Immersion

What is immersion in a virtual world?

I take it to mean that the user invests his ego in the avatar, and feels to some degree as if they are their avatar actually existing in the virtual world depicted on the screen.

The opposite of immersion would be just seeing a grid of illuminated pixels devoid of any meaning.

The introduction of custom animations was the last major shift in immersion providing features of the program.

It is possible to be absorbed or engrossed in the program without feeling any sense of immersion.

A scripter, for example, can be quite interested in the text in the script editor and the program they are writing , to the extent that they forget they are standing in Cordova and get taken aback for a second when they find their avatar suddenly knocked into the neighboring sim by a pushgun maniac.

When you first start the program and are delighted by the fun of flying and seeing all the strange and beautiful things people have built I think your immersion level is high.
Avatar flight is one thing SL does nicely. Things that the program does well make it easy to be immersed.

Technical problems can destroy immersion. Being thrown from a car at a sim border , for instance, really destroys the feeling that you were actually driving a car.

People who are really immersed are probably more likely to get upset about bumping their avatar than people who aren't as immersed.

Does anyone have an ideas for new features that might actually be doable in the near future that would increase immersion.

Thanks for the post. I know I get immersed in Star Wars Battlefront 2, and with my headphones on it's like I'm really there. I hate when people bother me when I'm really into it. :-/

I was shocked to see the reaction that some people had to my female avi using the head and body exploding animations, they freaked as if there was really a decapitated screaming body infront of them, that is immersion, perhaps too deep....

One feature that would make me feel more like I am an actor in the virtual stage would be movement controls that use just the mouse, perhapssomewhat like old Doom allowed you to move by picking up the mouse and dragging. That would have a more natural feel to me than any of the ways we have now.

This wouldn't be some groundbreaking discovery in programming, so it might be doable.

Another thing would be being able to grab something - even if it was with a pie menu choice, right clicking an object and selecting Grab or Hold and having your avatar find some way to pick the thing up and hold it in a hand. (and of course I know how to attach it to my hand so no need to explain that)

A lot of the basic, human, irrational things in here would increase immersion. I've listed many over time, but it's the sort of little quirks--humans are so good at spotting apparent repetitive patterns, so more variation would be nice. For example, the walk. As much as we customize our avatars, many Resis still have the same default walk. Or with animation overriders, it allows for variance, but it's not quite flexible because you're either doing someone else's full walk or not--"blending" between two using something akin to a DJ's crossfader isn't very feasible at present. Those sorts of shades to color in what is otherwise a binary spectrum would be tremendously immersive.

Crashes are definitely an immersion-killer. Anything that removes you from Second Life, or in a general sense, anachronisms really throw people for a loop. Seeing a computer in a medieval castle is commonly known to jar the senses, although from my perspective, that's perfectly bland. Also, in some themed private islands, they don't allow certain types of avatar appearances--as it'd shatter the "magic" of the "spell" they're casting.

Low framerates are ugly too. Beautiful features which aren't practical to use (Local Lighting). Ripple water has added to our immersion, but sometimes I look at it, and the ground next to it, and am wondering why I'm not making footprints in the sand, and snarl at our ugly foot shadows--altho they've certainly improved to being UNDER, not over our feet.

So, part of the "immersion" comes from an individual's mindset. A strict roleplayer will have a firmer grasp on how their weapons are modelled, as opposed to a surrealist bouncing from one TP to another across time and space. Someone with an engineering background will likely handle technical challenges better (as they've seen a lot before) than someone who is still on the cusp of learning some technological finesse.

Speakingly purely from my own point of view, I watch avatar body language in here to a great degree. I can't help but recommend Jeffrey Ventrella's (Ventrella Linden) website for some fantastic writings and pictures and interactive fun you can enjoy! Something I very much relate to and spend time thinking about--not so much analytical level, as what intuitively feels good.

It's a process that I'm excited to see continue.

I don't guess I ever get into the fantasy enough to be disturbed by something like a computer in a castle. I don't get taken up in things like text role playing much either.

