact: When I was a kid, video game graphics made me feel really uncomfortable because they were so bad. Seeing people represented by small, coloured squares gave me a really strong "GAH! Unnatural!" response. :D

Yeah, I think, what OP experiences is not what the uncanny valley term is supposed to mean. Ein_85 is simply appalled by what they think is ugly, or unpleasant. Uncanny Valley implies an interplay of familiarity and estrangement, like when you meet someone and feel slightly uncomfortable for an unknown reason until you realise that it is because that person has a prosthetic eye, which, while being perfectly well-made and realistic, doesn't move.
For some, the Beowulf movie from 2007 is also an example. It's a computer-animated movie with real actors as the models, so there were constantly moments when you became unsure whether you actually looked at Angelina Jolie or not. For the real Jolie the movie character looked too artificial at times and quite convincing at other times, which can cause irritation or an uncanny feeling.

To be honest, there is an easy fix for any uncanny valley issues. Do actual recorded human animations. It's not hard anymore, I've seen people use Kinnect for Windows to achieve this. For some reason if realistic, and proportional faces act like humans to the dime, they don't have uncanny valley issues. But it has to be incredibly accurate.

That said I don't think The Sims 4 will suffer this, and The Sims 3's issue is not uncanny valley, but more that their animations don't match their visual appearence.

It's like having a visually silly cartoon use completely accurate human expressions, or a live action film, where the people have their human faces removed post-process, and are given animated cartoon faces. There has to be a form of consistancy between visual style, and animation style, otherwise the results are creepy, like Sims in The Sims 3.

Just like what I stated on my couple of post above. There's not so much of uncanny valley, but just the awkwardness seeing human form doing silly cartoon animation. I prefer motion capture for realistic video games nowadays, and actually, they're less creepy and awkward.

They did this for L.A. Noir, to very great effect, especially with the focus on facial animations, which is a big contributor to the Uncanny effect. It's not hard, per se, since we have come far in terms of MoCap tech, but it can be expensive and time consuming, depending in how many animations you have to record and how accurate you want to be. And while I would love it if EA would go in that direction, I just don't see it happening.

I know, LA Noire, despite having blurry facial textures, really benefits from motion capture, and we've come so far since it was released. Just see some of the things like Beyond Two Souls (crappy linear game, but visually impressive,) and you can see what you can do now with the stuff.

But honestly, I hate the idea of realistic sims, because Sims need that kind of silent-esque animation for their emotion to be accurately read without understandable language. Plus, it's charming.

Pretty much every Sims game is a little UV