CLASS 13: Identity in the Context of Virtual Worlds

I've always had this understanding that people use avatars or virtual worlds to express their inner selves. I had heard of Second Life prior to taking this class but I never actually used it myself. I was quite impressed with it when I used it for the first time. I thought the scenes and graphics were pretty solid for a virtual world. I found it very intriguing how diverse the avatars that I came across were.

I myself tried to form my avatar in my own image. I do admit however to “fine tuning” a few things. I learned later on in my experiences in Second Life that exaggerating my avatar wasn’t too uncommon. Second Life allows you to look like anyone you desire. I noticed that there were no “bad” looking avatars. All the avatars seemed to be in good physical condition and all were wearing nice clothes.

During our assignment where we had to chat with other Second Life users I learned quite a lot. I got into a pretty deep conversation with one women who surprisingly told me she uses Second Life to recapture her youth. She was a 46 year old woman but her avatar was a young blonde girl in a bikini.

From here on I started to realize that Second Life is also an escape for a lot of people. I can understand why people use Second Life to express themselves. Society tends to tell us what to wear and how we should look. People who are afraid to expresses themselves in the physical world can be their true selves in a virtual world. A lot of people have this ideal image of themselves in their head and you see it displayed in Second Life.

I find that Second Life can be therapeutic as much as it is enjoyable. People are able to escape their problems or fears while in a virtual world. You could be talking to someone of a different gender or race and not even know it. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing because it helps rid us of prejudgement. We are able to display ourselves in a way in which we would prefer people to see.

team house we made during the team building assignment

when we were customizing our avatars and I was surprised that a priest was available for selection.

the cathedral was amazing in detail.

first time checking out the leaderboard

Examining Gender, Race and Body Image in a Virtual World

this is what my avatar originally looks like.

got talking to someone in no time. We did some birdwatching together. 

actually became friends.

changed my appearance to a woman.

this fella did not want to talk to me.

neither did this hula hooping lady.

this dancing girl, however,  wasn't afraid to converse.

became friends with her too.

changed my avatar to an african american man with tattoos.

this girl didn't talk to me.

only got a hello out of this one.

I had the most success with my original avatar. It was a white male. The first person I talked to I was able to strike up a conversation. We talked for a few minutes before I moved on. I had a bit of a hard time at first getting someone to talk to me while I was a female. Two people rejected me before someone responded. The third avatar I picked I barely got any responses from. Perhaps it was because the avatar was technically a vampire lol. I didn't realize it was a vampire until after. At first glance though the avatar did look normal. This was my first time conversing with people other than my classmates on second life. It was nice branching out. I made two new friends in the process.

12/4 Leaderboard

FINAL PROJECT: TESTING MY FELLOW CLASSMATES' IMMERSIVE LIBRARIES.

adding videos to my world

adding a few more

making my virtual world public so everyone can use it

Visiting Bill Dahlberg world

checking out his videos

looking at his videos and pdfs

visiting Ricardo Martins virtual world

he met Kobe. Thats awesome

very good layout in ricardo's world

looking at his pdfs

traveled to Filipe's world

his pdfs give you the option to download

looking at more of his videos and pdfs

checking out more research material

This is me using Meshmoon to view fellow classmate's virtual worlds.  It is a final exercise from the Immersive Education class that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc

FINAL PROJECT: ADDING 10 NEW CONTENT ELEMENTS TO MY IMMERSIVE LIBRARY.

starting to add some YouTube videos to my virtual world

continuing adding some videos

Grabbing the Youtube Videos and research papers from the Research documents

content tools which I use to insert the videos

I thought it would be cool to add a youtube video into a barrel shape 

resizing a youtube video

videos and pdfs next to each other

picked different shapes for different research material

This is me using Meshmoon  It is a final exercise from the Immersive Education class that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc

FINAL PROJECT: ADDING 5 PDF PAPERS TO MY IMMERSIVE LIBRARY

starting to add some of my research papers to my virtual world

adding a research paper into a sphere shape

Making a cube so I can make the research paper four dimensional

sphere next to two textured cube

This is me using Meshmoon  It is a final exercise from the Immersive Education class that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc

WebGL Chrome Experiments the FAIL IN FIREFOX

I could not get these four experiments to work in my Firefox browser. The experiment called "The Farm" seemed like it might have worked but I kept getting error messages saying " a script on this page may be busy or stopped working". Build and Soundviz both specifically said they needed chrome to run. Meel ran in firefox but the actual functions weren't able to be used.

Final #3: Group 3D Building Project

building a foundation for the deck

starting to make some banisters for the deck

Continuing my banister building

Adding in some chairs.

Creating a welcome mat for the house

Finishing the welcome mate.

Making a picnic table for outside

Adding in some railings

This was an assignment that I enjoyed doing. It was nice working so close to my teammates. It was tedious work making angling stuff so it would fit properly. For example I tried making criss cross banisters for the deck and it took me a long time. Also I got kicked out a few times from Meshmoon. This was very aggravating because sometimes my work wouldn't save and I would have to do it all over again.

We work well as a team so it didn't take us too long to divvy up the workload. We are all willingly to help each other. Bill took the garage while Mathea built the house, Ryan constructed the roof. We did have a few problems with people trying to get into our world. The limit is 5 people for the world we used. But sometimes other people woud try to come in and that would block us from getting in. I used the scene editor mostly to angle and change the shape of the objects I built. I tried building an outside firepit to the best of my abilities but it came out looking more like a rocket ship.

I also had a few problems with items performance rendering. I kept getting that message throughout my time in Meshmoon. I believe that was what kept kicking me from the world. But all in all this was an enjoyable assignment. I enjoyed the building aspect and working with my teammates. 

This is me using Meshmoon  It is a final exercise from the Immersive Education class that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc