Blue World Notes: Why Your Blue Mars Avatar Looks at You

(Cross-posted from the Blue Mars blog, which I develop as a consultant)

When a virtual world veteran visits Blue Mars for the very first time, she usually notices a surprising and sometimes eerie thing: Her avatar seems to look right at her. This happens not just when the user's camera is positioned right in front of the avatar, but even when the avatar is facing away. It will sometimes just turn around and seem to look right at you -- as if to say, "Don't you wish you were here instead of me?" (At least that's what I imagine my Hamlet Au avatar thinking, when he turns back to stare at me.) As it happens, this is an intentional design decision by Avatar Reality developer Koji Nagashima, who's created 3D characters as a senior developer for videogames like God of War 1/2 and the movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which brought the first photorealistic 3D characters to the big screen.

"I think direction of eyes is very important point to make the avatar 'alive'," Koji tells me. However, unlike a movie or single-player game, the challenge is somewhat different, when you want to convey that in a multi-user virtual world:

"On a cinematic project," Koji explains, "all animators carefully make animation for eyes. But in our world, the program needs to take care of that." Eye animation in a virtual world or MMO is challenging because the avatar's position or the user's camera changes so often. "That's very interesting for me," Koji says.

His solution was to make the avatar respond relative to the position of the camera: "When the camera is just in front of the avatar, he keeps looking at the camera." When the camera is to the side of the avatar, he looks less at the user. And to convey a sense of autonomy, when the player rotates the camera, the avatar's gaze starts following it.

All this is in service of breathing life into Blue Mars avatars, but Koji Nagashima isn't finished. He's tweaking some issues with the avatar's gaze, and in the future, he wants the eye contact to reflect the avatar's personality: For example, active avatars will look at the camera much more often, while shy avatars will largely avoid the camera's gaze. "Something like that," Koji says. "That's a future aim."

Comments

[Adeon Writer]

This is one thing I really like about Blue Mars avatars. Some find it creepy, but, that's a valley problem.

[Nyoko Salome]

:\ i notice all too easily lately if someone knows how to 'lock on' their cam somewhere... i know it by habit by now. :\ i always find it distressing lol, if someone isn't looking at me if i am trying to pay attention to them. just basic camera controls, should be some kind of 'constant reminder' help thingie for sl! something persistent, but not too persistent, lol... kind of, 'you have to pass this test to not be bothered about this again', lol. ;) one of the most important things to learn in enjoying sl!! :0

[Nyoko Salome]

p.s. ;0 you know i do this a lot, right? ;0 i think back to something like the 'myth II' tutorial... you must learn and pass this test before moving on. basic to any gaming nowadays... sl needs a pass to that.

[Dylan Rickenbacker]

@Adeon: "Some find it creepy" is a bit of an understatement. This behaviour has been one of the most criticized in Blue Mars from the start, and I heard from several BM staff members that it is going to be "fixed" in a future relase. Personally, I think it's a gross error of judgment on the part of the designers. The effect of it is just as Hamlet describes - it reminds me of the fact that I'm sitting in front of a screen instead of moving in another world. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be reminded of that. It's like in a movie - when a character looks straight into the camera and starts talking to you, it throws you right out of the story. It works as a storytelling device in some special cases - "Inside Man" comes to mind - but generally, it's a thing directors avoid, and with good reason.

[Extropia DaSilva]

A poem...

May avvie faced me the other day,
and in my mind she seemed to say,
Has my owner gone AFK?
I do not want to be left this way,
For soon I will slump to show I'm 'AWAY',
Oh, my arms are typing....yay!

[Pathfinder Lester]

@Dylan, I agree with you.

When you "break the fourth wall," you wrench the observer out of their immersion.

And immersion (both perceptual and emotional) is the whole point of virtual worlds. And movies. And storytelling. And roleplaying. etc...

[Arcadia Codesmith]

It's a Sims-style flourish to have the characters turn to the screen and attempt to communicate with the player. In that context, it's cute.

But The Sims is a top-down godmode game, not a virtual world where the avatar is a projection of the player's consciousness into the simulation.

I think at the very least, this should be a feature that can be toggled off.

[Rawst Berry]

Like Nyoko, I prefer it if my avatar and the avatar to whom I am speaking have eye contact. I always point my camera at the other person, and don't like animations which won't allow my avatar's head to move. People with AOs that jump around or have bored body language annoy me a little because I feel like they aren't paying attention to me.

I haven't played Blue Mars. I think I would be annoyed if my avatar kept looking back at me. But the idea of giving avatars different personalities is fascinating and I hope it makes it in. Does Blue Mars have anything like AOs?