Digital Avatar

In computing, an avatar is a graphical representation of a user or the user's character or persona. Avatars can be two-dimensional icons in Internet forums and other online communities, where they are also known as profile pictures, userpics, or formerly picons (personal icons). Alternatively, an avatar can take the form of a three-dimensional model, as used in online worlds and video games.

The term ' () originates from Sanskrit, and was adopted by early computer games and science fiction novelists. Richard Garriott extended the term to an on-screen user representation in 1985, and the term gained wider adoption in Internet forums and MUDs. Nowadays, avatars are used in a variety of online settings including social media, virtual assistants, instant messaging platforms, and digital worlds such as ''World of Warcraft'' and ''Second Life''. They can take the form of an image of one's real-life self, as often seen on platforms like Facebook, or a virtual character that diverges from the real world. Often, these are customised to show support for different causes, or to create a unique online representation.

Academic research has focused on how avatars can influence the outcomes of communication and digital identity. Users can employ avatars with fictional characteristics to gain social acceptance or ease social interaction. However, studies have found that the majority of users choose avatars that resemble their real-world selves.

Origins

The word ''avatar'' is ultimately derived from the Sanskrit word (' ); in Hinduism, it stands for the "descent" of a deity into a terrestrial form."avatar"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. It was first used in a computer game by the 1979 PLATO role-playing game ''Avatar''. In Norman Spinrad's novel ''Songs from the Stars'' (1980), the term ''avatar'' is used in a description of a computer generated virtual experience. In the story, humans receive messages from an alien galactic network that wishes to share knowledge and experience with other advanced civilizations through "songs". The humans build a "galactic receiver" that allows its users to engage in "artificial realities". One experience is described as such:

The use of the term ''avatar'' for the on-screen representation of the user was coined in 1985 by Richard Garriott for the computer game '' Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar''. In this game, Garriott desired the player's character to be their earth self manifested into the virtual world. Due to the ethical content of his story, Garriott wanted the real player to be responsible for their character; he thought only someone playing "themselves" could be properly judged based on their in-game actions. Because of its ethically nuanced narrative approach, he took the Hindu word associated with a deity's manifestation on earth in physical form, and applied it to a player in the game world. Other early uses of the term include Lucasfilm and Chip Morningstar's 1986 online role-playing game ''Habitat'',Morabito, Margaret. "Enter the Online World of LucasFilm." Run Aug. 1986: 24–28 and the 1989 pen and paper role-playing game ''Shadowrun''.

The use of ''avatar'' to mean online virtual bodies was popularised by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 cyberpunk novel ''Snow Crash''. In ''Snow Crash,'' the term ''avatar'' was used to describe the virtual simulation of the human form in the ''Metaverse'', a fictional virtual-reality application on 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'':

Types and usage

An avatar can refer to a two-dimensional picture akin to an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. This is also known as a profile picture or userpic, or in early Internet parlance, a 'picon' (personal icon). With the advent of social media platforms like Facebook, where users are not typically anonymous, these pictures often are a photo of the user in real life.

Alternatively, avatars can also be three-dimensional digital representations, as in games such as World of Warcraft or virtual worlds like Second Life. In MUDs and other early systems, they were a construct composed of text. The term has been also sometimes extended to refer to the personality connected with the screen name, or handle, of an Internet user.

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.

The traditional avatar system used on most Internet forums is a small (80x80 to 100x100 pixels, for example) square-shaped area close to the user's forum post, where the avatar is placed in order for other users to easily identify who has written the post without having to read their username. 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.

Some avatars are Animation, animated, consisting of a sequence of multiple images played repeatedly. In such animated avatars, the number of images as well as the time in which they are replayed vary considerably.Designing Isometric Avatars
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Other avatar systems exist, such as on Gaia Online, WeeWorld, Frenzoo or Meez, where a pixelized representation of a person or creature is used, which can then be customized to the user's wishes. There are also avatar systems (e.g. Trutoon) where a representation is created using a person's face with customized characters and backgrounds.

Another avatar-based system is one wherein an image is automatically generated based on the identity of the poster. Identicons are formed as visually distinct geometric images derived from a digest hash of the poster's IP address or user ID. These serve as a means to associate a particular user with a particular geometric representation. When used with an IP address, a particular anonymous user can be visually identified without the need for registration or authentication. If an account is compromised, a dissimilar identicon will be formed as the attacker is posting from an unfamiliar IP address.

Internet chat and messaging

GIF avatars were introduced as early as 1990 in the ImagiNation Network (also known as Sierra On-Line) game and chat hybrid. In 1994, Virtual Places offered VOIP capabilities which were later abandoned for lack of bandwidth. In 1996 Microsoft Comic Chat, an IRC client that used cartoon avatars for chatting, was released.

