Meta Avatars Store

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, junique Tigerfish said:

I have been giggling since I saw these beauties.

But that's the point - you're giggling. Not feeling like you just walked into the local thrift store's creepy doll section and fighting the urge to run away screaming.

[animats]

59 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Are these the best avatars possible or the most realistic, hell no, but we're sat here patting ourselves on the back for looking like something from a PS4 game with none of the facial expression and movement capabilities. Sure we look great in still pictures .. but real time SL and flickr SL are entirely different propositions.

That's a big problem for SL, especially since VRchat has motion tracking and user growth.

Second Life was supposed to get facial feature tracking this year. Remember the roadmap from last December?

2022 Roadmap

We are already hard at work on several new features and improvements for the coming year. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s underway:

• Avatar “expressiveness” that brings camera-based gestures and movement to your avatar for a whole new level of interaction and connectedness.

We're halfway through 2022 now.

[Love Zhaoying]

8 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Why are their heads so big?  Do they know nothing about proportions or are they intentionally all big-headed?

The proportion makes them look like characters from Toy Story.

[Love Zhaoying]

5 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

I aint getting rid of my ears.  no go.

What was it, I think in Loveless you lose your ears when you lose your innocence? 

[bigmoe Whitfield]

4 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

What was it, I think in Loveless you lose your ears when you lose your innocence? 

/me staples his ears to his head then.

[junique Tigerfish]

2 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

But that's the point - you're giggling. Not feeling like you just walked into the local thrift store's creepy doll section and fighting the urge to run away screaming.

Cookie you probably know the answer to this question.Would a person's photo be used to create their cartoon character?At some point users maybe creating clothing for sale?Or am I completely out to lunch.🙂

[Tarik Darkheart]

The free outfits must be real bad if they expect people to pay for those ones

[Love Zhaoying]

3 hours ago, Akane Nacht said:

11 hours ago, animats said:

terrible designs with famous brand names on them.

They should use that as their tagline... I hear Millennials like honesty and authenticity in marketing 😇

That's like the movie where mental patients got into marketing. Example from that for Volvo: "Boxy, but safe."

[Conifer Dada]

Even the original SL starter avatars from when I joined in 2006 look better than these Meta ones.

[Alwin Alcott]

3 hours ago, animats said:

We're halfway through 2022 now.

since december?... noo that would be to soon!

[Love Zhaoying]

LL better look out, if Meta has legs and clothes, attachments and animations could be coming!

[Gabriele Graves]

6 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Not feeling like you just walked into the local thrift store's creepy doll section and fighting the urge to run away screaming.

Some of us like that feeling.

  🤷‍♀️

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

Some of us like that feeling.

  🤷‍♀️

I bet the creepy dolls get a kick out of people's reactions!  But seriously, I've got a whole list of questions that spin in the old noggin' about "dolls with souls". Reading manga where the dolls used to be children didn't help!

[Gabriele Graves]

5 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I bet the creepy dolls get a kick out of people's reactions!  But seriously, I've got a whole list of questions that spin in the old noggin' about "dolls with souls". Reading manga where the dolls used to be children didn't help!

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Gabriele Graves said:

The creepiest ones don't even move, have buttons for eyes, etc.

[Gabriele Graves]

It's interesting what people find creepy.  There is definitely no one set of things.  For me the eyes are everything, if it doesn't have eyes or they have buttons, it doesn't creep me out much.  I think it's because the eyes are so expressive, they are the window to the soul even.  You just don't get that from buttons.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Gabriele Graves

[Modulated]

I kinda like em, but for SL, not Meta.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

7 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

They don't fall into the uncanny valley, at all. We're used to how SL avatars look because we have trained ourselves to be ok looking at them. They are easily uncanny - a feeling you can recreate by just trying to find a new head for your own avatar.

I tend to disagree. I much prefer realistic avatars, but I say this as someone who went totally bonkers over Black Desert Online's character creator and spent more hours in there creating looks than playing the actual game. 😂 

Tons of games fall into that semi-realistic to fully-realistic category, though, so maybe I'm just used to it. Fortnite's got an okay style vs. realism balance, but unfortunately their skins aren't too customizable. And then, there are all of those AAA games that go to the complete opposite end - Horizon Forbidden West was absolutely insane with their character design and expressions, for example. Cyberpunk 2077. All the modern Tomb Raiders. Red Dead 2. The Last of Us. Etc.

As a whole, I think teen and adult gamers are more used to seeing realistic characters and like playing around with them. Big heads are usually targeted a bit younger. Stylized characters in general are okay, but these days, people start asking questions about why game devs chose to go in that direction instead of focusing on realism (just lurk in any nerdy gamer Discord or subreddit or Steam discussion board).

As for SL, buying new heads and switching them on a daily basis doesn't affect me in any negative way. What *does* feel odd is switching from SL or some big AAA franchise back to a game with some big ole bobblehead characters. Those I just do not like at all. It's not cute, it's not charming - it just creeps me out. 

It's not so much the oversized heads but the blank, expressionless eyes. Without much in the way of detail, over-stylized avatars can sometimes look like nightmare fuel to me. Stylization has to be done very carefully IMO. Good stylized characters don't need big goofy heads - they can just be drawn uniquely with expressions in mind. Right now to me, those Meta ones look as if a person who's never seen a video game (or worn clothing) designed them instead of an actual 3D character artist.

