Watch: Seriously Amazing VRChat Avatar Makes Me Miss Them in SL

Speaking of VRChat hiring, I kinda feel like the company should go ahead and hire community creator/merchant "lackofbindings" to make default avatars. Because, I mean, watch above. (Starts slow but shit gets real around 20 seconds in.)

I watch this somewhat whimsically, because amazing avatars like this once seemed pervasive in Second Life as well (as here, in 2007) but are much less prevalent. They're still around, to be sure, but you have to look in earnest, and they're definitely in less abundance on the active marketplace. My working theory, as I wrote in the book, is the launch of avatar-based mesh for ultrarealistic humans too quickly dominated the market after 2010: 

At launch, Second Life avatars were human by default but not realistic. The internal prim creation tools encouraged the construction of avatar attachments (robot helmets, furry tails, etc.), which led to a wide variety of avatar types and environments to explore.  

The arrival of mesh in Second Life in 2010 -- high resolution 3D files created in offline software and then uploaded into the virtual world -- greatly changed this dynamic. 

Nick Yee has already spoken in Chapter 9 about the community moderation issues that realistic human avatars engender: Preference them in your virtual world, and all the hidden and not so hidden prejudices of our offline world come along with them.

Thanks to mesh and other graphics enhancements, Second Life avatars and environments now look as detailed and as vivid as those from top AAA games. (For those lucky enough to own a powerful PC.) However, this rise in visual quality has contributed little to actual user growth. 

But by enabling ultra-realistic avatars, especially through mesh-based body attachments, mesh quickly altered the world’s culture. The Second Life web-based Marketplace accelerated this trend, since content creators now had incentive to create mesh avatar enhancements compatible with the most popular mesh bodies. 

Within years, the virtual world’s economy came to be dominated by ultra-realistic avatars; the overall creative culture changed, accompanied by the rise of environments most suited to them -- glamorous beachside homes and nightclubs, beautiful locales that resembled real life tourist destinations and locations for the latest reality TV show.

As Second Life’s economy snowballed around quality mesh items, so did its culture. While avatar fashion and virtual housekeeping were always a crucial part of the virtual world, the creative tools also attracted a cohort of creators and tinkerers more interested in using the platform as a multi-user game development space and all purpose sandbox space. 

By and large, however, tinkerers of this type faded in prominence within the larger community, overwhelmed as it was by new fashion releases and shopping extravaganzas. (They still exist, but are less prominent in the community.) 

It's still possible to encourage a return to a more diverse community of all variety of amazing avatars beyond supermodels, of course, but that's another topic for another time.

This VRChat creator's Gumroad page, if you missed it, is right here.

Comments

[Luther Weymann]

In 2013-2014, I was boating on the Blake Sea, and a 20+ meter tall green lizard rose slowly out of the sea near me. This giant close relative of Godzilla was a masterpiece of work. I commented to the creator, who said she spent three months in design and detail. It was an extraordinary work of art that I wish SL had more of. But digital art never comes into the physical world. Perhaps that inability to hold, touch, and see up close is why there has always been a reluctance to put so much time and effort into non-revenue art in Second Life.

[Lex4art]

Mmm... recently I've stumbled on this lively headsets review, done in VR Chat (presumably). VR face + eye tracking, with all it's limits and issues, adds A LOT to the virtual world, another piece of the puzzle for successful virtual world it seems...

[Lex4art]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq0oNuXVXtI - found it, this one.