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12
Avatars and Nonplayer Characters
Henry Frankenstein: Look! It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive... It’s alive, it’s moving, it’s alive, it’s alive,
it’salive, it’s alive, IT’S ALIVE!
Victor Moritz: Henry—in the name of God!
Henry Frankenstein: Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!
Frankenstein, Universal Pictures, 1931, screenplay by John L. Balderston
12.1 AVATARS AND OUR SENSE OF SELF
Your avatar, no matter what manifestation you choose—human gure, re-breathing dragon, or anime
doll—is the center of your experience in the virtual world. As a human being with a self-reective mind
capable of observing your own thoughts and desires, the creation of your avatar in a virtual world gives you
the opportunity to experience social relationships in new ways, physical capacities that you may not have
(ying), and another perspective on self-identity/cultural identity (possibly as another gender). As you can see
from Figure12.1, the avatar is at the center of all things. As you log into the virtual world, the basic avatar
geometry takes on the body shape you have modied into your own virtual representation. Your virtual
body is stretched or compressed, tinted or made invisible. Meshes and objects are added to create interesting
things like wings and hooves. As you rez into existence, many layers are added. First, the shell of a shape is
put on, then a gender with its associated clothing and attachments, and nally the social and virtual barriers
that dene your visibility to others and availability for social contact.
Avatars are the common denominators, the hub of your subjective experience, and the heuristic frame-
work that allows you to observe relative scale and spatial qualities of the virtual environment. They are the
representative self through which you can participate in communication (text chat, voice chat), and they are
your cocreator (role-playing character) of the shared story in an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online
role-playing game).
Be careful about choosing an avatar in cyberspace. The psychological/physical connection to our virtual
selves runs deep in our minds. For many people, self-observation of their real body and thinking of their
avatar light up the same areas of their brains during scans [1]. Studies about the phenomenon of “body
transfer illusion” have demonstrated that a threat to your avatar’s body, no matter how differently it looks
from your actual body, will elicit the same physiological response as a threat to your real body [2].
At the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab (http://vhil.stanford.edu/), there are several research pro-
grams that study the body transfer illusion as well as other avatar/human-related events. In one experiment,
they found that people using avatars with superpowers to save a lost diabetic child in the virtual scenario
would demonstrate a faster response to helping one of the lab assistants pick up a bunch of spilled pens after
their virtual session was over [3]. The scientists at the lab have found that more ecological behavior (such as
using fewer paper napkins) will be demonstrated by people after they participate as virtual lumberjacks in
the toppling of a virtual tree. Testing results have also shown that composite avatars that blend your real-life
face with a politician’s face will make you more likely to vote for that politician.
238 Virtual World Design
Avatar silhouettes (clockwise order from the top right):
Linden Labs - Female Centaur (created by Erin Talamasca - Hoof It!);
Linden Labs Musician;
Linden Labs Dragonet;
Flower Fairy (created by June Dion - Bare Rose)
Avatars are at the Center of Experience in a Virtual Environment
You
Communication
Who in the world
am I going to chat
with today?
Relative Scale
How big/small am I?
Role to Play
Pirate or princess,
fireman or fairy?
Location
Spatial
Awareness
Where am I
standing now?
Subjective
Experience
What is my
avatar
experiencing?
Gender and
Movement
Social and
Virtual Visibility
Avatar Shell
FIGURE 12.1 Diagram showing the relationship of the avatar to the user in a virtual world. The avatar creates a
layered framework that encompasses a range of experience including relative scale observation, communication, spatial
awareness, subjective experience, and role playing.
239Avatars and Nonplayer Characters
12.2 THE IMPORTANCE OF AVATARS
Your own individuality is your most precious commodity. Even if you have an identical twin, you are still
an individual personality with a unique collection of remembered experiences and interests. Your avatar
provides you with the opportunity to reect on this and add to your personal dimensions and self-identity.
You may be putting on a character, playing a role, changing your gender or even your species, but at the core
is your basic identity.
