Planning my avatar......... FINAL

Success!! I have thought up a really good idea for my avatar which relates to me in every single way and is also quite easy to create on 3D Max. I decided to create an avatar based on the card game "Poker." For the past 4 years I have been obsessed with the game and art of playing poker, I really love playing and watching the game. So my avatar will look like a real professional poker player. The environment he will be placed in, will odviously be in a poker room which will consist of my avatar sitting down on a poker table in a casino.

MY AVATAR

I did some research on what my avatar will look like and I really want my avatar to look like my favourite poker player "Phil Hellmuth."



So basically I got an idea to have my avatar wear a black baseball hat and black sunglasses preferably holding some playing cards or poker chips. The clothes he will be wearing will be a simple black polo shirt, maybe with a poker logo on it, blue jeans and white trainers.

MY ENVIRONMENT

I have an idea of my environment being a poker room in a classy casino. The main thing you will see is the poker table in the centre of the room with my avatar sititng down playing with either chips or cards. Around the table there will be a bar, a large, flat TV screen and other features that will make my environment look more like a casino. Because I have experience in going to poker tournaments in casinos, I know exactly what poker rooms look like, so this will be useful in making it look as realistic as possible.
Here's an image that I got from the internet showing you what a poker room in a casino would be like.



The main object of my environment will be my poker table so I think its important that I know exactly what my table will look like. I grabbed this image that I like from the internet because it has the poker chips and playing cards on it, so people who see my project will instantly reaslise that its a poker table.



A real life professional poker tournament



I decided to add this video to my blog to show what a real life poker tournament looks like. As you can see from this video, the poker room looks very classy, with a bar and beautiful waitresses in dresses. This is how I want my poker room to look like.

3D Max Work

My cartoon blob thing

My robotic legs

















Here are my two pieces of work that I have created in my seminar group. I learnt how to do these pretty easily so I could use the concept of how I made this in creating my avatar.

Planning my Avatar Continued.....

I was on the internet browsing through some websites to give me inspiration on what my avatar will look like. At this stage I am thinking of a simpler design due to my lack of experience using 3D Max. I came across this site "create your own south park character" which I found pretty cool as the design of the characters are so simple.






I started creating my armoured avatar on photoshop, but then I realised that I would have to create this on 3D Max. My avatar design was too complex for me to implement this on to 3D Max as my skills on this software is very limited. Instead I am going to create a simpler avatar based on the idea of a manga character armoured.
Here is a simple manga character that I took from my manga book that i am going to use as my starting guideline.




I went on Adobe Illustrator and opened up the image that I got from my manga book. First I removed the head because I am going to replace it with a picture of my face and then I used the pen tool to draw an outline of the body which came out looking like this. I did this because it will be easier for me to draw my final sketch and add some features to it.



Here is my final design of ym avatar. As you can see I ahev added some features onto the original drawing to make the character look more robotic and less human. When it comes to designing this on to 3D Max, I had an idea to add circuit boards and wires that I will grab from the internet and place it onto the skin of my avatar.




Thinking of what character my avatar would be, its got me thinking of this game I used to love palying when I was a kid. The game is called "worms" which as you can see from the top, looks really cool and is SO simple to design. I like the idea of creating a simple, animated character like this because it looks really effective. I still want to keep with the theme of my avatar being armoured or well protected due to my skin disease. But importantly I need my avatar design to me much more simpler than the design I had at the bottom because there are too many features I need to create on 3D Max and I don't have the knowledge to overcome it.



Here is a little preview of my attempted human avatar design, I tried to make it as human as possible but creating the bodily areas such as the pecs, shoulders, hands, knees I found too hard.
So now I am going to sketch out a few simple ideas on my sketch book and come up with a design that relates to me and preferably easy to create on 3D Max





Here is a design that I was working earlier on, as you cans ee I have used the robotic legs that I have made in the past and I thena ttached a body on to it. I was going for the idea of creating a half robot, half human character but then I decided that this cahracter does not really relate to me in anyway and I did not really like the design of it in the first place.
So after some long tihnking I decided to go back to teh drawing board and think of another idea for my avatar.

Planning my Avatar Design

I decided that my finished avatar will be in manga form as I have some experience in drawing manga characters. Also the manga features would be easy for me to make on 3D Max as it involves a lot of simple drawings. Due to a lot of thinking of how my avater would relate to me personally, I thought I will make my avatar wear some sort of protective armour or be half human and half robot. This is because I have eczema which causes me a lot of stress and irritance in my life and if I had a second identity, that identity would prevent any sort of skin disease occuring.





















