Avatar

An avatar is the graphical representation of a user in an interactive online chat or game environment. Primarily used in virtual chat environments such as ActiveWorlds (http://ActiveWorlds.com), VZones (http://Avaterra.com, Inc.), and Black Sun Virtual Worlds (blaxxun interactive), the term originated in Hindu mythology, where it referred to the worldly embodiment of a god.

The first use of the term occurred in an interactive online game called Habitat, created in the late 1980s by Lucasfilm Games in association with Quantum Computer Services, Inc. At a time when almost all online interactive chat (and indeed most online communication) used only text, Habitat pioneered the use of movable cartoon characters to represent people who communicated with each other through the online game. Habitat's creators referred to these cartoon characters as avatars, a term enthusiastically embraced by most subsequent graphical chat systems.

The term captures both the power and the limitations of online interaction. Like gods in a small world, users can manipulate some aspects of online environments in ways not possible in offline environments, changing physical representations with a few simple commands. Yet online communication can be limiting in some ways as well. Graphical representations cannot capture the nuances of expression available to embodied human beings in face-to-face interaction. Thus, the experience of communicating through online avatars provides an experience that could be considered analogous to that of gods submitting themselves to the limitations of corporeal existence.

Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel Snow Crash helped perpetuate the use of the term avatar. Stephenson, who had computer-programming experience, depicted an online virtual-reality system that was considered relatively realistic and realizable by many computer engineers. He used the term avatar to refer to representations of people in that system. Stephenson's work has been so influential in the graphical chat community that a speaker at a recent virtual-reality conference jokingly suggested that anyone who had not read Snow Crash should leave the room.

When new users connect to a graphical chat system, they usually must download software that allows them to connect to and interact with the virtual world program. Part of this software includes instructions for acquiring an avatar. On some systems, users choose from a set of pre-designed avatars; on others, users can import their own graphics to [Page 22]customize their avatars. Once users select their avatars, they can use a variety of simple keyboard commands to cause their avatars to move, gesture, and “speak.” Most graphical chat systems use text to represent avatar speech, although some systems, such as OnLive!, have experimented with audio connections that allow for voice communication.

The avatar of a participant flies toward a real-time satellite image of the surface of the sun. From Daniel Sandin's virtual environment, “Looking for Water.” (Courtesy of Daniel Sandin)

Avatars range widely in sophistication, flexibility, design style, etc. Creating a fully interactive graphical representation for each user in a game or chat space can require significant computing resources. Designers must make tradeoffs between the advantages and disadvantages of various features. For instance, on one system that provides a flat, two-dimensional view of the environment and the avatars in it, users have discovered that the lack of realistic perspective means that one user can “cover up” another user's avatar, blocking that avatar from view. This is not possible when graphics are rendered with three-dimensional perspective. However, on one three-dimensionally rendered world, the complex graphics involved result in a limitation on the number of avatars that can be seen by any individual user, regardless of how many users are actually present in that virtual location.

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