Nice overview of High Fidelity

[Graham Mills]

Aimed at the generally interested non-techie but good balance and high profile http://www.technologyreview.com/feature ... l-reality/

[Brayla Sana]

Interesting. However, if avatars will look that bad always, I'll stick to opensim.

[Roswenthe Blackwell]

Interesting. However, if avatars will look that bad always, I'll stick to opensim.

Yeah, I feel the same way. I also really don't want my real life gestures to come through to my avatar.

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

I think its still early days with the avis. I would expect customization levels to exceed what we have in Opensim/SL eventually. Our "default" avatars dont look exactly stunning. If this is what "Ruth" looks like in the next gen, is it really THAT bad?

I remember seeing somewhere in a video that the whole movement tracking thing can be toggled on and off. I find that pretty off-putting too. There is a hilarious video where Rosedale is on some news show, showing off this feature, and at some point he gets distracted by something an starts looking away from the screen. This causes his avatar to pull a rather psychotic looking facial expression.

Eventually, I can see it as a feature that will be used only when you want/need something with that level of expression. I think there will still be a place for the usual run-walk-idle-sit animations.

[Tully McLeod]

It looks as if they are going with kind of "cartoony" stylized avatars, which I think is fine to start with. As Ozwell says, eventually we will likely see a lot more options, hopefully some more realistic looking ones included.

While at times I may not want my RL actions transmitted to my avatar, I can see lots of times when I would. And there have been some very interesting studies involving people's perception and virtual limbs. The part where he holds up his hands and is marveling at the fact that his avatar does the same and he can just look at them in front of him has the potential to be really powerful. That kind of experience can go a long way towards making you feel you are part of the virtual world, and like you are your avatar.

I have no idea if High Fidelity will be the project that takes us to the next level of immersion, but it looks like they are at least moving in that direction. I'll be really interested to see where it goes.

Now, if only I could wear a virtual headset without feeling like I'm going to throw-up after 5 minutes I could get really excited about this stuff.