An avatar (abbreviations include AV, ava, avie, avy, avi, avvie, avis, and avvy) is an Internet user's representation of himself or herself, whether in the form of a three-dimensional model used in computer games,^[1] a two-dimensional icon (picture) used on Internet forums and other communities,^[2][3] or a text construct found on early systems such as MUDs. The term "avatar" can also refer to the personality connected with the screen name, or handle, of an Internet user.^[4] This article does not cite any references or sources. ... In computer gaming, a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon, Domain or Dimension) is a multi-player computer game that combines elements of role-playing games, hack and slash style computer games and social chat rooms. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Origin

The word "avatar" derives from the Sanskrit word Avatāra, meaning "incarnation" and usually refers to the deliberate descent of an immortal or divine being into the mortal realm for a special purpose. The term is used primarily in Hindu texts. For example, Krishna is the eighth avatar (incarnation) of Vishnu the Preserver, whom many Hindus worship as God. The Dasavatara are ten particular "great" incarnations of Vishnu. The ten avatars of Vishnu, copyright BBT In Hindu philosophy, an avatar (also spelt as avatara) (Sanskrit: , ), most commonly refers to the incarnation (bodily manifestation) of a higher being (deva), or the Supreme Being (God) onto planet Earth. ... The Sanskrit language ( , for short ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... Hinduism (known as in modern Indian languages[1]) is a religious tradition[2] that originated in the Indian subcontinent. ... This article is about the Hindu deity. ... Vishnu (IAST , Devanagari ), (honorific: Sri Vishnu) also known as Narayana is the Supreme Being or Ultimate Reality for Vaishnavas and a manifestation of Brahman in the Advaita or Smarta traditions. ... The ten avatars of Vishnu, copyright BBT In Hindu philosophy, an avatar (also spelt as avatara) (Sanskrit: , ), most commonly refers to the incarnation (bodily manifestation) of a higher being (deva), or the Supreme Being (God) onto planet Earth. ... Vishnu (IAST , Devanagari ), (honorific: Sri Vishnu) also known as Narayana is the Supreme Being or Ultimate Reality for Vaishnavas and a manifestation of Brahman in the Advaita or Smarta traditions. ...

Computer games

As used for a computer representation of a user, the term dates at least as far back as 1985, when it was used as the name for the player character in the Ultima series of computer games. The Ultima games started out in 1981, but it was in Ultima IV (1985), that the term "Avatar" was introduced. To become the "Avatar" was the goal of Ultima IV. The later games assumed that you were the Avatar and "Avatar" was the player's visual on-screen in-game persona. The on-screen representation could be customized in appearance. Later, the term "avatar" was used by the designers of the role-playing game Shadowrun (1989), as well as in the online role-playing game Habitat (1987). It has been suggested that Mongbat (Ultima) be merged into this article or section. ... Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, first released in 1985 (USCO# PA-317-504) for the Apple II, is the fourth in the series of Ultima computer role-playing games. ... Shadowrun is a cyberpunk-urban fantasy cross-genre role-playing game, set 63 years in the future,[1]following a great cataclysm that has brought use of magic back to the world, just as it begins to embrace the marvels (and dangers) of technologies such as cyberspace, omnipresent computer networks... Habitat was an early and technologically influentual online role-playing game developed by Lucasfilm Games and made available as a beta test in 1987 by Quantum Link, an online service for the Commodore 64 computer and the corporate progenitor to America Online. ...

Neal Stephenson

The use of Avatar to mean online virtual bodies was popularised by Neal Stephenson in his cyberpunk novel Snow Crash (1992). ^[5] In Snow Crash, the term Avatar was used to describe the virtual simulation of the human form in the Metaverse, a virtual-reality version of the Internet. Social status within the Metaverse was often based on the quality of a user's avatar, as a highly detailed avatar showed that the user was a skilled hacker and programmer while the less talented would buy off-the-shelf models in the same manner a beginner would today. Stephenson wrote in the "Acknowledgments" to Snow Crash: Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer, known primarily for his science fiction works in the postcyberpunk genre with a penchant for explorations of society, mathematics, currency, and the history of science. ... Berlins Sony Center reflects the global reach of a Japanese corporation. ... Snow Crash is Neal Stephensons third science fiction novel, published in 1992. ... The term metaverse comes from Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash, and is now widely used to describe the vision behind current work on fully immersive 3D virtual spaces. ... Social status is the honor or prestige attached to ones position in society (ones social position). ... Hacker, as it relates to computers, has several common meanings. ... A programmer or software developer is someone who programs computers, that is, one who writes computer software. ...