When I was a kid it was quite different, I lived in the comic books and could hardly tell where reality stopped and fiction began. I didn't think Superman was real, but I thought he could be. The idea that yellow suns would make those born under a red star have impenetrable skin seemed totally plausible when I was six.

A practical immersion increasing thing that can be done right now (already is, I just haven't found them ) would be HUD based animation controllers. Just a grid of buttons around the edge of the screen that activates animations with a single click, always accesible, with clear labels that don't make me have to find my reading glasses would be real nice. They might hold dances or different emotional states. What would be the advantage over the current system? They would be around the edge of the screen and not make a big dialog box pop up to block your view, They could have an low-visual impact with anearly transparent background.

O! That sounds like Keiki Lemieux's HUDDLES Button Bars?

Yes, that is the one I saw, I couldn't remember who it was by. I haven't seen the real thing, just the ad in a forum signature.

I have the Skoopf Icecicles which have a HUD control but it has icons which are unintelligible to me even when I have my reading glasses on and my eyes at optimum focus. Not being able tell what the icons are greatly reduces the immersion of the skating, and they work by bringing up a dialog box when you click on them, offering, say, a choice of this jump style or that. How are you supposed to fluidly work a system like that while you are trying to skate? A controller system with clearly distinguishable choices, one click does one thing, no further interruptions and no UI elements popping up would allow much more fluid and immersive skating.

Umm, have we acquired the ability to search for three letter terms in the forums?

It really is a shame if we can't search the classifieds for "HUD"?

Only some... send all other suggestions to Jeska so she can update the database.

The other day people posted a thread about going out to explore some newly added sims before they got all built up, and I posted a cynical, jaded comment about why bother, it's just a bunch of green land textures and trees nearly identical to all the rest.

That cynical jaded viewpoint is what one would expect from someone who is not feeling very immersed.

What would make one enjoy flying across the new sims?

Why, it's feeling immersed, feeling the virtual land not as numbers in a database and pixels on a screen but instead feeling them as if they are real land, and the reason to go explore them and feel excited is the same reason that has been making humans do exactly that throughout human history.

I don't know exactly why we go exploring at great cost in the real world but that is beyond the scope of an SL General forum discussion.

I think we are supposed to be feeling that we are in a world while we are here, the world of Essell, as some have called it, but the same Linden company that wants us to feel like we are in a world does things that destroy that feeling.

A world has persistence, stuff that is made stays around because of physical inertia and economics. For example, if you build a building in the real world, it stays there because of physics (hopefully) and it doesn't just get torn down and replaced the minute it gets built because of economics - it costs too much to do that.

The consequence is that buildings and structures persist, and you can have a memory of some place from a while back, and miss it, and go there and sometimes - there it is!

Here is SL we are constantly having it brought to our attention that all of this is fake and artificial by the simple act of adding new sims.

The way the telehub builds vanished in a change from one version to another, all at the same time, without a trace , was very artificial . I didn't really expect them to go like that, just blip one time they are there and next time they are gone. I did go around and take some pictures, and 'Torley tooks a bunch . I felt a sentimental attachment to the old telehubs. I miss appearing at Ahern and jumping off and making the hello splat to the crowd.

The old telehub builds got me immersed in them.

There are shades of immersion.


One example: watching a really cool movie. But just... seeing... it.

Another example: a shared dream. That you are experiencing with others.




The first flavour is helped along by poly, particles, and ooh-so-shiny.

The second is of the mind. It can be induced by mere whispers to the ear, or little more than text.





What pulls me in? When I can sense the presence of others around me, and how they feel.

Without other humans around, SL deconstructs back to polygons - a mere curiosity.



So how can we tell how others feel, and how do we project it naturally?

1. If facial features were possible, or perhaps cued by our chat - a major help. This is something we can script ourselves, perhaps?

2. Voices, human or processed - to convey subtle things.

3. Constraints. Enforcing a geography of the mind. While I do not recommend it - shutting off teleporting and flying would really increase immersion.

