I lay as still as I can, in an MRI machine, in the hospital, after suffering a brain stroke. The pounding and screeching noises from the machine were no comfort to me.
Three months later, I had a CD filled with a fairly detailed set of files of my head, face, brain, and upper chest. You see, I had to request the files be transferred to another medical provider for review by my stroke specialist doctor. In that tedious process, I requested a copy for myself. I mean its my data, my head, why not? HIPPA requirements, blah, blah. You have to own your personal medical data. Anyone who says different is just absurd!
Now to the point. Avatars. We all know what they are. But, do we? There are many older virtual worlds, even video games, movies, newer “virtual social networks” -VRchat, all allowing you to make an avatar, customize it’s face and features, give it clothes, buy things for it, etc.
Each platform, game, whatever, has a different avatar. Each time you create one, you end up creating another one on a different platform. As of this writing, they are not currently interchangeable. To be honest, you don’t even own them really, they are captives of whatever walled garden platform you created them on.
That doesn’t sound good. They are representations of you, and only you should own them! In fact they are sort of a “representative physical virtual presence”, a self relational three dimensional cursor in VR. Avatars also have the potential of being so much more in the future.
Okay, now that we have established that you should own your own avatar, and that it should be transferable between systems and platforms, we will move on, because we know it can’t be just yet, but it might be in the near future. It’s kind of like the single sign on problem of the past. IDs and passwords for so many different systems, completely overwhelming. Some solutions have been attempted, but I won’t go into those here. They are outside the scope of this chapter.
So back to my not so boring stroke data. By the way as a sidebar, for those who want to know, I am recovering well with no external observable affects, I was very lucky, and I’m making lifestyle changes to reduce the chance of another one in the future. While I was recovering, I decided to examine the stroke data myself, look inside my own head. It’s weird, but really cool.
I also decided to take that data and make a 3D external model of my face. I admit, I’m probably older than you the reader, or maybe I’m not, but it doesn’t matter in a virtual reality space when you have a representative avatar. You can be anything you want, a different sex, an animal, a robot, the limit is only your imagination, and the rules and capabilities of the virtual platform you are on.
I decided to use the magic of computers to age my medical scan data backwards, a decade or two, and shed a few pounds as well! I even printed out the model on my 3D printer. My skull too, which was admittedly a little more ominous for me. I kept the eyes closed for now, since I had them closed when I was being scanned. Later, I can replace the eyelids, and add eyeballs for any future avatar versions of myself.
I even had grandiose ideas for applying it to a real world robot. Now that would be super cool as well, but I don’t have time for that just now. I’ll include an internet link for those who might be interested in building a real world avatar of themselves. Contact me if you do, I’d be interested in hearing your experiences.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468067220300262
I digress. I’ll try to keep that in check as well.
In building out my virtual spaces with WebXR, See: https://funbit64.com/ I decided to use an anonymous robot avatar, the same for everyone. It’s boring, I know, and so I have been researching into a service, SDK, for avatar building, that others I know have used successfully. https://readyplayer.me/
Perhaps, in the future, the W3C will eventually put together a working group to address open avatar transference between platforms, with possibly attached 3D assets, exchange and such. I recommend it, before we get into a real unmanageable mess.
Today there are my different ways to create avatars, some even from photos. Google that for some free or paid avatars. The best way is of course a 3D scan. That should be easy to find as well. It’s fun creating an avatar for many reasons, one of which is the ability to creatively transform and represent ourselves in different ways. Suppose you’ve always wanted a tattoo, but were afraid of the permanence of such a decision. No such problem with an avatar.
Digital avatar tattoos, creative custom avatar design services, maybe whole new industries, or professions of the future.
Some homework for coming chapters: please read, view, and explore (recommended 1.5 hours duration minimum)
See if you can figure out what I’m eluding to? Answers are forth coming. Along with even more questions! Always. Our search for meaning and understanding in the multiverse should only end with the expiration of oneself or their species.
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Connectome
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWQnzylhgHc&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYeZmwLskyw&t=92s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnl6nY8YKHs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fQkVqno-uI&t=2s
https://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/crazy.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN-FU8VPoOc