This video has very little motion blur compared to what you normally see in high quality 4K 24/30 FPS footage (e.g. Hollywood movies). That contributes to the uncanny look, giving it an "animated" or "sped up" feel. Which is funny because most robot demo videos are sped up, but not this one.

It can't just be hydraulics though, because to me the most telling moments that look fake are when the robots are jumping - they have too much hang time/too much uniform velocity for the relatively small amount of vertical distance they get. In particular, see the initial jump at 15 secs in the video. It's like the robot is floating instead of jumping.

I had that same distinct impression about the jump at :15 the first time I watched, but watching it again i don’t. I think it has something to do with the leg motion while airborne. If you just focus on the torso it seems normal.

They must be heavy, which helps with fluid motion

To me it looks like claymation. But of course I can't really explain what it means for something to "look like claymation" to me. Is it that the movement is too isolated? Not isolated enough? Both of those things at the same time in different ways?

I agree but I chalked that up to motion of extremely rigid bodies under large torque.

Watch the reflections on the plexiglass while they are moving. Obviously they could have been composited in but there's definitely a live portion of the shot.

Subliminally jerky - you can’t directly perceive it but you are aware of it.

"Subliminally jerky" - When you're certain it's dehydrated meat, but you don't know why.

It looks like 'fake' and animation because it _is_ an animation. The dancing was likely motion captured and/or hand animated and superimposed onto the robots basic balancing control system.

> onto the robots basic balancing control system.

I don't think "basic" is the right word.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. I think the intent is to differentiate between the "optimal" robotic control dynamics which is designed for safety, efficiency, and to respond to unexpected situations and "dancing" which is intended to either mimic human motion or some anthropomorphic version of it.

So it is "animation" of a physical sort designed to make it look like the robots are responding to the music naturally, rather than programmatically.

I think it looks fake because the movements are so smooth and fluid.

On a dancing person you see all the slight adjustments to keep balance that make it feel natural, I believe these robots do it too fast for us to notice and so it seems like CGI where keeping balance isn't a thing.

I'm looking at the jump at 2:09, and all I'm seeing is a super wobbly robot trying very hard to keep its balance?

Look at the pelvis movements at 1:15 to 1:25! You can clearly see it jerking around so the robot keeps its balance.

None of those movements are smooth or fluid, it's all jerky jittery and unnatural, which is exactly what you'd expect from actual robots. If it was motion-capture, you wouldn't get those movements, you'd get smooth human movements instead?

I'm so fascinated by how this video triggers people's "it's fake!" senses, when it's clearly real.

Hydraulics make robot motion look fake? Have you watched real robots move before? I've never once watched a robot move and thought to myself "that looks fake".

This is how the robot moves IN REALITY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhND7Mvp3f4

Oh, man. Hard to watch the sequence starting at 1:56 without wondering when the robot is gonna take that guy's hockey stick and beat him to death with it. Do you want a robot uprising? Because this is how you get a robot uprising.

It can look real with hydraulics, but it can look fake.

In that video you linked, look at second 21/22, when it raises the arms in the air: the way the arms stop instantly is very inhuman.

For me, the front toe taps are especially fake-looking. It’s hard to pin down exactly without going frame by frame, but to me it feels like it‘s a combination of the lighting and the way the foot “rests” on the floor (which should probably be deforming since it looks like dense foam?)

Almost as though they had to edit out some balance-assisting device.

Also: why are the people at the right speed, but it feels like the robots are sped up? Them being sped up would be fine, but if the two are at different speeds then it’s a clear indicator that it’s composited.