Heavy Rain Creator Shows Off New Game Engine With Short Film

[ciancon]

Wow. That's all i want to say but i know that i need to write this to avoid a low content warning. So i'll just say wow again.

 

[Zom-B]

Two things about this bug me, even if I can sort of rationalize one.

First, a modest android? I guess if she accidentally achieved sentience, I could see that, but really, a brand new intelligence with no experience of shame, modesty or any other emotions surrounding nudity shouldn't really cover it's breasts and genitals, which aren't "real" anyway. I can let that one go.

The other is... why would the android have tear ducts? Was it designed to cry? If so, then why is the designer so shocked that it shows emotions like fear? If you expect something to cry, then you'd have those emotions preprogrammed, right?

It's a nice little vignette, but storywise it's manipulative.

In order.

The android can speak and comprehend speech, meaning she comes preloaded with information. Adding social mores such as "don't walk around with your tits out" seems like a reasonable step.

The human eye is naturally and visually wet, animators and artists often go out of their way to simulate the wetness of the eye with highlights. Without tear ducts she'd have glossy, doll-like eyes.

In response, in order.

Of course the android comes preloaded with information. But only a prude adds modesty to a robot. It's like putting pants on a dog- it's silly. I understand that Quantic Dream probably wanted to keep a PG rating, but it still strikes me as silly. It's as if a factory was manufacturing manikins and made sure they all wore underwear before they were shipped out.

Yes, the a natural biological eye is moist. However, creating an android that can cry seems foolish. What purpose does it serve that a dry, purely artificial eye can't duplicate? It also creates added maintenance. It forces the android to not only replenish energy via whatever means, but it means a fluid reservoir has to be replenished as well. And if you're simply (ha, simply) creating a domestic android servant, there's no real need to give it tear ducts.

Look, I know that we can easily rationalize tears and modesty, but the fact of the matter is that whomever wrote Kara had the android cry as a form of emotional manipulation and having it cover it's genitals and breasts is clearly due to prudish restrictions that would put a computer animated robot with lifelike looking breasts and genitals into the realms of porn for many people.

Mostly these two things are related to hackneyed writing and societal pressures, and I'm okay with that. At the same time, I wish that more creators of things like this would have the guts not to stoop to such trite writing tactics and fear of the morality police.

 

[The Wooster]

Two things about this bug me, even if I can sort of rationalize one.

First, a modest android? I guess if she accidentally achieved sentience, I could see that, but really, a brand new intelligence with no experience of shame, modesty or any other emotions surrounding nudity shouldn't really cover it's breasts and genitals, which aren't "real" anyway. I can let that one go.

The other is... why would the android have tear ducts? Was it designed to cry? If so, then why is the designer so shocked that it shows emotions like fear? If you expect something to cry, then you'd have those emotions preprogrammed, right?

It's a nice little vignette, but storywise it's manipulative.

In order.

The android can speak and comprehend speech, meaning she comes preloaded with information. Adding social mores such as "don't walk around with your tits out" seems like a reasonable step.

The human eye is naturally and visually wet, animators and artists often go out of their way to simulate the wetness of the eye with highlights. Without tear ducts she'd have glossy, doll-like eyes.

In response, in order.

Of course the android comes preloaded with information. But only a prude adds modesty to a robot. It's like putting pants on a dog- it's silly. I understand that Quantic Dream probably wanted to keep a PG rating, but it still strikes me as silly. It's as if a factory was manufacturing manikins and made sure they all wore underwear before they were shipped out.

Yes, the a natural biological eye is moist. However, creating an android that can cry seems foolish. What purpose does it serve that a dry, purely artificial eye can't duplicate? It also creates added maintenance. It forces the android to not only replenish energy via whatever means, but it means a fluid reservoir has to be replenished as well. And if you're simply (ha, simply) creating a domestic android servant, there's no real need to give it tear ducts.

Look, I know that we can easily rationalize tears and modesty, but the fact of the matter is that whomever wrote Kara had the android cry as a form of emotional manipulation and having it cover it's genitals and breasts is clearly due to prudish restrictions that would put a computer animated robot with lifelike looking breasts and genitals into the realms of porn for many people.

Mostly these two things are related to hackneyed writing and societal pressures, and I'm okay with that. At the same time, I wish that more creators of things like this would have the guts not to stoop to such trite writing tactics and fear of the morality police.

Well keep in mind this is a tech demo, they need an excuse to show a range of emotions.

As for the eye thing, they seem to be producing a robot that can pass for human, hence the skin, hair and boobs. Something that looks human, but has the glossy eyes of a doll would be uncanny valley as all fuck.

Whether the robot would actually cry is a different question, but from a design perspective the ability to cry does make sense.

 

[Zom-B]

Well keep in mind this is a tech demo, they need an excuse to show a range of emotions.

As I said: hackneyed writing.

As for the eye thing, they seem to be producing a robot that can pass for human, hence the skin, hair and boobs. Something that looks human, but has the glossy eyes of a doll would be uncanny valley as all fuck.

Whether the robot would actually cry is a different question, but from a design perspective the ability to cry does make sense.

But they've also made a robot that isn't meant to act human, presumably to avoid confusion or the uncanny valley, so adding realistically moist eyes seems counter-intuitive.

 

[CatmanStu]

For the people who are saying this demo will have no baring on the final product just look at the pre Heavy Rain demo; if anything the final game looked better than the tech demo.

To the people who say it isn't cutting edge (ergo not impressive) I would agree that it doesn't have all the newest bells and whistles of a "next generation engine" but judging by the in-game visuals that usually arise with these engines (Crysis, Battlefield 3 etc.) I would say that is a good thing as we really don't need a new generation even more detailed representations of "real world" environments.

Finally, to the people who are saying a sudden "activation" of self awareness is unrealistic or bad writing, look at the nature of sentience. It is a very binary concept; something is either self aware or not, there really isn't any middle ground. If you think about it in those terms then AI is only going to come about in one way, a random conflict of existing code that writes new programming to resolve the conflict.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

That was incredibly cool. I don't care about the graphics, I just love the idea. If they make a game about Kara I might just buy another game for my dusty PS3 that I only used three times.

 

[Grahav]

Only saw it now. My heart clenched.

At some point I thought: "It will only be a twist if the guy has mercy..."

And he did have.

It was pretty creepy when Man Voice kept calling her 'baby'.

The hearts of many men are hidden by their crudeness.

 

[Draconalis]

I actually think we have finally crossed over the uncanny valley with this, because I did not get the same feeling from this I got from LA Noire or Heavy Rain... Can't wait to see where this goes!

The lip syncing was still rather off, and there were still things I noticed that distracted, but like has been said in the thread... you can't judge a game by the tech demo.

That being said... that short was... thought provoking...

It was interesting and chilling.