Thursday, May 7, 2015

Identify in the Context of Virtual Worlds

Virtual Identity allows a gamer to create an avatar and explore different genders, races and languages without being judged.  A man who plays in a virtual world, whether its in Meshmoon or Second Life, could being playing as a woman and vise versa.  No one will know if the person behind the computer screen is a man or a woman, black or white, tall and skinny, or short and fat.  The gamer is able to construct an avatar with limitless of possibilities.  There is no right or wrong creation in virtual worlds.  During my time entering different virtual worlds, majority of the avatars I noticed were skinny and decent looking.  I didn't see a lot of fat or short avatars while playing in Second Life and in Meshmoon.  In the real world, everyone wants to perceive themselves as the perfect image.  Well now, people have the ability to do just that in Virtual worlds.



(SecondLife)


Before this class i knew nothing about virtual worlds and specifically virtual identity.  In virtual worlds you are able to construct an avatar of your imagination and make it look like anything you want it too.  Its all about how people express them selves and how people perceive others in different virtual worlds.  In our last assignment we got to change the appearance of our Avatar in second life.  Starting off as a normal looking guy, I got a some normal responses from outsiders.  But when i change the appearance and made my avatar fat, one of the outsiders told me to go away.  it seems that people are only interested in talking to good looking avatars.  The advantage of entering different virtual worlds is a chance to have a fresh start.  No one knows who you are or what you look like in person.  It up to the creator to design and build their own avatar.

(MeshMoon)


In the article Identifying in a virtual World, Yee says  "We have all the freedom to do what ever we want in Virtual worlds".  He also mentions that its harder for men to explore different gender roles in real life.  But in virtual reality, no one is able to judge nor discriminate someone due to people not knowing who the controller  of the avatar  is. Entering a virtual world enables a person to be who they want to be.

(MakeHuman)

In Discovering Computer graphics we explored Virtual worlds using Second Life, Minecraft and Meshmoon.  We primarily used  MineCraft and Second Life due to the fact that it lags less.  In second life you are able to construct your avatar however you wanted to.  You have the ability to create your own virtual identity.  In the world we live in today, majority of the people want to perceive themselves as the perfect image.  But being perfect isn't human.  Everyone is different shapes and sizes, and if everyone would look the same then whats the point. The world as we know it would be boring. 

 
(MeshMoon)


In the article Neutralizing Identiy, it talks about how students use second life to examine, race, gender and language.  Second life and other virtual worlds give people the chance to communicate with others while forming an avatar of their choosing.  They have the ability to choose limitless options of physical features including animals.  Creating their own virtual identity in virtual worlds allows people to express who they are and who thy actually want to be. Its all about desires and how people want to perceive themselves as PERFECT.  



(MeshMoon)



Examining Gender, Race and Body Image in a Virtual World

In this assignment we had to explore different worlds using Second Life which is a  virtual world.  Our job was to communicate with other people outside the class using text chat.  This is mostly experiment with gender and race and seeing how people would react.  In the first part of the exercise we had to use our regular avatar and communicate with people in two different worlds.  

My first world  i went too was the Shiromani Sandbox.  My ultimate goal was to communicate with two people.  I tried talking to a guy named Zein who didn't respond back to my chat.





here is a screen shot of me attempting to reach out to Zein.  He didn't respond back to my chat text..



Then i attempted to talk to a girl avatar named Angels. Still didn't receive a response so i ended up trying to communicate with another girl avatar named Countess.  She was finally responsive.  I guess third time is a charm.



We talked about our day..


Brought up the weather and told her i was enjoying this 80 degrees of sunshine. 
Seemed like a nice person.

Went to another world and tried to get involved in a huge group chat...


IN the bug group chat there was too much conversation going on so i decide to reach out to another girl avatar named Mia.  



That was still a no go so i tried another person.


The third time was a charm again..  Talked to a girl avatar named skylark who seemed to interested.  We talked about what kind of music we enjoyed.  She said she was a big fan of country and i told her that i was a huge fan of EDM.


This was the end of my first experiment with my original avatar.  I thought it pretty well. Got a couple good reposes from girls but none from guys.  Makes sense....


Now for my second experiment i am going to change the race and gender of my avatar and see how people respond to my appearance.  I ended up making my avatar fat this time.  And made my skin darker.

The next place I went to was Happy World.  Attempted to talk to 4 people and only got one response back.  One person told me to get away from them.

This is me changing my avatar.  I made my avatar heavy.


Tried to start a conversation with this person but she ignored me.  


This was the only person who contacted me but didn't respond back when i texted her through chat.


This was another girl who told me to go away.  I asked why but she didn't give me an answer..


So i left and went to try and find someone else..


After finally completed this exercise it was astonishing to see how people react to different peoples gender, race and looks.  Comparing both exercises, the first one i was more successful with ym original avatar.  When i change the shape and made him a lot heavier i got some crude reposes.  One girl told me to go away which i thought that was really rude.  You can judge a book by its cover people!!! If every person in the world looked the same, it would be just boring.  






Final Project: My Boston Tea Party Ship

This is our Final Project for Discovering Computer Graphics course.  We had to individually design the Boston Tea Party Ship using Mine Craft.  While only using box, it was difficult to make the shape of a ship.  It was a lot more difficult to build compared to the Boston Old Statehouse.  Here is what i came up with.
It was very difficult building the foundation of the ship..


Here is another picture of the beginning of my build..


Building the back of the ship..


Figuring out the layout...

Slowly coming together..

Working on the structure..


Half of the ship completed..


Added more blocks..

Added railings...


Started working on the inside of the boat..


Added stairs to the back of the boat along with some chests..


Added another two small chests in the front of the boat..


Added a door inside the boat to separate the back and front of the boat..





Here is the side view of my ship...



Put sails on the masts...


another side view.. Put windows on the side as well..


Built a trap door so one could enter the inside of the ship..


Trap door opening to the inside of the ship..




The font of the ship..



Almost done..

Back of the ship


My finished Boston Tea Party Ship..

Another Screen shot of the ship..



This is me building in Minecraft, building the Boston Tea Party Ship. It is a final exercise from the Immersive Education course 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


Thursday, April 30, 2015