The idea of a 'virtual reality' such as the Metaverse is by now widespread in the computer-graphics community and is being used in a number of different ways. The particular vision of the Metaverse as expressed in this novel originated from idle discussion between me and Jaime (Captain Bandwidth)Taffe...The words 'avatar' (in the sense used here) and 'Metaverse' are my inventions, which I came up with when I decided that existing words (such as 'virtual reality') were simply too awkward to use...after the first publication of 'Snow Crash' I learned that the term 'avatar' has actually been in use for a number of years as part of a virtual reality system called 'Habitat'...in addition to avatars, Habitat includes many of the basic features of the Metaverse as described in this book,^[6]

Avatars on Internet forums

Despite the widespread use of avatars, it is unknown which Internet forums were the first to use them; the earliest forums did not include avatars as a default feature, and they were included in unofficial "hacks" before eventually being made standard. Avatars on Internet forums serve the purpose of representing users and their actions, personalizing their contributions to the forum, and may represent different parts of their persona, beliefs, interests or social status in the forum. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... An Internet forum, also known as a message board or discussion board, is a web application that provides for online discussions, and is the modern descendant of the bulletin board systems and existing Usenet news systems that were widespread in the 1980s and 1990s. ... An Internet forum, also known as a message board or discussion board, is a web application that provides for online discussions, and is the modern descendant of the bulletin board systems and existing Usenet news systems that were widespread in the 1980s and 1990s. ... Persona literally means mask , although it does not usually refer to a literal mask but to the social masks all humans supposedly wear. ...

The traditional avatar system used on most Internet forums is a small (96x96 to 100x100 pixels, for example) square-shaped area close to the user's forum post, where the avatar is placed. Some forums allow the user to upload an avatar image that may have been designed by the user or acquired from elsewhere. Other forums allow the user to select an avatar from a preset list or use an auto-discovery algorithm to extract one from the user's homepage. This example shows an image with a portion greatly enlarged, in which the individual pixels are rendered as little squares and can easily be seen. ... This article is about the computer terms. ...

Some avatars are animated. This avatar is an example of a four-image avatar.

Other avatar systems exist, such as on Gaia Online, where a pixelized representation of a person or creature is used, which can then be customized to the user's wishes. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Gaia Online (formerly known as Go-Gaia) is a forums-based website. ...

Forum avatars have been tested as a means of advertising.^[7]

Avatars in Internet chat

Flat GIF based avatars were introduced by such programs as Virtual Places as early as 1994 along VOIP capabilities which were later abandoned for lack of bandwidth. Virtual Places (TM) is a technology of the early 90s that was the first to bring live human presence to the World Wide Web, enriching information publishing, commercial enterprises, and virtual communities. ...

In 1995, KeepTalking, a product of UNET2 Corporation, was one of the first companies to implement an avatar system into their web chat software.

In 1995, Cybertown first introduced 3D (three dimensional) avatars to internet chat. ^{[citation needed]}

In 1996, Microsoft Comic Chat an IRC client that used cartoon avatars for chatting, was released. Comic Chat is an IRC client created by Microsoft bundled with some Internet-aware versions of Microsoft Windows. ... Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of instant communication over the Internet. ...

Avatars in instant-messaging programs

AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) was the first popular instant-messaging program to use avatars, picking up on the idea from PC games. Users of AIM commonly refer to avatars as buddy icons. Today, many other popular instant-messaging services support the use of avatars, including Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and services using the XMPP (Jabber) protocol such as Google Talk, LJ Talk, and Gizmo Project. Image File history File links Manga_icon_2. ... AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) is an advertisement-supported proprietary freeware instant messaging and presence computer program which uses the OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol. ... Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. ... For the instant messaging client included in Windows XP, see Windows Messenger. ... Yahoo! Messenger is a popular advertisement-supported instant messaging client and protocol provided by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Messenger is provided free of charge and can be downloaded and used with a generic Yahoo! ID which also allows access to other Yahoo! services, such as Yahoo! Mail, where users can be automatically... Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, or XMPP, is an open, XML-based protocol for near real-time extensible messaging and presence events. ... Google Talk is a computer application for Voice over IP and instant messaging, offered by Google. ... LiveJournal (often abbreviated LJ) is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal, or diary. ... It has been suggested that SIPphone be merged into this article or section. ...

