Re: [-empyre-] Re:[-empyre-]:An Avatar Manifesto::final

[Cristiano Bianchi <cristianobianchi@yahoo.com>]

--- Melinda Rackham wrote:
> shouldn't everyone have the opportunity to have
> sophisticated design
> not just the elite artist/programmer/wealthy
> person who gets a professional
> custom design job..?

--- John Klima answered:
> opportunity to have sophisticated design.
> however, sophisticated design
> takes TIME, and time, as well as good design, should
> be compensated for and many many people have no
> time or desire or skill to do it themselves. thus
> brandy and clint. however, the existance of a
> brandy and a clint does not preclude the
> existance of a hiro protagonist.

Time is one and skills are the other term of the
equation. Both technical and design skills. John is
right in pointing how in Active World one's avatar is
his own place.
As far as I know there is nothing that technically
prevents, in some virtual world, from creating
customised individual avatars. If it's VRML, one have
'JUST' to learn that scripting language, a few bits in
3DMax or similar, keyframe animation, texturing,
H-Anim stadards... And do it.
I'm not saying it is simple, but painting or
photography or acting (at a high, professional level)
are not that simple either, so people apply and study
hard to get to that certain level and 'express
themselves'.
The problem I see is that all too often it is lamented
the lack of easy routes to create original content.
Since we have Dreamweaver and Flash, every one feels
he's a 'web designer' and unfortunately there aren't
any simple tools to create good 3D content, hence the
failure of Shockwave3D.
But in the same measure as not every Photoshop user is
necessarily an artist and not everyone doing the
Christmas play in his parish is going to be Robert De
Niro, then it kind of makes sense that true
originality has to be sweat for. Democracy and Art
have never really made a good combination...
Not happy with that? There are so many flavours of
Barbie to choose from! For instance in habbohotel.com
you can choose several combinations of hair style,
skin colour, clothes and accessories. Combinations are
finite, of course, but the number of permutations
(different people) is just amazing.

Kindest,

Cristiano
www.keepthinking.it

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