Week 8 – Avatars, Games & Characters
Definition 1
In Hinduism, Avatar or Avatara (Devanagari ?????, IAST avat?ra, the Sanskrit for “descent” (viz., from heaven to earth, from the verbal root t? “to cross over”)) usually implies a deliberate descent from higher spiritual realms to lower realms of existence for special purposes, often translated into English as incarnation.
(Wikipedia)
Definition 2
AVATAR is a text graphics protocol used by Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes).
(Wikipedia)
In most cases online, Avatar refers to computer “avatars” – usually 80 x 80 pixel images representing the written or net-attended self online. BLOG / Forum comments use them. Some people use photos of themselves – others, pictures of “Fluffy” the cat, and with the relatively new Gravatar (2007) you can use your avatar (at participating stores) on the web.
Gravatar
Go get yourself a Gravatar
Machinima
Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator (2007)
In 2008 HBO bought the Northern American broadcasting rights for the first machinima documentary, Molotov Alva And His Search For The Creator: A Second Life Odyssey. The director Douglas Gayeton shot and mastered the entire 52 minute film without ever leaving a spare bedroom on his Northern California farm. The film later became the first machinima film theatrically released by a studio, with screenings in both Los Angeles and New York in September of 2007.
(Wikipedia)
Read more about the show at:
Red Vs. Blue
These guys are selling DVDs of their recorded game exploits.
In short – such movies and they can (literally) be made in the bedroom.
Game Engines
Using existing game engines to create movies, pretty much any movie can be pre-vizualised in this way – if not finished in this form. It’s something for all media producers to be aware of. The reading of any script can be recorded and then animated this way and you can bet your bottom dollar that a nicely pre-vizzed (recorded) scene involving one of the many free game engines can form part of a submission to ScreenWest or the FTI as part of a short / feature submission.
What’s interesting here is that traditional television is now interested in buying Machinima.
Which opens the doors to how movies are made and sold.
Avatar and the Motivation to Play
Avatars and avatar construction form part of the motivation to play. The 2008 game “Spore” gave gamers the ability to alter their characters, environment and machinery with a simple 3D application. Free versions of the character construction kit were given away and people could use their constructed Avatar in the purchased game.
In this article, Tychsen et al., suggest that character construction is a crucial part of gameplay, while the real-life aspects of gameplay such as discussion, socialising and interaction with real people, rate very low.
Academic article
Telerobotics and the Avatar
Interesting that this voiceover lady almost reveals her innermost fear and would rather these robots actually lived underground with the rats. Perhaps if it was a nicer looing robot she may not have been such a harsh judge.
15 minute Clustering & Speed-writing Session #3
Joan Jeanrenaud “Transition” from her album “Strange Toys”
- Write “Avatar” in a circle in the middle of an A3 page
- Word associate. Write new words in bubbles and linked around Avatar
- Go faster
- FASTER!
You’ll get to a point where you want to turn this into and extract or piece of writing. Write on the A3 page and then enter into your BLOG.
In Class
(and for next week)
- Read this article: Motivation to Play.
- Write your reaction to the article in a BLOG post and try to tie it in with ideas you have about the realization and/or delivery of your own game / multi-linear / traditional narrative. In other words, try to answer the questions, “What will make someone care about my idea?”
- In your BLOG, also re-write your cluster writing experience into a linear form.
- Read other people’s BLOGs and try to help them with their ideas. Say what you liked and didn’t like about any particular idea.
I’m assuming that some of these weekly writing exercises will work for you and at times, they won’t. But writing something – anything – on a daily basis is the lot of any professional writer and as we know, ideas are only ever sold off the page.
NB: Weekly writings are graded as participation, but so are constructive comments and thoughts on other people’s BLOG posts and writing.
Comments
3 Comments on Week 8 – Avatars, Games & Characters
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Tamiah on
Thu, 17th Sep 2009 11:06 am
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Jacinta on
Thu, 24th Sep 2009 11:18 am
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Joe on
Fri, 25th Sep 2009 11:24 pm
I find the concept of avatars fascinating and I’m looking at incorporating a lot of this information into my presentation. I found the Myst game URU to be a very interesting representation of this concept of avatars being a representation of the user. As you’ve mentioned above under the heading “Avatar and the Motivation to Play” the article that suggest the characterconstruction if the most important part of the gameplay – not the interaction or discussion with other people. I found that this was very true in the online version of URU, as creating your avatar and personalising your repesentation becomes the most important priority, then proceeding to interact with others and solve the puzzles comes second.
The term “avatar” is new to me!!!
Seriously, i don’t play games nor do i read technology related stuff, so, i’ve never heard about AVATAR.
I’m stunned and confused in the class when Edwin talks about avatar and i had to google and wikipedia to get myself a rough idea.
So i assume, from my current understanding, that avatar is a character or in online, our self-image, correct me if im wrong.
And i definitely agree with Tamiah that in games, creating and personalizing avatar is always the main goal first, before proceeding to other things like solving problems and get started with the game adventure.
I found that in gaming, the concept of an avatar is obviously influenced by the way you perceive yourself and certain situations. Most gamers I know create an image of what they would want to look like in the surrounding environments based on the mass media they mainly subscribe too. (A good example of this is the GTA franchise.)
However, in arenas such as forums and Blogs I know a few people who assume an avatar that has almost nothing in common with who they are in real-life except for the notion that they want to experience a different set of shoes. While I understand that this may be for entertainment or research means, the fact that it can be done with such ease in addition to a high level of detail has the potential to create a sense of paranoia, as this is also part of the set of tools required for internet fraud.
Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!