I think I’ve seen a lot of discussion about creating avatars for the PlayStation 4, but I haven’t really seen a lot about the avatars themselves. This is something I’m interested in creating, so I thought I would share. I have a bunch of pictures from the last year I’ve been working on.
First off, if you are interested in creating avatars, check out my website, www.marsal.net and see what theyre all about.
I havent really given a ton of thought about creating avatars, but I have always had a love of anime and it seems like an ideal medium for creating avatars. For starters, Anime is a really visual medium so there are great graphics to choose from. There is also a sense of style to create something that looks like a human being, but in the anime medium that is usually achieved by having a very specific body type and color palette.
This is such a great medium to use for avatars. Anime shows are generally very “high-production” and thus the “realistic” style works really well. In fact, if you look at the latest anime series you will see it’s the same quality production values that are used in movies and other production mediums.
If we can get the same aesthetic of realism in our avatars as we can in our real life, then we can go to town. And, while it may not be realistic or believable, it can still work.
You may not have noticed, but I have been playing a lot of games lately. Since the release of the last game I’ve had 4 different gaming consoles and 8 Xboxes. I also have a PSP. So I’m playing more games than I usually do. In this case, we can look at avatars as a medium for creating our characters. We can do a lot of that with our real life characters because we can take the same general style and just tweak the colors.
The problem with avatars is that they are not really life-like. They don’t look like you. They don’t move exactly like you. They don’t have the same emotions and personality traits as you do. They are made to be fun to play with, and they have no bearing on how the real world works. For my personal reasons Im doing this, but I think I see a lot of the same problems with other games.
In-game avatars are a common way for games like Minecraft to simulate the real world, but they are not real. They are not the same kind of people you are and you arent. They dont have emotions the way you do. They dont have names the way you do. They dont look like you, and you dont look like them. They are made for fun and are not in any way real.
In the case of Minecraft, avatars are made to be made-up to look like the player. They are made to be the same height, weight, and complexion as you, and they are made to be the same gender as you. They are made to be the same age as you and the same race as you. They are made to have the same level of health and stamina as you, but they are made to look more like you than your actual self.