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Activity 5: Avatars

Objectives:

  • Identify what an avatar is and how it differs from yourself.
  • Relate how matching can affect immersion with avatars in VR.
  • Compare different avatars and their effect on self-presence.

This activity will have you take turns putting on the VR headset and reporting your findings to the rest of your team. The rest of the team will ask questions and guide you through the activity. Ideally, you should have two laptops ready, one with this activity, and another for viewing the headset's screen.

Team Members:

Getting Started

Have one person wear the headset and hold the controllers (you should stand for this activity). Make sure you recenter the view by holding the Oculus () button on the right controller (the one that looks like a horizontal oval).

Tip

Every time someone else puts on the headset, you should reset the view by holding the Oculus () button.

Cast the headset view

On a second laptop, make sure you are connected to the JMU-Official-Wireless Wi-Fi network. To view the cast, go to https://www.oculus.com/casting. Log in with the username and password given to you with the headset. Now, follow the instructions on the website to cast the headset's screen to the laptop.

Launch the app

Open the "universal menu" by pressing the Oculus () button. Open the app menu (the grid on the right of the menu), and then click on the search bar at the top. There should be a little dropdown menu that appears to the right of the search bar. Click on it and then scroll down to choose "Unknown Sources". Find the "AvatarLab" app and launch it.

As a team, read the instructions out loud and answer the questions:

Part 1: Looking Around

First, once the app has loaded, look down.

  • What do you see that represents you in the virtual world?

You should just see a pair of floating hands.

Now, look straight ahead. Move your arms and head around. If you don't see anything, try re-centering the headset view (hold down the Oculus button).

  • What do you see in front of you?

  • What represents your head? Your hands? Your body?

  • Is this very immersive? Why or why not?

You should see a mirror1 and your reflection in it: a sphere for a head and two floating hands. Not the most realistic 😅!

Part 2: Your First Avatar

Face the palm of your left hand upwards. You should see a menu open up with 6 options. Go ahead and pick the "Robot" avatar.

Now, look down at your body and then look at the mirror.

  • What do you see that represents you in the virtual world?

  • How do you know that represents you, and not some other person?

This is called an avatar, or a visual representation of you in the virtual world. If you move your arms around, you see the avatar move their arms the same way.

This is another aspect of matching: having your virtual body match your motions in the real world. If the avatar's arms did not move according to your movements, you wouldn't perceive it as representing you.

  • Does the avatar's motions match yours exactly? What's different?

What do you think about this avatar:

  • Does it look like you? Or do you identify with it?

  • Do you feel like you inhabit this body?

Part 3: Virtual Embodiments

Now, face your left palm upwards again. Try all the other avatars until you find one you like.

  • What are different about these avatars compared to the robot?

  • Which one did you pick and why?

  • Do you feel like you inhabit this body?

Take off the headset and give it to a teammate. Have them try out all the avatars as well. Remember to move your head and hands around to get the full effect!

Make sure everyone has a chance to try out the different avatars.

  • Anything weird or awkward about the avatars?

  • Any other thoughts?

Submission

Click the Export as PDF button to create a PDF of your answers. Have one person upload it to Gradescope. After the PDF is uploaded, click the "View or edit group" link in the upper-right and add your teammates in the Gradescope assignment.

  1. Turns out, mirrors in VR are hard to implement. What I've done here is more like a webcam view than a true mirror (which has full "planar" reflections). ↩