“ If our entire lives are lived out
online, there is more opportunity
to sell us advertising”
Computer-generated graphics
are now able to digitally replicate
long-dead actors in Hollywood
movies, and deepfake video
technology makes it possible to
fool even the most sceptical viewer.
Yet log on to the mooted iterations
of the metaverse from the likes
of Meta, Microsoft and Roblox
(see main story), and the blocky,
cartoonish graphics still look like
they have been imported from
an old generation of video game
consoles. It raises the question: why
does the metaverse look like it does,
and when, if ever, will that change?
“Reproducing natural forms, and
particularly natural forms we are
very sensitive to, like other humans,
is super-difficult,” says Steve
Benford at the University of
Nottingham, UK. The simplest
explanation for the cartoonish
rendering is the strain more realistic
representations would place on
processors and online connections.
“My guess is that it would be related
to technical limitations,” says Nick
Kelly at Queensland University of
Technology, Australia. “As mass
multiplayer games have shown,
it’s really difficult to have
500,000 people all interacting
simultaneously without huge lag.”
Then there is the “uncanny
valley”. This term, coined in the
1970s by robotics professor
Masahiro Mori, describes
how lifelike robots can provoke
feelings of revulsion or horror if they
aren’t quite right. It has since been
extended to graphical renderings of
humans in video games and movies.
If and when metaverse technology
becomes more widespread, the
unease that such avatars generate
will have to be confronted – and it
could mean that the graphics of the
metaverse always remain in the
realms of the cartoonish.
FUNNY-
LOOKING
THINGS