The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

Nalates · **Posted:** Mon Apr 12, 2010 6:35 pm

We have had lots of discussions on hair. Do we give avatars better hair, skip it and go to more important things, whether it is a non-issue or a deal breaker... Beyond our opinions, I'm usually looking for a way to place things in perspective with most of the gaming world... what is it gamers like and what do they actually do? While I think better hair is important and would love better "do's" I'm not likely to take the time to craft the code to add them. I don't even make hair in SL... I just collect "do's" like I do shoes. If I wore different shoes and "do" everyday I'll run out of shoes way before I do "do's".

In a rather interestingly deep article on our perception of reality Extropia DaSilva on gwynethllewelyn.net writes;

Quote:

When it comes to avatar customization, SL residents spend far more time on appearance: 93 minutes on average compared to 10 minutes for WOW. In both worlds, hair style is deemed to be the most important feature, with skin tone the least important. In RL, of all the body parts, the hair on our head is most easily sculpted into new shapes, and hairstyles have long been considered a part of fashion. So it is perhaps not surprising that people should concentrate most heavily on getting their avatar’s hair ‘right’. Furthermore, most people navigate the world using a zoomed-out 3rd-person perspective and from such a viewpoint hair (which offers a large surface area easily seen from a 3rd-person perspective) is the best candidate for establishing a signature look.

If WOW looses out in terms of time spent inworld customizing the avatar, it gains in terms of average number of alts. In SL, the average is three accounts per person, whereas in WOW it is 12. Bare in mind, though, that SL allows far more flexibility when it comes to changing appearance. In WOW, comprehensive change can only be achieved by creating another character altogether. SL residents may have fewer alts on average, but they have many more costumes (46 on average), and ‘costumes’ can include whole bodies that they can swap in and out of without changing accounts.

Interesting... I doubt it changes the importance of hair and avatar appearance for Open Uru. I think the article gets us an idea of how other people and the general gaming see avatar appearance and where 'hair' fits in the scheme of things.

DarK · **Joined:** Sun May 21, 2006 11:51 am **Posts:** 510

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D ... _Pro/Furry

It seems to blend, not sure how this would translate into Uru, as it mentions particals.

Uru's partical system seems a bit on the simple side, however thats not to say that something could be added to give some more realistic hair.

Usually though Hair is simply done though texturing and 3D plains, with the odd animated joints to give it movement.

I would think "do's" will be lower down on developers lists, but someone is sure to add a few more when the relavent areas of the game are released for use.

Hold on to your ideas!

Marten · **Posted:** Tue Apr 13, 2010 12:05 am

I'd be happy just to see the hair affected by physics. However, that would probably add more lag.

Maybe we'll find a way to optimize the physics in the client - which I think ought to be a fairly high priority if we want to enable larger crowds to congregate in the game. If we can achieve that, then more realistic hair would be a more reachable goal.

Rusty_Russell · **Posted:** Tue Apr 13, 2010 7:54 am

Quote:

Bare in mind, though, that SL allows far more flexibility

How about "Bear in mind"?

Keikoku · **Posted:** Tue Apr 13, 2010 4:10 pm

DarK wrote:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Furry

It seems to blend, not sure how this would translate into Uru, as it mentions particals.

Uru's partical system seems a bit on the simple side, however thats not to say that something could be added to give some more realistic hair.

You wouldn't use a particle system for hair in real-time; it's far too computationally expensive.

Ai'ron · **Joined:** Wed Nov 08, 2006 10:22 pm **Posts:** 99

I personally find the hair in SL way overdone. The fact is that nobody wears their hair even resembling that outside of high school prom. Maybe a few more conservative styles wouldn't be untoward, but I don't think it needs to get crazy. I would flip if I saw someone with the hair shown in your SL avatar in Uru, Nalates. Keep Uru as Uru, keep SL as SL.

Gondar · **Posted:** Tue Apr 13, 2010 8:47 pm

Or people like me who wear a hat with a different style than cropped short. Or such.

Of course, that would probably involve finding a way to separate hats from hair.. perhaps a second item of them like glasses, tethered to the hair? Hm.

Regardless, while apparently the plugin has clothing exporters (which presumably would include hairstyles) we don't have reference models and such. Heck, do we even know how that part works?

But I do want to properly wear my ponytail under my actual cap.. heck, I'd learn 3d modeling just to show it off :wink:

dnidaz · **Joined:** Fri Nov 10, 2006 7:51 pm **Posts:** 228

I feel a bit left out here (see pic in sig) :lol:

But at least I can look like a standard bald guy in MOUL. When I tried SL, I simply couldn't work out how to do that. Hair was far too complicated!