Instant messaging avatars are usually very small. AIM icons are 48x48 pixels, although many icons can be found online that typically measure anywhere from 50x50 pixels to 100x100 pixels in size. A wide variety of these imaged avatars can be found on web sites and popular eGroups such as Yahoo! Groups. Yahoo! Groups Yahoo! Groups is a service from Yahoo! that provides electronic mailing lists. ...

The latest use of avatars in instant messaging is dominated by dynamic avatars. The user chooses an avatar that represents him while chatting and, through the use of text to speech technology, enables the avatar to talk the text being used at the chat window. Another form of use for this kind of avatar is for video chats/calls. Some services, such as Skype (through some external plugins) allow users to use talking avatars during video calls, replacing the image from the user's camera with an animated, talking avatar.^[8][9]

AIM buddy icons have been used as an experimental form of viral marketing by some advertising firms.^[10] Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. ...

Avatars in blogs

Although blog comment pages can sometimes act like Internet forums, there is no single way to provide avatar support on blogs. One solution is the "gravatar", an avatar called from a centralized server at site.gravatar.com and linked to one's e-mail address. Gravatars are centrally moderated, which allows them to be filtered for family friendliness. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...

Another attempt at a solution is the "pavatar", a tag included in the HTML of a website which links to an image file. There is also the concept of a "favatar", or using the favicon file on a server controlled by the represented user as an avatar. Favatars and pavatars are unmoderated. In Internet Explorer 7, favicons are displayed in all available tabs, the address bar, and the Favorites menu. ...

Avatars in games

Avatars in video games are essentially the player's physical representation in the game world. In most games, the player's representation is fixed, however increasingly games offer a basic character model, or template, and then allow customization of the physical features as the player sees fit. For example, Carl Johnson, the avatar from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, can be dressed in a wide range of clothing, can be given tattoos and haircuts, and can even body build or become obese depending upon player actions.^[11] This article is about computer and video games. ... Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the fifth video game in the Grand Theft Auto series. ... For other uses, see Tattoo (disambiguation). ... Species Sus barbatus Sus bucculentus Sus cebifrons Sus celebensis Sus domesticus Sus heureni Sus philippensis Sus salvanius Sus scrofa Sus timoriensis Sus verrucosus Pigs are ungulates native to Eurasia collectively grouped under the genus Sus within the Suidae family. ... Professional Bodybuilder Gustavo Badell posing Bodybuilding is the process of maximizing muscle hypertrophy through the combination of weight training, sufficient caloric intake, and rest. ... Obesity is a condition in which the natural energy reserve, stored in the fatty tissue of humans and other mammals, is increased to a point where it is associated with certain health conditions or increased mortality. ...

Aside from an avatar's physical appearance, its dialogue, particularly in cut scenes, may also reveal something of its character. A good example is the crude, action hero stereotype, Duke Nukem.^[12] Other avatars, such as Gordon Freeman (from Half-Life), reveal very little of themselves. A cut scene or cutscene (sometimes also referred to as a cinematic) is a sequence in a video game over which the player has no control. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... For the 1996 Blur single, see Stereotypes (song). ... Duke Nukem is an action hero created by computer game developers Todd Replogle, George Broussard, Allen Blum and Scott Miller of 3D Realms/Apogee Software. ... Gordon Freeman, Ph. ... Half-Life For a quantity subject to exponential decay, the half-life is the time required for the quantity to fall to half of its initial value. ...

Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) are the source of the most varied and sophisticated avatars. Customization levels differ between games; one of the most interesting is EVE Online. In this game, players construct a wholly customized portrait using software that allows for infinite changes to facial structure as well as preset hairstyles, skin tones, etc. However, these portraits appear only in in-game chats and static information view of other players. Usually, all players appear in gigantic spacecraft that give no view of their pilot. This may soon change, however, as EVE hopes to allow face-to-face interaction between avatars in the near future. A massive(ly) multiplayer online role-playing game or MMORPG is a multiplayer computer role-playing game that enables thousands of players to play in an evolving virtual world at the same time over the Internet. ... EVE Online is a persistent world multiplayer online game set in space. ...

Alternatively, City of Heroes offers one of the most detailed and comprehensive in-game avatar creation processes, allowing players to construct anything from traditional superheroes to aliens, medieval knights, monsters, robots and many more. City of Heroes (CoH) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing computer game based on the superhero comic book genre, developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCsoft. ... Superheroes are fictional heroes who possess abilities beyond those of normal human beings. ...