The following are some of the most important characteristics of an avatar:
1. Images. Avatars are your image, your reection in a virtual world.
2. Identication. Avatars are how others will identify you, recognize you.
3. Self-image. Avatars reect the self-image you have chosen.
4. Icons. Avatars can be icons or symbols of your beliefs.
5. Aspirations. Avatars can represent what you want to be.
6. Body modication. Avatars allow you to experiment with body modication.
7. Nostalgia. Avatars can be the mythological or cartoon characters of your childhood.
8. Scale. Avatars let you explore the scale variations of the body.
9. Communication. Avatars let you communicate and modify your voice.
10. Storytelling. Avatars let you tell stories and play roles in them.
12.3 DESIGNING THE LOOK OF YOUR CHARACTER
In essence, you need to get into your avatar’s “character,” which is part core personality, part projected
values , and part reaction to outside forces. When you study theatrical acting, especially “method acting,” you
will encounter the GOTE method. Developed by Robert Cohen [4], this acronym helps remind actors about
the qualities they should consider in developing their character. Briey, here are those four qualities redened
for an avatar’s character development.
1. Goal: What does your character want to do in this virtual world? For example, your character wants
to be a great, wise teacher.
2. Obstacle: What obstacles will your avatar encounter? For example, the great wise teacher would
encounter the obstacle of narrow minds and ignorance.
3. Tactics: How will your avatar attain goals? For example, the great wise teacher may start giving out
books or scrolls lled with wisdom.
4. Expectation: What expectations of success does your avatar have? For example, the great wise
teacher may realize that overcoming the obstacle of ignorance is a long, hard struggle, so the avatar
will prepare accordingly.
By now, a picture of this great wise teacher may have formed in your head. Perhaps this avatar resembles
Confucius (551–479 BCE) or Annie Sullivan, who taught Helen Keller (1866–1936), or perhaps this avatar
resembles your high school physics teacher. Whatever visual image you have in your mind’s eye can be
developed in further detail by thinking like a costume designer. A costume designer will do research into
the period of the character and will consider the socioeconomic status of the character as the costume is
designed. These are valuable insights because they enrich the complexity, color palette, and overall shape of
your avatar’s outward appearance.
240 Virtual World Design
Last year, I asked Rafael Jaen, a noted costume designer and assistant professor of costume design at the
University of Massachusetts, these two questions about costume design for avatars:
1. As a professional costume designer, what would you suggest to the rst-time avatar builder?
2. How would you get to the “core” of the costume design and give the rst-time designer a place to
anchor their concepts?
His replies to me were as follows:
I take a two-step approach; the rst step is to get into the character’s spine; what are her/his motivations, underlying
emotions, secrets and outward qualities. Will they need costume items that foreshadow these? I think of Blanche
Dubois’ entrance in Tennessee Williams’ A Street Car Named Desire, the description of her dress looking like a
“moth driven to the ame” symbolizes her undoing.
The second step is to look at the character’s givens, including philosophy (or religion), socioeconomics, envi-
ronment, weather, historical period, etc. These aspects translate directly to a character’s silhouette. Expanding on
the previous example, when we rst look at Blanche we realize that she is of a different socioeconomic class and
an earlier fashion silhouette; she is out of place.
The idea is to endow the character with emotions and qualities using visual design language (such as color,
texture, and mass) to communicate the character’s history and destiny at rst glance.
As you design your avatar’s costume, you may want to collect images from your research and make a
“look book” of period clothing photographs and illustrations. Slowly, you may formulate a “backstory,”
abiography if you will, about the avatar. In this story, you may decide on the age, the gender, the social class,
and a host of other details that support and compliment the meaning of your avatar.
If you desire to make an avatar that is a “new-and-improved” virtual representation of yourself, think a
moment before you start shopping for clothes and shoes. Your avatar can represent your personal interests
in a very visual way. For instance, if you are into English blues musicians, your avatar may look like one, or
you may have an interest in mythology and horses and decide to combine the two subjects with an avatar that
looks like a centaur. Likewise, you can wear or carry the tools of your trade. Attributes such as a hard hat,
atool belt, a briefcase, or a crossbow all indicate your interests and possibly your profession.
