A group of Hollywood visual effects pros that have dubbed themselves the “digital human league” are trying to raise the bar in what we think of as synthetic humans — and they aim to get their work out in early 2015.

If you remember early efforts to create CG humans where the characters looked quite real — but were off just enough that they might have felt a bit creepy — then you understand a perceptual zone known as the “uncanny valley.” It’s a term that was sometimes used in conversations about CG humans surrounding the release of films such as The Polar Express. That’s what this “digital human league” is looking to overcome.

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