New World Notes

Uncanny Valley Expo Winner: Marianne McCann

Winning by a wide margin, Marianne McCann's entry is the reader's choice for the Uncanny Valley Expo.  She presents and models her avatar here, which features the "WIA Head Down Little Girl" gesture by Baby Thorne, combined with the Lindens' generic sad expression, and a downcast looked shaped via the Mysti tool. Marianne's skin and eyes are by Robin Sojourner.  As it turns out, she made this entry not just to create an avatar who engaged on a human level, but as a kind of public statement over a contentious cultural issue.  I'll be posting an interview about that soon, but meantime, congrats to Marianne, who wins a free NWN ad along with runner-up Haver Cole, and a signed copy of the official guide, along with semi-finalists DeltaDharma Dawn, Haley Salomon, and Xellessanova Zenith.  Thanks to them, everyone else who submitted, and the nearly 400 readers who voted on the finalists.

Uncanny Valley Expo, 2nd Place: Haver Cole

This Uncanny Valley Expo entry from Haver Cole was chosen 2nd in a vote of nearly 400 readers, and features a pose by Luth Brodie ("Fashion 5") and a skin by D-skin.  My personal title for it?  "Cameron Diaz Goes Geek".

See the semi-finalist entries here; see all the Expo avatars here.

Uncanny Valley Expo: Semi-Finalist Reader Selections

The Uncanny Valley Expo reader selections have been made (nearly 400 votes registered!), and I'll be posting 2nd place and the final winner next week.  Congrats to your semi-finalists, who are, from left to right:

- DeltaDharmaDawn, modeling and presenting, "Do you still watch over me?"  Her expression is Innocent, from LUTH, her skin is by RAC AMY.  She also used a "self-designed personal lighting system to remove face shadows."
- Haley Salomon, presenting and modeling a pose from Luth and an R and C skin.
- Xellessanova Zenith, modeling and presenting "Go Cry Emo Kid".  She used a custom face skin manipulation, custom eyes made bloodshot red, and a custom shape.  "I prefer minor tweaks to the face mesh rather than the often over-the-top expression defaults," she explains. To add she added custom eyebrows and animations ("four threaded to run consecutively through a gesture, over a base pose").

Final Uncanny Valley Expo Vote continues!

Click here to vote for the avatar which engages you most.  Voting ends on the 14th!

Uncanny Voting Continues!

Click through to this link to see and select the avatar who engages you most.

Update, 10/27: Watch the results come in at the polling site, with nearly 200 votes registered so far.   

Reader Vote: Select the Winner of Uncanny Valley Expo 2007

The nominees are here, and the polls are open!  Vote on your selection after the break; polling station is open for the next couple weeks.

The Uncanny Valley Expo Finalists!

After painful deliberation, here at last are the ten finalists of New World Notes' Uncanny Valley Expo 2007.  These are the ten avatars which (in my view), engaged the viewer on a human level most.  (The semi-finalists are here; the full selection is here.)  Take a good look at these ten via the links below, because next week, you the reader will select your favorite among them.  Thanks again to all who contributed, and for making my selections so difficult.  Counter-clockwise from top left are:

- DeltaDharmaDawn, modeling and presenting, "Do you still watch over me?"
- Rodion Resistance, modeling and presenting, "Hey you!!!"
- Haley Salomon, modeling and presenting.
- Marianne McCann, modeling and presenting, "blog.secondlife.com."
- Haver Cole, modeling and presenting.
- Young Geoffrion, modeling and presenting.
- Saeya Nyanda, modeling and presenting.
- Heidi Sturm, modeling and presenting, "Deep in Thought."
- Xellessanova Zenith, modeling and presenting, "Go Cry Emo Kid."
- Molly Maidstone presenting, Megan Steins modeling.

Uncanny Valley Expo 2007: Honorable Mentions!

I finally managed to wade through the 40+ entries in this year's Expo and today, unveil the ten I believe deserve honorable mention.  My two standards of selection are realism of the avatar, and more important, the ability to engage on a human level.  The latter category is more subjective, of course, and bound to provoke disagreement.  Fortunately, the final choice won't be up to me: next week, I'll run the ten finalists, and NWN readers will get to vote on the winner among those. 

Meantime, after the break, listed more or less in the order they were received, the Honorable Mention entries!

Uncanny Valley Expo: Elusyve Jewell

Elusyve Jewell's Expo entry "Honesty" was created with a skin from CS Vogue.

See all the Expo avatars here.  All the qualified entries I received have been shown, and so now, we go to the semi-final selection.  Now to figure out how to choose 10 entries from a massive stack of 43.

Uncanny Valley Expo: Gorgeous Yongho

Gorgeous Yongho models and submits "Blue Sky", her Expo entry with a Luth Brodie standing animation and a RaC Skin by Mallory Cowen.  See all the Expo avatars here.