12.3.1 Where To shop for your aVaTar
In the online marketplaces, you will nd the clothes, hair, skin, shoes, or other avatar components you
need. Also, do not overlook the trade fairs, such as the Hair Fair, Fashion for Life in Second Life and other
worlds. The Asset Store (http://unity3d.com/asset-store/) in Unity is lling with high-quality content as
well. Another place to check is your own standard avatar inventory; there are often overlooked goodies
in there.
12.3.2 maKing your oWn CloThing and aCCessories
Eventually, you may decide to create your own clothing and accessories for your avatar. There is a great
collection of tutorials in the Second Life wiki (http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Clothing_Tutorials). At this
site, you will nd the standard templates for clothing from Linden Labs and other sources. Making clothing
for your avatar is a complex process, but extremely rewarding.
241Avatars and Nonplayer Characters
12.4 ANIMATING YOUR AVATAR
In a 3D world, the animations that move our avatars are actually a sequence of coordinates or “positions” for
the skeleton inside the mesh surface of our virtual bodies. Like a puppeteer, the animation les (Biovision
Hierarchy or BVH format in Second Life and OpenSim) move our bodies and give the avatar a sense of life.
The most basic of these is called the “idle” animation. You see this when the avatars are standing, shifting
their weight, crossing their arms, and so on. Watch closely, and you will see it cycle as the animation plays
through a loop. If you decide to walk your avatar somewhere and press the Up Arrow key to send the avatar
off, the idle loop stops, and the walk cycle begins. This is another loop, which repeats for as long as you
are walking. Should you decide to y, another animation kicks in as your avatar moves up in the air. Most
people who have been in Second Life for a while will opt out of using the standard animations and wear an
animation override (known as AO) on their avatar. These are attached prims, or head-up displays (HUDs)
that contain a group of animations and possibly a screen menu for selecting them. For the record, anima-
tions should not be confused with gestures. Gestures can contain animation les, but they will also contain
sounds and text messages. These are social tokens in virtual worlds and are often created to be given away
and shared with a group.
12.4.1 hoW do you oBTain animaTions?
The quick-and-easy way to obtain animations for your avatar is to buy them. The Second Life Marketplace
has a large selection, and if you are in OpenSim, there are several websites that have free collections of basic
animations. Maria Korolov keeps an OpenSim vendor directory list on her virtual worlds newsletter site,
Hypergrid Business (http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/).
If you need a special animation, you can hand make your animations with the free software QAvimator
(http://qavimator.org/). Mixamo also sells animations tailored specically to the Second Life avatar, which
you can create (http://www.mixamo.com/motions) and download as Biovision animation (BVH) les for
use in Second Life or OpenSim. Due to the differences in skeletons and rigging, you cannot use the same
skeleton and animations in Unity that you utilize in Second Life.
12.5 WHAT ARE NONPLAYER CHARACTERS?
Nothing makes a real country or virtual world more interesting than its peoples. In the virtual worlds of
Second Life or OpenSim, real people come together as avatars to represent their cultures and aesthetic inter-
ests simultaneously across a virtual landscape. By doing this, they create a fascinating mosaic of virtual
environments, pulsing with the sounds and sights of their collective creative imaginations. Despite high num-
bers of visitor concurrency, many popular user-built virtual environments experience the “crowded empty
paradox” [5], the emptiness of vast structures echoing with few visitors and the false perception that no one
is there. To be sure, some design changes could be added to the architecture and planning of these regions,
social centers could be added, and entertainment venues provided as a possible antidote to the lack of a crowd.
Another excellent way to enliven these empty spaces is with nonplayer characters (NPCs), who can serve
as “ ambassadors” to your virtual environment, providing the visitor with a point of contact, a guide to your
region, and information about you and your creations.
NPCs provide us with the articial life forms that add an extra dynamic to the environment; they give it a
“heartbeat” if you will. The virtual environment designer’s task is to make an environment that will support
an NPC population and enhance the immersive game play experience for the player. A virtual world designer
must recognize and capitalize on the human need to communicate and interact.
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