I have got these images from the internet and this manga book that I have, and I want to base my avatar design around these pictures. I am going to attempt sketching my avatar then publish my sketch on to my journal later on

Second Life Diary

Day 1

On my first day on Second Life I watned to get familiar with the controls and interactions I have with ym avatar. This is the main window with a lot of tools and functions that enables the user to be fully interactive with your avatar.

















Here is my avatar that I have designed so far.


















Once I created my avatar I decided to explore more of the second life world, so I clicked the search tool and decided to go to freebie Island where it says I could buy clothes, accessories for free!!

I teleported to this location and it seemed like a popular place for users as it was very packed. There were a number of displays which were actually interactive and if I clicked on it, a window appears enabling me to browse the items I could purchase for free!

Then I met my friend Damien who is also doing Multimedia in Trent and we decided to sit down next to each other and have a pleasant chat. It was really easy to find him because when he logged into second life, a message appeared telling me that he’s online, so I sent him a message, telling him where I was and we explored the rest of second life together.
















Day 2
Me and Damien (his avatar name Decker Doobie) decided to go to the club “oxygen” to meet some new people and to socialise. But unfortunately it was a bit too early for people to start clubbing.

















Mission Viejo

I decided to go to a museum to check out some art, so I teleported to Mission Viejo which appeared to be a sex museum as there were a lot of erotic content. Some of the displays are interactive for the user, such as this one below, you can click the arrows to change the display.

















Day 3 – I teleported to an island called HippiePay which is one of popular places listed on second life. I asked around what this place actually offers. Apparently if I go on to these machines and click on it, a web page appears opening up a survey which I can complete for some Free Lindens (second life money).



I didn’t take part in the survey and on this island there’s not much to do, so I decided to leave and go to another popular place called Freebie Beach.
When I arrived at my location, I first saw this large billboard with a lot of options that I could do on this island. (Shown below)



I first clicked on beach and it automatically took me to the beach where I decided to sunbathe for a bit



I found this pretty boring as all I was doing was sitting down admiring the water. So I decided to be adventurous and buy some weapons which I found pretty cool. There were a lot of weapons on offer such as guns, swords, futuristic weapons etc but I decided to go for a Melee type of weapon, the sword. This feature of Second Life reminded me of this online game I was playing called “Might and Magic” where I can go to shops and purchase weapons to aid me on my adventures. I thoroughly enjoyed picking out different types of weapons and making my avatar wear them.



During my journey around Second Life I found out theres not much you can do without Linden Dollars. All the exciting things such as buying land, furniture, swimming pools etc all need you to have money. So at the moment now, I have no idea where to go.

Identity Research

IDEO, Identity cards- http://www.ideo.com/identity/introduction.htm


I found this website very interesting and helpful for my research on identities. The first thing you see on this website is a list of different business cards that people have created to show the identity of the owner of the card. For example the “hair card” a strand of the owner’s hair will be implanted onto a standard business card. The hair strand contains the unique DNA of the owner so if the receiver scans the hair strand, all the details such as qualifications, authentication will be displayed. The same goes for the blood card. Another reason why these cards are good for providing identification, it’s because there is no risk of identity theft as the owner’s hair strand contains his own unique DNA that no one can ever copy

Now coming to digital identity, I came across a business card which I personally think is a really good idea. The “lightstick” by designer Duane Bray where a business card can reflect new information by bending or shaking the card. It is done electronically, at first the card can hold personal information of the owner, and then shaking it will reveal other information such as qualifications.
Moving on, I discovered another really good idea by designer Steve Heron called the Pin Box. The Pin Box is shaped like a business card but can recapture moments in meetings like the pin-hole camera idea in photography. The owner will peel off the cover to produce a photograph.



Second Life is a 3D virtual world where people can create new identities (avatars) and live their 2nd life in this virtual world. This is their second identity where they might not be able to do the things they can do in their first life (reality world) which they can do here e.g. a disabled person can be a superhero in second life. In second life you can create a character to look whatever you want your avatar to look like. You can make your avatar do whatever you want it to do, you can explore, meet new people etc. Second Life is a great idea as it gives people two identities, so if people are not happy with their first identity they can always go on second life to live out their second identity.