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[Performative Avatars] Two Avatars

14 Sep 2020

Posted under: Performative Avatars; ITP;

Daz Studio Avatar

I chose to build my two avatars in Second Life and Daz Studio. I had created digital versions of myself in Sims and Memoji over the summer, both of them being quite pleasant experiences. I can’t say the same about the two I made this week, even though it got me thinking about representation and about the peculiarities of my face.

Choosing Second Life came out of pure curiosity – I had been aware of the platform’s existence and history for many years, and wanted to try it. It was a bad experience overall, mostly because of the software’s user interface and poor performance on my computer. The avatar creation system didn’t seem lacking in options when compared to other ones I’ve tried (plenty of options to customize the face & body structure,) but I had trouble creating a face that looked like mine. Strangely, the avatar height was somewhere at the top in the user interface – almost as the main defining characteristic of your image –, and for some reason I found myself caring a lot about it being accurate, 1.79m (5ft11). The hair options were incredibly limited, I had trouble finding something that made sense. The clothing system seemed to be almost entirely broken – I could not get shirt & pants option to load, and when I finally decided to rely on the default “Greg” pack I was given, I realized the clothes did not properly fit the mesh of my character.

Second Life Timelapse
Second Life Avatar Second Life Avatar Daz Studio Avatar
Second Life Avatars

Building the second avatar in Daz Studio was a more pragmatic choice, as I had been curious to learn the basics of the software for some time. After watching a few Youtube tutorials in order to understand the interface, I started working with the Genesis 8 Male model (gender binaries are strong in this software and community…) I quickly realized I have limited control over my avatar with the basic settings, and ended up purchasing the Face Morphs for Genesis 8 Male pack, for $11. The purchase was worth its money – I got access to hundreds of sliders, allowing me to customize bones and muscles of my face I didn’t even know I had. It’s a similar system to the Second Life one, at a significantly higher quality and fidelity.

This avatar doesn’t look like me either, even though parts of it probably do (the lips, the chin, maybe the eyebrows and the nose.) If anything, it looks like an older version of myself. With so much control over the face parameters of the avatar, I had to turn on my webcam and really study my own face, as an image or object, in a way that was new and unsettling. I started obsessing about the shape, placement or angle of various parts of my face, and stopped before spiraling down a dangerous rabbit hole :).

Daz Studio Timelapse
Daz Studio Avatar
Daz Studio Avatar

I also tried the Face Transfer feature of the software, which allows you to upload an image of yourself, and creates an avatar based on that. The result was absolutely terrifying (granted, I did not tweak any parameters or colors in the end result. It could probably be a bit better.)

Face Transfer Avatar
Face Transfer Avatar