America Online introduced instant messaging for its membership in 1996 and included a limited number of "buddy icons," picking up on the avatar idea from PC games. When AOL later introduced the free version of its messenger, AIM, for use by anyone on the Internet, the number of icons offered grew to be more than 1,000 and the use of them grew exponentially, becoming a hallmark feature of instant messaging. In 2002, AOL introduced "Super Buddies," 3D animated icons that talked to users as they typed messages and read messages. The term Avatar began to replace the moniker of "buddy icon" as 3D customizable icons became known to its users from the mainstream popularity of PC Games. Yahoo's instant messenger was the first to adopt the term "avatar" for its icons. Instant messaging avatars were usually very small; AIM icons have been as small as 16×16 pixels but are used more commonly at the 48×48 pixel size, although many icons can be found online that typically measure anywhere from 50×50 pixels to 100×100 pixels in size.

More recently, services such as Discord have added avatars. With a paid subscription, users can select individual identities for different communities.

Online assistants

Avatars can be used as virtual embodiments of embodied agents, which are driven more or less by artificial intelligence rather than real people. Automated online assistants are examples of avatars used in this way.

Such avatars are used by organizations as a part of automated customer services in order to interact with consumers and users of services. This can avail for enterprises to reduce their operating and training cost. A major underlying technology to such systems is natural language processing.Implementing an online help desk system based on conversational agent
Authors: Alisa Kongthon, Chatchawal Sangkeettrakarn, Sarawoot Kongyoung and Choochart Haruechaiyasak. Published by ACM 2009 Article, Bibliometrics Data Bibliometrics. Published in: Proceeding, MEDES '09 Proceedings of the International Conference on Management of Emergent Digital EcoSystems, ACM New York, NY, USA. , Some of these avatars are commonly known as "bots". Famous examples include IKEA's Anna, an avatar designed to guide users around the IKEA website.

Such avatars can also be powered by a digital conversation which provides a little more structure than those using NLP, offering the user options and clearly defined paths to an outcome. This kind of avatar is known as a Structured Language Processing or SLP Avatar.

Video games

Avatars in video games are the player's representation in the game world. The first video games to include a representation of the player were ''Basketball'' (1974) which represented players as humans, and ''Maze War'' (1974) which represented players as eyeballs.

In some games, the player's representation is fixed, however many 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. One video game in which the avatar and player are two separate entities is the game ''Perspective'', where the player controls both themself in a 3-dimensional world and the avatar in a 2-dimensional world.

Aside from an avatar's physical appearance, its dialogue, particularly in cutscenes, may also reveal something of its character. A good example is the crude, action hero stereotype, Duke Nukem. Other avatars, such as Gordon Freeman from ''Half-Life'', who never speaks at all, reveal very little of themselves (the original game never showed the player what he looked like without the use of a console command for third-person view).

Many Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) also include customizable avatars. Customization levels differ between games; for instance, in ''EVE Online'', players construct a wholly customized portrait, using a software that allows for several 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, unlike in most other RPGs. 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. Robbie Cooper's 2007 book "Alter Ego, Avatars and their creators" pairs photographs of players of a variety of MMO's with images of their in-game avatars and profiles; recording the player's motivations and intentions in designing and using their avatars. The survey reveals wide variation in the ways in which players of MMO's use avatars. Felicia Day, creator and star of ''The Guild'' web series, created a song called "(Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar" which satirizes avatars and virtual dating.

Nintendo's Wii, 3DS and Switch consoles allow for the creation of avatars called "Miis" that take the form of stylized, cartoonish people and can be used in some games as avatars for players, as in ''Wii Sports''. In some games, the ability to use a Mii as an avatar must be unlocked, such as in ''Mario Kart 8''.

In late 2008, Microsoft released an Xbox 360 Dashboard update which featured the introduction of Avatars as part of the console's New Xbox Experience. With the update installed users can personalize the look of their Avatars by choosing from a range of clothing and facial features. In October 2018 Microsoft launched a new version of their Xbox avatars for Xbox One and Xbox on Windows 10, featuring increased detail and having a focus on inclusivity. PlayStation Home for Sony's PlayStation 3 console also featured the use of avatars, but with a more realistic style than Nintendo's Miis or Microsoft's Avatars.

Non-gaming online worlds

Avatars in non-gaming online worlds are used as two- or three-dimensional human or fantastic representations of a person's inworld self. Such representations are a tool which facilitates the exploration of the virtual universe, or acts as a focal point in conversations with other users, and can be customized by the user. Usually, the purpose and appeal of such 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.

The earliest avatars of this form were text-based descriptions employed by players within MUDs. These often allowed players to express an identity disparate from their public one within an interactive environment. For instance, LambdaMOO allowed a choice of 11 different genders, which could be changed at the user's will. The visually-based game ''Habitat'' also used the term to refer to players within the game world. A later example is Linden Labs' ''Second Life'', which has the player use a custom avatar to interact in a virtual 3D world; after peaking in 2007, its user count declined due to the encroachment of more traditional platforms such as Facebook. More recently, the concept has been combined with virtual reality; VRChat allows the user to interact with other avatars in custom environments, and Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Platforms has promoted it as part of his vision of a metaverse.

Many modern virtual worlds provide users with advanced tools to customize their representations, allowing them to change shapes, hair, skins and also genre. Moreover, there is a secondary industry devoted to the creations of products and items for the avatars. Some companies have also launched social networks and other websites for avatars such as Koinup, Myrl, and