9/13/04
<< 72 Squared WeblogAvatars on Gaia
It's been a while since i posted to this blog. Reason? Hundreds of projects going at once. Right now I am building a virtual clothing store for teens. When users sign up with Gaia online they are given an avatar which they can customize.
Gaia
Online is a growing community of anime fans. The site is primarily a
forum for role-play and discussion of everything under the sun. One of
the coolest features of the site is the avatars. Every post shows your
personal avatar which you customize. I have been working on extending
the functionality of avatars. Users buy virtual items for their avatars
and then can dress them up as they please.
The avatars can then wear any number of items and can be customized in
all sorts of ways. I am working on making it possible for the avatars
to move into different positions so these virtual characters can hold
items or stand in various poses. 
The challenge is that the avatars are not created through some 3-D
rendering engine. We have looked into it, and the technology just isn't
capable of doing the kind of quality we want yet. The graphics a 3-D
engine would prodouce would be too sterile. Instead we use a system of
layering sprites together to create an image composite. The system is
relatively simple. Each item has a set of files associated with it and
they are stacked in a certain order to create the complete image. The
trick is how to get all of the different items to look good with each
other in any number of combinations while the avatar is standing in
many different poses.
It's definitely a work in progress. But I''m happy with how it's coming along.