A Welcome Suicide in the Uncanny Valley

I love the world of computer graphics and gaming. I recently started fooling around with drawing sprites and backgrounds for my creating my own games.Then, I saw this tweet https://goo.gl/6Vux1Z. Basically, computer vision was being used to gauge fashion trends. They were taking the human out of the equation. At this point, my wheels started cranking. I wondered how easy it would be to take George Clooney, I mean, an anonymous actor and replace them with a 3D model? How long would it take me to understand the modelling process.

Here is another attempt after having some creases I couldn't understand how to get rid of.

I think this is pretty damn fine progress for a grand total of eight hours. Someone with some skill or significantly more experience probably could have done an almost perfect CG render of the actor above. By the way, this is Blender. It is FREE. With absolutely no training aside from a tutorial - http://goo.gl/OPpmgn - I was able to outline both George Clooney's, I mean, anonymous actor's face and some stupid drawing from The-Blueprints.com (not really stupid; I mean, I couldn't have drawn that). 

The brilliance of this program and field begs the question; what happens when the CG world overtakes the movie world? I don't mean Lord of the Rings style. I mean FULL replacement. Take Archer for example. Several of the fans know the titular character is voiced by H Jon Benjamin. Who knows the model for Archer though? Some may, but do you give a shit about his political opinions? Do you care who he marries, and the shitastic name some rag has given them. No, you don't. The dude is just a symmetrical face that looks good to a computer animation system. What happens when all of these actors and actresses are no longer necessary to the process? What happens when we get over that Uncanny Gap (Google it, I'm not your search engine). Let's do a quick exercise!

Name some of the top voice actors
1. Frank Welker
2. Bob Bergen
3. Billy West
4. Tara Strong
5. Johnny Yong Bosch

Now some of the top actors
1. George Clooney
2. Matt Damon
3. Susan Serandon
4. Ben Affleck
5. Tim Robbins

And then name the top CGI models

1. ?????

2. Ummmm

3  Whats-his-name?

4. That model who played Angelina Jolie's tits Beowulf, god who was she?

5. Failed actor #5

Cross the top two lists with the number of asinine appearances before congress or attendance at political fundraisers.Do you see the difference? One is a group of talented people who voice some of your favorite characters. No one cares how they vote  or who they bang. The other is a group of similarly talented individuals who you have to see every other week going in front of some congressional beg-a-thon with an inflated sense of self-worth and recommendations that are taken seriously for Christ's sake. Large swaths of citizens and political heavies actually formulate opinions around what the second group thinks. Take them out of the equation with rendering software. Now, you tell me if we aren't solving some problems with tech.These voice actors may have an opinion or two that has made its way to the halls of our nation's capitol, but I can't find any instances.

Walk through a world with me. A world where actual writing talent rules the day. No more US Weekly. Goodbye the last thralls of Scientology. Goodbye to an entire segment of Americana that is best sent to the farthest dustbin history can provide. So long having to listen to some vapid, empty actress begging for our tax dollars to entertain her cause du jour. 

I can't wait - CAN'T WAIT - for the day when no one gives a shit about what a celebrity has to say. Get ready for your opinions to matter about as much as any other waiter in LA hoping to break into the acting scene. Get ready for no one to care what you think about whales or the environment, or tax policy as if you are some authority on the subjects simply because you pretended to be a marine biologist one time. Not a soul is going to care. What do you do then? Are you ready to pick up a pen and create some art of your own instead of leeching off the truly talented?

Everybody who even has a remote interest, go learn this 3D animation skill. Help push the lemmings over the cliff. Make them as obsolete as an Apple Pippin, a NeoGeo, or George Lopez's act. It took me ONE day to get this far. For anyone that ever worked with 3D Studio Max in the late 90's, this is an impressive turnaround. Imagine what a year with Blender and some grid paper will yield? We could eliminate the need for Ben Affleck in a heartbeat. Don't we all want Batman from the Arkham Games to be the next Batman anyways? Why wait, let's get this shit done now.

-vesh