Now, had he hired someone to make them look like this, people might take him more seriously...(omg the expressions are adorbs)

[Ceka Cianci]

9 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

It is, but not for obvious reasons. 

Stylized "cartoony" avatars age very well, they will look as ok in 5 years as they look today. An SL avatar on the other hand ages like milk, which is why we spend so much time and money constantly updating them.

They don't fall into the uncanny valley, at all. We're used to how SL avatars look because we have trained ourselves to be ok looking at them. They are easily uncanny - a feeling you can recreate by just trying to find a new head for your own avatar.

They are easier to make expressive, derpy big grins and wide eyes and over the top expressions actually work ok on simplistic avatars. They are so bad on SL avatars we go the extra step to disable that entirely and look like creepy dolls half the time. 

To someone who isn't used to assigning personal identity to an avatar, a simplistic avatar is a much easier gateway to the entire concept of an avatar.

Personal uniqueness is easier to achieve, The crappy mark head looks like mark. It's instantly recognizable.

The female avatar is Eva Chen - and it's easily close enough.

Are these the best avatars possible or the most realistic, hell no, but we're sat here patting ourselves on the back for looking like something from a PS4 game with none of the facial expression and movement capabilities. Sure we look great in still pictures .. but real time SL and flickr SL are entirely different propositions.

I think see what you are saying.. It's not really about attracting the gamer crowd or people that really spend tons on their avatars like in SL..

They are going more for the wider audience.. I mean going from emoticons to an avatar is a big improvement..

There are a lot of people that choose a platform because of how much you can change the look of the avatar.. Where these guys have an avatar, but just enough of one for  everything else they have going on.

Does that sound right?

[Ayashe Ninetails]

12 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I think see what you are saying.. It's not really about attracting the gamer crowd or people that really spend tons on their avatars like in SL..

They are going more for the wider audience.. I mean going from emoticons to an avatar is a big improvement..

There are a lot of people that choose a platform because of how much you can change the look of the avatar.. Where these guys have an avatar, but just enough of one for  everything else they have going on.

Does that sound right?

This does make sense, too, but I would guess that the people most likely to spend money on VR equipment would be gamers. 

If this is just meant to be an online/app/website avatar with no VR/Meta required to use it, then that's different tho. I still don't think the design would attract many people, though, but who knows. 😂

[Psyche Starling]

9 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

It is, but not for obvious reasons. 

Stylized "cartoony" avatars age very well, they will look as ok in 5 years as they look today. An SL avatar on the other hand ages like milk, which is why we spend so much time and money constantly updating them.

They don't fall into the uncanny valley, at all. We're used to how SL avatars look because we have trained ourselves to be ok looking at them. They are easily uncanny - a feeling you can recreate by just trying to find a new head for your own avatar.

They are easier to make expressive, derpy big grins and wide eyes and over the top expressions actually work ok on simplistic avatars. They are so bad on SL avatars we go the extra step to disable that entirely and look like creepy dolls half the time. 

To someone who isn't used to assigning personal identity to an avatar, a simplistic avatar is a much easier gateway to the entire concept of an avatar.

Personal uniqueness is easier to achieve, The crappy mark head looks like mark. It's instantly recognizable.

The female avatar is Eva Chen - and it's easily close enough.

 

And it does kind of make sense for Meta, because people on FB are obsessed with those bitmojis of themselves. These seem in line with that.

[Ceka Cianci]

1 minute ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

This does make sense, too, but I would guess that the people most likely to spend money on VR equipment would be gamers. 

If this is just meant to be an online/app/website avatar with no VR/Meta required to use it, then that's different tho. I still don't think the design would attract many people, though, but who knows. 😂

Ahh ok, I didn't realize this was VR stuff..

sure hope he has a set of glasses of some kind then.. Still I can't do VR, because it shuts off too many of my senses.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

1 minute ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Ahh ok, I didn't realize this was VR stuff..

sure hope he has a set of glasses of some kind then.. Still I can't do VR, because it shuts off too many of my senses.

I think (don't quote me!) the idea is to be an all around use kind of dealio? I saw something about making it available on Instagram and Facebook, and that a VR/Meta version would be coming soon(tm). Lemme double check...

Yep! From the first link in the OP:

"Our new Meta Avatars Store will roll out in the coming weeks on Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. Learn how to create your avatar for Instagram and for Facebook and Messenger. And we expect to bring it to VR soon. So keep an eye out for it when it becomes available for you."

 

[Katherine Heartsong]

9 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

But that's the point - you're giggling. Not feeling like you just walked into the local thrift store's creepy doll section and fighting the urge to run away screaming.

I, for one, felt like running away screaming.

I get creeped out by weird dolls and clowns though, so I may not be the best judge.

[Ceka Cianci]

28 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I think (don't quote me!) the idea is to be an all around use kind of dealio? I saw something about making it available on Instagram and Facebook, and that a VR/Meta version would be coming soon(tm). Lemme double check...

Yep! From the first link in the OP:

"Our new Meta Avatars Store will roll out in the coming weeks on Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. Learn how to create your avatar for Instagram and for Facebook and Messenger. And we expect to bring it to VR soon. So keep an eye out for it when it becomes available for you."

 

Ya, I won't be using it anyways,it's all just too creepy for me.. I can't bring myself to use any Suckaburger things..

Just looking at him he looks like an A.I. from an A.I. horror movie..

hehehehe

I wonder if he was the basis for character that Samuel L. Jackson played in The Kingsmen?