Vol.:(0123456789) The Computer Games Journal (2019) 8:83–105 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40869-019-00077-1 1 3 The Perceived Human Likeness and Familiarity of Human Actors in Relationship to Digital Actors in Film Willie Bouwer 1,2  · Francois Human 1  · Rudi de Lange 1 Received: 15 January 2019 / Accepted: 12 March 2019 / Published online: 15 March 2019 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract When human actors act opposite computer-generated (CG) Actors, they have to invent and imagine the actions and behaviour of these absent, non-existent actors on set. With CG Actors, it is understood that the more human they appear, the more they risk being influenced by the uncanny valley effect. The research question asked how the perceived humanness of CG and real human actors may be influenced by variations in the human actors’ performance. This is an area that has not been previ- ously researched. The human actor’s performance was tested with three films with different levels of emotion, one film with eye contact, and a control film. The five films were shown to four hundred participants after which measuring instruments were completed. The results have shown that, when human and CG Actors interact in a film, the acting quality of the human actors has an impact on audiences’ percep- tion of the humanness and familiarity of the CG Actors. When the human actor’s acting was natural, the human likeness and familiarity of the CG Actor was rated as lower (that is more inside the uncanny valley). When the human actor’s acting was poor and mechanical, the human likeness and familiarity of the CG Actor was rated as higher (more outside the uncanny valley). This indicates an inverse relationship between the perception of the human likeness and familiarity of the human actor and the perception of the human likeness of the CG Actor. Keywords Digital humans · Uncanny valley · Green screen acting · Photorealistic CG Actors · 3-D animation · Virtual actors · Synthespian * Willie Bouwer wcbouwer@gmail.com 1 Department of Drama and Film, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria 0001, South Africa 2 3D Animation Department, Prestige Academy, Bellville 7530, South Africa