I Can't Stop Staring at the Eerie Marionette Avatars of High Fidelity

Here's Philip Rosedale co-hosting a public chat/salon about blockchain technology in High Fidelity, and while the conversation is interesting in itself -- spinning off on themes touched on in Philip's recent blog post -- I'm also pretty mesmerized by the avatars who have it: Photorealistic, with beautifully fluid animations which successfully cross the Uncanny Valley for a few seconds... followed by herky jerky motions which convey the human puppeteer pulling the digital puppet by its VR-controlled strings.

With the technology in its current state, seems like it would be best to move away from realistic avatars and focus on implementing it with cartoonish, comical avatars, so the herky jerkiness actually seems fun and "natural" to the characters -- rather than making them seem like zombies animated by remote control by a mad scientist. (Which come to think of it, is pretty much what they literally are.)

Comments

[Skygirl Kline]

Remember when Hi fidelity's avatars first made their appearance?..people complained how cartoonish and comical they were...you just cant win :-).

[Clara Seller]

I'm really liking the two realistic avatars. I can forgive the animations because it's really exciting to see this advancement. In my opinion, High Fidelity is at least offering up some promise and vision. I think that their choice to be more open and inviting during their creation process was probably the smarter move.