In MOUL I'd settle for being able to have dark eyebrows and grey hair like in real life, but I know that's small beer compared to you folks with your locks blowing in the wind. :wink:

vidroth · **Joined:** Tue Oct 03, 2006 3:25 am **Posts:** 869

I'm a big fan of limiting your personalization options to practical real-world and/or D'ni-manufactured gear. I don't want bright purple trolls with three-foot mohawks roaming around the cavern. Other games can do (and allow) what they want, but my guiding principle is this: quit reminding me I'm playing a video game. Pretend the cavern is a real place, linking Books are real things, and Explorers are real people... and make your decisions on "what is allowed" accordingly.

With that said, I think the quality of the avatar choices could/should be greatly improved, both for hair and for clothes. Myst V had plenty of "draping" working, check Yeesha's (and for that matter, Esher's) appearance. That can be added just fine.

But if the choice is "what do you want Cyan to spend time on," that's not it. That's something that can wait for Open Source, and responsible non-Cyan people can enhance it, and when they've done a good enough job, Cyan can add it to the primary source.

Nalates · **Posted:** Fri Apr 30, 2010 5:28 pm

Treating hair as if it were from RL pretty much removes most of the limits. Google.

Punk Hair Styles seem to be what most people complain about. There are people that like the bright colors and spikes. I've seen some 12 or 18 inch (24 - 36cm +/-) spikes. Where does one person's presences override another's?

There is concern about game lag. Most hair physics happens on the client side. Depending on who one listens to MOULa's lag is mostly server side or mostly client side. Either way it can mitigated. The problem is someone has to add the new styles and someone has to deal with optimizing the client for dynamic hair.

While several of us like the idea of better hair my OP point is it may not be that big a deal for attracting new players. I like the great hair in SL. But, the ...plainer... hair of MOULa does not put me off that much. Nor do we see games advertising their great hair... mmmm... Blue Mars might be consider... naw.

vidroth · **Joined:** Tue Oct 03, 2006 3:25 am **Posts:** 869

Nalates wrote:

Punk Hair Styles seem to be what most people complain about. There are people that like the bright colors and spikes. I've seen some 12 or 18 inch (24 - 36cm +/-) spikes. Where does one person's presences override another's?

If we're looking for hair justifications: when you couldn't put it under a safety helmet, it's no longer something a person could wear to explore a cave. I'm fine with that as a hair restriction... "must be able to wear a safety helmet, like an actual person has to do when he/she leaves the visitor trail in a cave."

But I'm not trying to micromanage things to my arbitrary narrow preferences. I'm just trying to avoid running into video game characters. As long as the avatar looks like an actual human being who might be able to explore strange and dangerous places, I'm OK with personal style.

Black leather Village People biker outfits with chains? Knock yourself out. Plate armor and bat wings? No thank you.

Smiley-face sunglasses? Sure. Purple skin and fangs? Pass.

Clown makeup with the puffy red nose? Ummmm. Er... what was the question again?

Paradox · **Posted:** Sat May 01, 2010 12:56 am

MOUL currently performs no physics calculations on hair or clothing. To do so (with the current system) cause lag to the point of unplayability for some people.

For people hoping to use Yeesha and Esher from Myst V as counterexamples, note that those animations were all pre-baked, not calculated in real time.

vidroth · **Joined:** Tue Oct 03, 2006 3:25 am **Posts:** 869

Paradox wrote:

MOUL currently performs no physics calculations on hair or clothing. To do so (with the current system) cause lag to the point of unplayability for some people.

Certainly it would need to start as a client-side effect only... if kicking cones can bog down the cavern, heaven only knows what braiding your hair would do to it.

Quote:

For people hoping to use Yeesha and Esher from Myst V as counterexamples, note that those animations were all pre-baked, not calculated in real time.

I will not argue with you, because I am sure you're right, but I'm surprised--the cloth effects don't look pre-baked. And that's not a compliment: there's way too much clipping. Pre-baked cloth/hair movement shouldn't clip, that's the kind of oversight you should get in realtime draping physics.

Keikoku · **Posted:** Sat May 01, 2010 4:05 am

vidroth wrote:

Paradox wrote:

For people hoping to use Yeesha and Esher from Myst V as counterexamples, note that those animations were all pre-baked, not calculated in real time.

I will not argue with you, because I am sure you're right, but I'm surprised--the cloth effects don't look pre-baked. And that's not a compliment: there's way too much clipping. Pre-baked cloth/hair movement shouldn't clip, that's the kind of oversight you should get in realtime draping physics.

Even if you pre-bake, the results are normally only stored as a set of key frames, with intermediate frames being calculated at run time. Alternatively, It's possible that they generated accurate animations, then had to reduce the polygon count at a late stage and didn't have time to redo the calculations. Yet another possibility is that the collisions are too accurate, and the clipping is an artefact of limited depth resolution.

The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

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