The 4096 pixels you are made of

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about different methods of avatar customization.

An avatar is a player’s representation in a virtual world and enables a player to interact with this environment. Hence, the customization of the own avatar is an important part of playing a game as players often like to use an avatar they can identify with. For this purpose, most games that provide an avatar game mechanic allow players at the beginning of a new game to design their avatars by customizing their visual appearance. The degree of the customizability is dependent on the style of the game and can range from a selection of predefined attritubutes to a gradual customization of facial elements as well as the physical appearance.

Although the latter method of customizing the own avatar allows for the creation of really unique avatars, the choices that can be made are still finite. However, there are also a few games that allow players to import custom made textures into the game and subequently use those so-called skins to design their avatars. Despite the fact that the uniqueness is a bit limited by the 3D model the textures are applied to, this approach gives players full control over the avatar customization process.

One of these games is the sandbox game Minecraft. At the beginning of the customization process, players can chose between two different 3D models that are distinguished in their size. Subsequently, players can start to edit a 64×64 pixels texture template for the 3D model chosen in order to customize their appearance. The customization process is finished once the user has uploaded the texture to the Minecraft skin server. From this point on, Minecraft will always apply the custom made texture to the chosen 3D model in order to represent the player in a Minecraft world.

A Minecraft avatar using the unchanged texture template.

Ultimately, this customization approach allows players to completely distinguish themselves from all the other players sharing the same world. Moreover, this approach resulted in the fact that famous Minecraft video creators are recognized by their personal skins.