Avatars in non-gaming universes

Avatars in non-gaming universes are used as two-dimensional or three-dimensional human or fantastic representations of a person's self. Such representations can explore the virtual universe they are in using their avatar, add to it, or conduct conversations with other users, and can be customized by the user. Usually, the purpose and appeal of such non-gaming universes is to provide a large enhancement to common online conversation capabilities, and to allow the user to peacefully develop a portion of a non-gaming universe without being forced to strive towards a pre-defined goal.^[13] 2-dimensional renderings (ie. ... The Fantastic is a literary genre of writing or art which intrudes fantasy elements into a story (or picture) that is basically representational or real-feeling. ... In cognitive psychology a representation is a hypothetical internal cognitive symbol that represents external reality. ...

In non-gaming universes, the criteria avatars have to fulfill in order to become useful can depend to a great extent on, for example, the age of potential users. Research suggests that younger users of virtual communities put great emphasis on fun and entertainment aspects of avatars, as well as on their practical functionalities (e.g. whispering). Younger users are furthermore interested in the simple ease of use of avatars, and their ability to retain the user’s anonymity. Meanwhile, older users pay great importance to an avatar’s ability to reflect their own appearance, identity and personality. Additionally, the majority of older users want to be able to make use of an avatar’s expressive functionalities (e.g. showing emotions), while being prepared to learn new methods of navigation, in order to handle the use of more complex avatars. Social scientists at Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab ^[14] are examining the implications, possibilities, and transformed social interaction that occur when people interact via avatars. A virtual community or online community is a group of people that primarily interact via some form of mechanism such as letters, telephone, email or Usenet rather than face to face. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... ^ Bailenson, J.N., Beall, A.C., Loomis, J., Blascovich, J., & Turk, M. (2004). ...

Avatar-based non-gaming universes are usually populated by those age groups, whose requirements concerning avatars are fulfilled. The majority of users of Habbo Hotel, Ty Girlz and Webkinz for example, are of the age of 10 to 15. and gaiaonline, 13 to 18. The reason for this might well be found in the properties and functionalities provided by the avatars of this virtual community. In contrast, There and Kaneva (Kaneva Game Platform) have a target audience ranging from the age of 22 to 49. The avatars incorporated into this immersive environment allow for a wide range of social interactions, including the expression of emotions: laughing, waving, blowing kisses or even rude gestures. Another example is The Palace, where the majority of users seem to belong to an older age group. Here, users have the option to use their own images as avatars. This functionality turns the avatar into a direct reflection of their real-life appearance, a feature most desired by members of older age groups. Again, the population of the non-gaming universe seems to be largely determined by the properties and functionalities of its avatars. This is less true of Second Life, where avatars range from lifelike humans to more fanciful robots, animals, and mythical creatures, with avatars created by players. The main Second Life grid is open only to adults, and participation is driven by social, artistic and commercial motivations. Habbo Hotel is a virtual community owned and operated by Sulake Corporation. ... Webkinz plush animals Webkinz are stuffed animals that were originally released by the Ganz gift company in 2005. ... Gaiaonline www. ... There is a 3-D online virtual world created by Will Harvey and Jeffrey Ventrella. ... The Kaneva Game Platform is the game development solution from Kaneva, Inc [1], designed for end-to-end MMO game (MMOG) development for FPS and RPG genres. ... The Palace is a software program used to access two-dimensional virtual communities, also called palaces. ... Second Life (abbreviated as SL) is an Internet-based virtual world launched in 2003, which came to international attention via mainstream news media in late 2006 and early 2007 [4][5] developed by Linden Research, Inc (commonly referred to as Linden Lab). ... Second Life (abbreviated as SL) is an Internet-based virtual world launched in 2003, which came to international attention via mainstream news media in late 2006 and early 2007 [4][5] developed by Linden Research, Inc (commonly referred to as Linden Lab). ...

Other researchers have suggested that customizable avatars in non-gaming worlds tend to be biased towards lighter skin colors and against minorities, especially male minorities.^[15]

References

Note: This article title may be easily confused with Lawrence Lessing. ...

Avatar sources

• Avatarcorner Avatars for forum.
• Klonies for Skype users
• Designing Avatars Comprehensive guide to design isometric walking avatars
• Icon Tutorials Tutorials for Icon Makers
• Fantasy Avatars Avatar fantasy for forum and games
• Girlie Avatars Avatars for Girls

See also

• Activeworlds
• Gaiaonline
• Hackergotchi
• Resident (Second Life)
• Entropia Universe
• Vismon
• Yahoo! Avatars
• IMVU
• X-Face
• Virtual model
• Virtual artifact
• WeeMee
• Simulated Reality
• Meez
• There.com
• Mii