Boston Dynamics Robots Can't be Faked - VFX Artists Explain Why

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Niko and Wren sit down to "bunk" the Boston Dynamics robot videos, explaining why they are impossible to fake!

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[Nodz]

To be fair, if I was a Boston Dynamics employee, I'd be wearing that "it has to be CGI" badge as an honor. When you create something that screws the mind of so many people you know you're on to something amazing.

[gd_xl]

I love how corridor uses their own content as examples of flaws. Really respectable.

[IVWebMedia]

Not to mention the floor responds to the interactions of the robots. Watch the wheels of the rolling robot and the dog, the floor sinks in a bit since it is a soft floor. That's a detail that would be very difficult and time consuming to recreate.

[davidfirth]

Saying something is fake does not make you smarter than the people saying it is real: I feel this is part of the modern "tech-sceptic" movement. That people just want a reason to look down on others, even if it's based on something untrue or not immediately provable. "Oh you don't believe THAT do you?". Insecurity about your own intellect projected on to others.

[MadsterV]

Another detail: you can see Atlas "toe" sinking in the mat sometimes and you can see the mat bending. In some shots the elbows have a sleeve that flexes properly like fabric. Fabrics are difficult to get right.

[donutlie]

I feel like this is reverse uncanny valley, we saw so much cgi robots that seeing one in real life feels unreal. Also, we seen the boston dynamics progress for years they could barely jump a few years ago and they slowly got better.

[turtlellama]

As someone long familiar with Boston Dynamics work, I'm surprised you guys didn't bring up the dog thing's motion more. Nothing but that real nightmare dog moves like that. There is nothing we could motion capture to get that horrible, reverse-hinged dance. It's terrifying because it's real.

[ivarwind]

In essence, people think the real robot footage is fake, because it looks artificial - because the robots *are* artificial - while your fake robot footage looks real, because it moves "realistically, " i.e. like a human!
Reminds me of how most of the arguments for the Moon landing footage being faked, basically boil down to "it doesn't look like I'm used to things looking on Earth." Well, what do you know, the surface of the Moon is different from Earth - and real robots don't move like humans!

[Boris_Chang]

This explains why the credits at the end of a top-tier scifi film, contains hundreds upon hundreds names and sometimes constitutes a huge chunk of the film’s budget.

[Scott_english]

This is also shot at a higher shutter speed, which reduces motion blur. This adds to the surreal feel of the clip. So the actual filmmaking choices add to the footage not looking real.

[TK]

I think the biggest reason people have the immediate "this looks fake" reaction is because of how perfectly in-sync and symmetrical the choreography is and people subconsciously understand and are used to dancers being synchronized in timing, but not in exact movement. As a result it probably trips some "uncanny valley" feeling in our brains and for some reason in this case people are interpreting that feeling as their gut telling them it's VFX.

[GuildOfCalamity]

The idea that Boston Dynamics, a company that has spent the last 30 years making state-of-the-art robotics, just gave up and did a CGI render... is ludicrous!

[isaacinternet]

I’m surprised they didn’t talk about how Boston Dynamics has been doing it’s thing for sooo long that if you watched their progression nothing would be super surprising by how advanced their robots are

[JamesFarrOfficial]

Most people know enough about a subject to think they're right, but not enough about it to know they're wrong. SMH

[ryanplume]

Something else I found interesting when you guys where talking about the shadows was that when the robot is doing the "running man" thing, you can see the mat depress under the weight of the robot, Idk how easy or not that would be to replicate in cgi, but I figure nobody would take that time for such a small detail

[aronseptianto]

i'd like to say that the fact that people can't tell whether it's real or not is a huge compliment towards the Boston dynamic's team
when you cross the threshold of machine preciseness, down to the perfect camera movement and precise synchronisation, you know you've made it as a product designer/mechanical engineer

[Mogu]

It's actually a win for BD. Where their robots are so good that people are SO UNSHAKEABLY SURE that it can't be real.

[ceilnguy]

I've seen these robots running around outside in their parking lot when i was working in a building across the street from them....they are truly amazing

[jondoesit]

Last year my social media teacher thought your guys’ video where you gave the robot the gun was real ☠️. And his job is to teach us what’s real or fake online!!

[rishhhh]

"why do people think ours is more realistic than the actual robot"

Suffering from success