Re: [-empyre-] Empyrean

["Melinda Rackham" <melinda@unsw.edu.au>]

> melinda what are the most recent changes to empyre?

its empyrean.. empyre is the list.. the line between them is getting
blurred..:)
anyway..re development

the avatars all currently have 3 functions - blush, wiggle, and squish,
which means that they do different physical actions eg in blush the avatar
will change colours several times accompanied by a unique sound . ill write
about another 4 gestures for each avatar, which is probably more than is
needed ..i think the Sony Aebo dog only has 6 emotional states. as the
avatarts get more flexible i plan to eliminate the text interface in the
multiuser world completely , so you can only make guestures and sounds  to
others. this often ends up being hilarous, and when there are 5 or 6 users
in the world they become this fascinating always changing visual and audio
part of the artwork.

im pretty interrested in how we portray ourselves in virtual spaces.. and
how many ways we need to communicate..  in Snowcrash, which i guess was the
template for online 3d worlds, the sopistication of your avatar was akin to
your status in the online world ..the info poor.ie people who couldnt
program; or the wealth poor , thoes that couldnt afford it; had low res
avatars or off-the-shelf models which looked like a cross between the
thunderbirds and arnold schwartznegger and tori spelling. a lot of multi
user worlds virtual worlds now provide these off-the-self models which the
user can customise only superficially  with hair colour etc etc..
so i wanted to develop a place where you had a vareity of choices other than
what is commonly available..there is so much research and development in
corporations and educational instutions into 'realistic" avatar development
which mimics bodily guestures.. ie the avatar eyes following the speaker,
etc i guess cause they think it will make people feel more comfortable and
familiar and more likely to buy a product.. yet in the discussion in the
last few weeks most of us seem to agree that its the symbolism of the images
that, rather than their graphic sophistication or "realism" makes web 3d
absorbing immersive and engaging.

in empyrean the avatars are:
miss_fluffy , who has existed through many textual incarnations on the
internet since 95 on muds and moos and chat , through now she is embodied in
a cellular way.. as a beautiful opalescent globule of mucus, containing a
few virri, the small voids, and some much larger orange coloured  bacteria.
She could be mistaken for a cell, or an alien creature. miss fluffy is the
most picked avatar by users in empyrean.

my personal favourite tho is "big_pickle".. its pink and purple spikey
phallic looking crawling thing - based on a macrophage- part of the bodys
immune system, often known as the bodys clean up crew..they run ..umm flow
thru, the  body to a site of infection, where it eats up destroyed cells..
so imagine the macrophages personaliy is like the people in white biohazard
suits who turn up to erase all evidence of  damage after it has been done.
Quincy is more hard edged - a mathematical construct, pure geometry, with no
markers of biological life, and a close relative of the hissing blue spheres
in the beauty scape in the empyrean world, and the most unpopularavatar. no
one wants to be Quincy. as perhaps quincy doesn't seem unique enough.
 Symborg is a viral/machine creature, the "terminator" or steath fighter of
the empyrean world, as smooth green surface, hides nasty metallic viral
spikes which emerge regularly from under the silky skin. Symborg also
manages to visually camoflage itself in the space, so camn slip around the
empyrean scapes without being easily spotted.

after that i'll redevelop the web interface-its always been temporary..as
happens on the net often..
this project has evolving over a long time so im really looking forward to
working on something small, quick and dirty..

melinda

> ciao wendy
>
>
> > Avatars may communicate with
> > each other through a text interface on the multiuser Open Source V-net
> > interface . they can also squeak, squawk, blink, swell up and go opaque,
> > gurgle, giggle, blush, (some still indevelopment)
>
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