a VR representation of a person
Once a human being enters Habitat, he or she takes on the visual form of an Avatar, and for all intents and purposes becomes one of these new-world beings.
The Avatars are to a great extent very much like actors inside this world.
Oh, he had been so clever—cheating death by escaping into the Computer. Trading the Real World for a Programworld and swapping his falling body for a healthy avatar.
For all she knew, in spite of his claim to be the avatar of God, by day Jim Ironheart heroically risked his own life to save the lives of strangers.
This is an animated view of the player’s current location in the Habitat world. The scene consists of various objects arrayed on the screen, such as the houses and tree. The players are represented by animated figures that we call ‘Avatars’. Avatars are usually, though not exclusively, humanoid in appearance.
The people are pieces of software called avatars. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse. Hiro’s avatar is now on the Street, too, and if the couples coming off the monorail look over in his direction, they can see him just as he’s seeing them.
The people are pieces of software called avatars.
A secret but well-paying job. It involves creating a full-body VR simulation of a pornographic scenario involving Egyptian avatars and dead female American movie stars.
It has the usual cyberpunk virtual reality…with avatars (electronic stand-ins for the computer-using person in question) flipping in and out.
You have given up your avatars?
The amphitheater at Ephesus—not a bad place for a meeting. This time Avakian had resisted the urge to fiddle with the dials. The scan was recent: ruins, scrub, litter, and lizards. Everyone appeared in their own avatars, a small crowd in a space built for a large one. Aside from that, and the site’s subliminal implications of elite democracy, the virtual venue seemed neutral enough.
A similar state of affairs exists in cyberspace today; most people are willing to confront the 'bots, mailing lists, avatars, and sundry other denizens of the virtual world as real entities, possessing their own interior natures, but a few—in particular, those pioneers—recognize that these synthetic projections are conveniences of the mind, and wholly under the mind’s control.
antedating 1986
Raph Koster pointed us to Randy Farmer's blog about the online online multi-user game "Habitat", (http://www.fudco.com/habitat/), in particular to scans of "Run" magazine for August 1986 describing the use of avatars in the game. (see http://www.fudco.com/habitat/archives/page01.jpg and subsequent images)
Last modified 2021-01-05 17:59:04
In the compilation of some
entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
in OED.