CLASS 13: Identity in the Context of the Virtual Worlds

Identity in virtual worlds is one of the most fun things to create ans also often challenging,  People become avatars and often instead of making a character that resembles themselves they decide to create something they are not.  Which this cause everyone to judge and be mean to others.  When you go through different worlds for example, "secondlife", you see a lot of avatars that look different.  My experience in this worlds saw a lot cool characters, I even seen weird ones and also saw nude avatars, which made me raise my eye brows.  People judge each other in these worlds when they see avatars like this.  I for example experienced this in a class assignment, I had to change avatars and go through different worlds and see how people reacted or if they would talk to me.  I changed mine from a male to a female, so I had a female with a male name ID, well this caused people to turn theirs heads and question me and name calling started and whole bunch mean things happened.  I tired to prove to them that I was a male and was doing a class assignment but it was hard to convince some.  The one thing the article we just read says is that a lot of worlds allow people to be free and do a lot of things like nudity, sexual, fetish stuff.  I encountered this when i visited worlds, where I saw nude avatars and sexual gestures.  It is hard to prove if people are legit.  Virtual worlds can be fun also, it allows you to express your self and be someone you wish you were.  It also allows you to meet people and learn about things such as languages or where people are from and so on.  Identity is very important in virtual world and often times you either are excepted where ever one talk to you and so or your not accepted and no one talks to you therefore they are judging you.


When I first took this class and was introduced to avatars I had no idea what identity meant.  I thought it was to make sure to create something cool and it did not matter what it was.  When the weeks went on as I became more and more familiar with avatars I started to question if I really knew how important identity is when it comes to avatars in the virtual worlds.  When I was going between different avatars and different virtual world programs, I noticed the different avatars and so on.  I noticed some programs allowed you to be more free and others gave you only few things, so not as free.

One of the programs we used was Meshmoon.  Meshmoon allowed us to go through worlds and walk around and explore.  The avatars we used were avatars that were already their and we had to choose which one we wanted, so it was very limited.  Therefore you were choosing avatars that were really no your liking or style.  Meshmoon was cool because it allowed u to create our own world.  I really did not experience bad things like I did one some.

SecondLife was another program we used to go onto virtual world.  In SecondLife we created avatars to our liking, we had much more choices and it allowed us to make them as real as anything.  It allowed us to do whatever we wanted.  So identity in SecondLife could be whatever you wanted.  We didn't create worlds in there but we were asked to explorer worlds.  While doing this I experienced good and bad things,  The good was that were could communicate with others and those other were people from all over the world, so it was cool to learn about different languages and cultures form their respective countries.  The bad was, that there were a lot of name calling, sexual things, and etc.  This was very weird and also a clear eye opener , that people judge you as to what your avatar looks like and so on.

Identity to me in a virtual world is important.  There needs to be strict guidelines as to how an avatar needs to look like.  I feel it should be as close to who you really are in real life.  There also should be rules to prevent weirdos to say bad things or to do bad things.  People in virtual worlds do judge based on avatars, so identity plays a big role in Virtual World.  I never realized how important this was and is.

Throughout this course we had to do various things in virtual worlds.  I really enjoyed learning about avatars and identity.  I came into this course knowing nothing about graphics or avatars.  I leave with tremendous knowledge about the virtual world and other things.  Knowledge that I can pass on to others and knowledge that I know when you hear people talking about it.  The following pictures are my favorite that I took during the semester:

This is a final in our class, where we were asked to read about identity in the virtual world ans summarize it and then write paragraphs about what we know and learned through out the semester.  Here is a few screenshots of my avatar in meshmoon world, these were my favorite.  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

Examining Gender, Race and Body Image in a Virtual World

The above two images are my avatar interacting with someone in this world.  This is what my avatar originally looks like.  This person was real cool to talk with, she was from England.

Here I changed my avatar to a women.  I had everyone looking at me and wondering why my avatar had a guys name instead of a woman.

I am still here trying to talk to people, after a few rude rants I finally start informing them what I was doing and that thought it was pretty cool and could not believe how they themselves reacted to my different avatar.

These groups of people were real nice at the end however at the beginning they were very judging,  This screenshot shows me saying bye to them.

Here I changed my character to a zombie type avatar.  I got a bad experience in this world, I got called names and tons of swearing.  I left and went to another world.

This is is my zombie character in a hotel area, and I meet people from all over the world.  They were super nice and not judging my avatar.  We actually all talked about our countries which was super cool.

This was a cool assignment to do.  I had problems with secondlife at first then after a couple reboots, I was able to use it.  I entered a couple worlds were no one was one or choose not to talk.  Then I went into this world that looked like a plaza, and meet a nice person from England.  When I changed my avatar to a women and went to another world, I got judged right away.  They weere like how come I had a girl avatar but a male name ID.  Then I got jokes and even sweared at.  I talked and told them what I was doing and why.  They all thought it was cool and found out for themselves that they do judge people in these worlds.  Then I changed my avatar to a zombie type.  I went into this world were it was real bad, lots of swearing, profiling, just overall bad.  I had to leave because they were very mean.  Then I went to a hotel type world were I meet people from various parts of the world and they were awesome and did not judge and were not mean, they were very welcoming.

This is a final in our class, where we were asked to navigate through secondlife worlds using different avatar and seeing peoples reactions.  Here is a few screenshots of my different avatars in secondlife worlds.  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

FINAL PROJECT: TESTING MY FELLOW CLASSMATES' IMMERSIVE LIBRARIES

Visiting Filipe Martins world and looking at his videos

Visiting Shane Hewson world and looking at his videos

Visiting Bill Dahlberg world, his videos appear to be working on someone else page but with mine the video did not load up asked me to update my adobe reader.