Saying goodbye would mean something, once more.

In order to make virtual worlds more immersive, it would be wise to amplify that aspect which mostly brings such worlds to life. Namely, communication and community. It's interesting to note that, while the stereotypical depiction of virtual reality (where you don a helmet that beams sensory data to your eyes and ears) ultimately failed, the rather less 'real' worlds of MUDS and text-based virtual realities like Worlds Chat flourished. Ultimately this is not surprising. The worlds where you immersed yourself in wrap-around stereoscopic vision did not cater for the fact that human beings are social animals. You were literally alone in these worlds. On the other hand, massively-multiplayer online worlds offered community and communication in spades. The world really seems localised when a girl from England can sail in a boat with a girl in America, something I have done in SL.

However, I feel there is something lacking when it comes to communication. We communicate with words, but that is only one aspect of human communication. Humans also use facial expressions, hand gestures and body language, signals that can change the context of what you say. For instance, consider the phrase 'oh, you're so funny'. The connotations of this can change, depending on the such things like I'm smiling when I say it (in which case, I genuinely think you are funny) or if I am sitting with my arms folded, looking unamused (in which case, it's a sarcastic comment).

Ideally, I would like a way to put body language and facial expressions into Second Life that go beyond playing pre-recorded animations. Maybe something like a web-cam that captures my facial expression and maps that onto my avatar, so if you piss me off, it's gonna show on Extropia's face.

Um, but a downside to this would be if I am sitting here thinking, 'damn it why won't this rez...arghhh this lag is killing me' and you see Extropia with a face like thunder and think 'oo what did i say to upset her?'

These discussions always leave me with the impression that people feel we should lock down a "feel" of Second Life and only ever see it that way. But I'm variably immersed in SL.

When visiting a newly landscaped or heavily themed sim, I activate dreamlike immersion, turn on the sound, ignore chats, et cetera.

When playing a game or meeting with a group of friends, I feel immersed enough to sit down and use the odd animation but also do ungridded things such as drink coffee and answer the phone.

When I'm working, building, scripting, walking a new resident through something, the interface is simply another tool running on my desktop.

Building works the same way. Sometimes people build to provide an immersive atmosphere such as Lauk's nest. Sometimes they build to facilitate socialization (clubs) but with the assumption that people will also do other things (be away) while utilizing the area. Other things, such as the Library Tower of Primitives or Particle Laboratory, are built for the purpose of using them as tools with no "support" for immersion at all.

So it's a choice of the builder to provide immersive features or not, then a choice of visitors to participate in the build, and community, as they please at that time. It a very complex formula to reduce to THIS is immersion and THAT is not.

What an intereresting topic!

One of the things I think which would help immersion--and it's an idea which has been touched on already in this thread--is the transformation of as many client widgets as possible into in-world phenomena.

For instance, when changing clothes or searching inventory, wouldn't it be a step in the right direction if, instead of having an onscreen list pop open, an inworld artifact such as a wardrobe or suitcase (or filing cabinet) actually materialized next to the avatar, and there was some animated interaction with that to select and activate inventory items?

Likewise, a property editing request could trigger an inworld terraforming tool which actually hovered over the ground and responded to the avie's touch with appropriate pyrotechnics, raising and lowering land, etc.

I think such things, cleverly designed and implemented with a little sparkle, could draw residents through their monitors a bit more into the Grid itself.

-- ethan

Yep, this pretty well describes what my button bars do. 2 of the 3 designs use numbered buttons, but each button could be retextured to match different animations. I would welcome animators making textures to match their animations for use on the button bars. There is also a text version which uses a little more screen real estate, but it displays the names of the currently loaded animations. Also, you can change the alpha of the bars to make them transparent just as you mentioned.

For some users, knocking down a few beers or such can help greatly in putting aside the stress of the real world day and getting into the feeling that you are really flying or dancing or falling in lust in-world.

I haven't had the experience of smoking pot or doing any other drugs while using SL but I would wager that for some SL users they can can increase the feeling of being your avatar.