This is where we post our projects, experiences, thoughts, and discoveries. The lab community is a great place to learn about the topics and techniques covered in the Creative Media Lab. Feel free to leave a comment!

My class and I were working on a program called Second Life and we had to create an avatar based on our characteristics. We were given 3600 seconds to complete this task and to make it look like us as much as possible. Unfortunately, this task was hard for me due to the fact that I could not get my exact body size measurements and characteristics. The task that was the most difficult to me was getting the face to look like mine because I could not tell which nose was fit for me , and I could not get the shape of my face. But the easiest part of this project was choosing the clothes for my avatar because they were made already and the only thing I had to do was click which one I wanted. I have been playing around with Second Life for a while now and I have found new attributes to this site. For example, my avatar can fly, ride cars, talk with other people, play games, and it can even switch from one place to another. There are many places in this site like the beach, and the casino. Overall, Second Life is a pretty fun site, and I would really recommend everyone to get a Second Life account at the Second Life.com.

This is the avatar that I created on Second Life. It was a very interesting experience considering it was my first time going on the program. The goal of the exercise was to make an avatar that resembled ourselves. Most of the class wasn’t so successful, but we had a lot of fun doing it. Some of the things that made it hard was not having access to our certain features and having the features change too drastically. From this I realized that a lot of the programs such as Second Life base their programs on their overall audience and don’t take into consideration that features vary from culture to culture. I would love to bring this to the attention of the executives of Second Life.

My avatar looked horrible compared to me. he was plain and I added my good looks to him. Of course I’m kidding, the only attribute he had of mine was the skin color.I first began editing the face because that’s what it started me out with. It wasn’t easy to get my good looks in but I managed. Just kidding , again. But really I would have to say that the overall structure of the head was difficult for me because I never knew that there was so much to it. Some ways I made the head look flat or huge and, of course, like an egg head.It took me the longest to replicate but on the other hand, my nose was easiest. I feel like my nose was easy because it is distinctively round. I think so. I was most pleased with that above all. In the end I edited pretty much all that was offered to me to edit because I wanted to play around with it and have fun. It was fun and funny to see the different attributes an avatar could have. If I wanted the avatar to look remotely as good as I do ( gotta have a good self-esteem if you know what I mean) I would take a 3-d graph picture of my head and apply it to the avatar. Kinda like game producers do. With the avatar’s hair adjustment I thought he looked like the dark spiderman version of Tobey Maguire. NO LIE, dark hair, bangs, and all.

My avatar appearance did not compare to me. The second life program was not designed to match ever person’s looks. The first features I started editing were my skin tone. I started editing my skin because it’s the first step on making my avatar look like me. The feature that was easy to replicate for me was the skin, because I just found the skin that was closes to mine.For the torso I needed little adjustment in that aspect of the game. The most difficult part to me was the hair. The hair was something I could never get right, because I do not have fair hair. This game was not designed for some people with fancy hairstyles. I also think the color in my lips was hard to replicate because its too distinctive. I think my shoulders where more accurate on my avatar. It would require a lot of faces details to make to make my avatar look like me. My avatar does not remind me of anyone I know.

My avatar doesn’t look to much like me but her outfit looks dead on. When I started editing I just went through each category one at a time which wasn’t the best idea because some little things that didn’t come off till near the end distracted me, like her make up. My original idea was that I would do a quick modification then detail everything better, but when I finished the quick one I became overwhelmed and ran out of time. I think that her outfit was the easiest because it isn’t as personal to me as my face and body image. I had a really hard time with the hair because it kept on going bald, the rest was just hard because when you look at yourself there are things that stand out to you that may not really stand out as much, so you have to put your bias aside. I had to change my avatar a lot because I think it was in our society classification of the ‘perfect girl’ and I don’t really believe any of us are like that. *Personally i like my avatar better*.

Hi everyone, in the last class we began to get into a game called Second Life. It’s a game where you can create an avatar that looks like you and travel around in a virtual world. My avatar’s appearance sort of look liked me but there was a few little things that were hard to imitate, but you can still tell that its me, sorta. I started to edit the head cause it was the thing most people are going to use to determine whether my avatar looks like me. The easiest feature to replicate were my clothes, simple and quick, the hardest thing to replicate was my facial features. The reason it was so hard to replicate my facial features is because the options was more general, so i couldn’t get my avatars face to look exactly like me. And since no one person is the same, it was hard to get the little details that make me, me. I modified a lot of attributes of my avatar to get it to look a little like me, the hair, head size, height, facial features, clothes, etc. No, my avatar doesn’t really remind me of anyone except me, it only reminds me of me a little bit so I doubt it’ll remind me of anyone else. So that’s about all the problems trying to make my avatar look like me.

My avatars initial appearance was very different compared to me. I first started editing the shape of my avatar because every individual has a different shape to them. The easiest features to replicate were the forehead and ears because all I had to do was change the size. The skin tone was one of the hardest features to replicate because it changes from black to white very quickly. I modified almost every feature except the hair. To make my avatar look like me I would need a wider variety of attributes to choose from because some times none of the attributes fit me. My avatar does remind me of anyone he just looks like a Mexican kid.

Wow, this guy looks just like me. I edited my face and hair first because that would be very distinct and noticeable. My hair and skin color was easy to replicate because I placed all the stats next to the max and it came out perfectly. My mustache and little goatee was hard to replicate because they are thin and not as thick as my avatar. The only option was a thick mustache or none at all. It was difficult to detail the hair because the detail option was limited. I think I modified almost all the attributes because starting avatar was not me: I am not the boy next door. I needed to detail my curls and my thin mustache. My avatars appearance reminds me of me because it looks like me.

I was surprised by my avatar’s appearance because he turned out to look like Carlos Mencia. I say this because he looks Mexican which looks nothing like me! The feature I chose to edit first was my body. I figured this would be the easiest place to start because the body does not have to look exact for your facial appearance to be similar. The face was the most difficult place to replicate because like I stated earlier he turned out to look like Carlos Mencia. I think that I would need a 3-D picture for me to be able to get an exact replica.

T

The avatar character is close to me and I was trying so hard to fix his face. The first features that i started to edit was the face, all facial hair eyes, etc. because it was hard to pick the right size of head, big chin etc. i think that the body was easy to replicate because with the body of some one, you can add muscle, fat, a big stomach, strong legs etc. and it easy for me. The hard features would be difulcult to replicate would be the chin, eyes, facial hair, hair, lips, mouth, nose. These feature are hard to replicate because every human in this world is not the same and we are different looking from other people. I really don’t know what can I use to replicate myself even better then I think I am. No the avatar does no remind of someone.