I was recently in London for a business trip, in fact while writing this article, and I came across an opportunity that was simply too good to miss. I said to myself what the hell and paid a visit to
I was recently in London for a business trip, in fact while writing this article, and I came across an opportunity that was simply too good to miss. I said to myself what the hell and paid a visit to the new Millennium Dome complex.
Whats the connection with avatars? Simple. The first publicly-accessible avatar scanning booths in the world are there. The three booths, developed by British-based AvatarMe, are proving very popular with around 130,000 avatars created in the first seven months alone. Indeed, when I was there, the avatar assistants told me that they average around 500 to 700 visitors a day to the booths, which is really pretty impressive.
Current alternative 3D human capture technology uses the active projection of light onto the subject, and then a triangulation process to obtain the correct 3D surface measurements. While this makes for highly accurate surface measurement, the resulting colouring is disappointing. Dark areas such as hair are often ignored, with no data at all being returned. These active scanning techniques are also pretty expensive because the scanning has to quickly get around the problems of the subject moving during capture. Worse still, automation is non-existent and it takes skilled artists hours to complete each finished model.
AvatarMes scanning process takes a different approach. Instead of producing simplistic 3D renderings, it creates complex, fully photo-realistic avatars that mimic your proportions, skin texture, eyes, hair and even your clothing. Having said that, as I can testify, the rushed TalkZone experience isnt the best environment for perfect avatar scanning. There are no previews and no options for a second scan to ensure the process goes smoothly. In my case, I ended up with a rather misshapen head, an extra half an ear on the back of my head and my glasses, rather strangely, morphed onto my head. But its early days and given more time, a quieter corporate environment, or even one where you were actually paying money for the scan, rather than taking part in whats essentially a public relations exercise, one would expect the finished results to be much better. In the meantime, an avatar editor will soon be available from AvatarMe, which will enable you to smooth out the wrinkles in the software.
So what can you do with your avatar, other than impress your mates? Well, a VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) export facility as part of the Avatar Viewer Software from AvatarMe allows you to convert the avatar from its proprietary .ame format to a vrml file. This can, using the OpenGL platform, be dropped into the Quake III game engine. Unfortunately, thats about as exciting as it gets right now, unless watching yourself skateboarding or doing the disco duck on a virtual dance floor, courtesy of specially downloaded avatar player software, is your cup of tea.
Although youre free to use the avatar, it actually belongs to AvatarMe; it simply grants you a license to use it. Which brings us to the interesting matter of who should own your virtual image. Should it be the company responsible for the data manipulation, or you? This one has the scope to run and run, and I suspect well only arrive at a final answer once its tested in the law courts.