This is a final in our class, where we were asked to navigate through three classmates worlds, and to see if there videos worked.  Here is a few screenshots of my avatar in meshmoon world where I was visiting classmates worlds.  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

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

Here we were asked to out an additional 10 either videos or PDF on to the library world on meshmoon.

Here is me inserting two PDF's.

Here some more inserts of files.

Here is a few more

Last set of files 

the view from the distance of the files inserted we inserted ten.

This is a final in our class, where we were asked to put an additional ten either PDF or video files.  Here is a few screenshots of my meshmoon world where I was inserting videos and PDF files..  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

FINAL PROJECT: ADDING 5 PDF PAPERS TO MY IMMERSIVE LIBRARY.

Here is from the side.

Here are two different side cubes that have the PDF paper

Here is another one.

Another PDF

Last Pdf 

Here is the view from my five PDF files in my world.

This is a final in our class, where we were told to add more things to our immersive education meshmoon world.  We had to add PDF papers in these screenshots up above.  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

WebGL Chrome Experiments the FAIL IN FIREFOX

\

This an example of the failed message I got for all the experiments that were posted to google groups as of 11/20/14 at 4pm.  Firefox seems not to support these experiments.  Here is the list of projects I tested that my classmates posted:

JS Racing

 

City of Drones

 

Find Your Way To OZ

Racer S

Car Visualizer Classics

over the hills 

Web Copter

4irpucks

Decal Splatter

Saving Nemo

The Farm

WebGL Terrain

SPH Fluid Simulator

Artificial Neural Network

Car Visualizer

build with chrome

sound viz 

SWOOP

WebGl Chrome Experiments Using Google's Chrome Browser

In these screen shot I choose Decal Splatter This is a game where you can splatter the color red making it look like blood.

In this picture I splattered blood or red color all over his forehead and nose.  I picked this experiment because it was cool not every day you can do this to a character online.

In this picture is experiment called 4irpucks  It is actually a game.  It is just like air hockey except its with four people and everyone is against each other.

In this screen shot I was playing other people and I was losing.  I choose this experiment because I am a big hockey fan and love air hockey.  I also have never seen four players playing against each other in air hockey.

In this screen shot I choose the experiment called Web Copter  This is actually pretty cool because you get to fly a helicopter.  You also get to create your own or choose from over 200 hundred different kinds.

Here I am flying close to 200 MPH.  I am flying over rocky mountains, looks like a scene from over seas war on terror.  I choose this because I love military choppers, airplanes and etc.  There is a lot to them that people don't realize.  I also have friends that have served and will serve in future.

Final # 3: Group 3D Building Project

Here I am setting up my garage by using blocks with brick effects.

here is the brick effects with a big white rectangle which is the garage door.

Here I did the sides of the garage and also the roof top.

Here I started to create a stone driveway.

Here I continued to do the driveway.

I had to angle the driveway a little due to the surface being bumpy.

Here is the view up the driveway with the garage.

In this final, we meet in class number 11. We meet with our groups and went over as to what needed to be done.  We used the audio board to assign different people different task as to what our project had to be which was a house.  Upon finishing up as to who is doing what, we went to different worlds to try and get a world where we could build our group project.  We decided we would use Meshmoon.  We would us one of our team members world that he had already created.

My part of the project was to create a garage and a driveway.  I started off by playing around with different shapes and textures.  Once I got what I liked I began building the garage first.  I started with the front, then I went to the sides and the roof.  Once that was down I did the peak of the garage to make it as real as possible.  Then I went on to doing the garage door by using a cube and just expanding it to make it rectangle and to most importantly make it look like a garage door.  Then I went on to the driveway.  This was harder.  I looked at the different shapes and patterns and affects.  I took a while to decide but liked the stone affect so I decide to use it.  I started with the cube and shrunk it as far down as I could go and then expanded the with of it.  I placed it near the garage door and then cloned it all the way down the driveway.  The end of the drive needed to be inclined due to the surface not being flat, so I used a triangle shape to make the incline affect.  Once I did this I was complete with my part of the final.  As I went I took screen shots and then went to gimp to write my name on the pictures.                                                                                                                             

This is a final in our class where we worked together as a group t build a home.  My group used Meshmoon to create our project.  I was assigned to create a garage and a driveway and make it as real as possible.  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

Class 11 leader board

This is class 11 Leader Board.

Learning Ladder with project assignment

Here is the learning ladder, with what each member of our team is assigned to do for our group project which is final number 3.

The Education Grid Reading

This is a picture of how to join the education grid.

http://theeducationgrid.org/

Here I am reading about the Education Grid.

http://theeducationgrid.org/

                          Here I am reading about Open source, Royalty Free, Openly Distributable
                                                         http://theeducationgrid.org/

Final #4: High Resolution Avatar

This is the page that opened up and I was getting use to the different tabs on how to create things.

After learning the different tools we had to use, I finally found  the option to put on hair.

I put clothes on my avatar, so he would not be naked anymore.

I tried different clothes and shoes , I learned that we can twist around the avatar, so here is a side view of him.

Here I was messing around and created a female avatar.

This was pretty cool, although I could not use my own face with this program for some reason, I got to mess around to creating a face with the different options.  This is not a bad program.

This is a final in our class where we were instructed to download makehuman and use the program.  Makehuman is a program where you can create your own avatar.  You can get this program by downloading it from the website at: http://www.makehuman.org/ .  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