Whats a avatar?

What the topic says. Whats a avatar?

An avatar can mean two things:

First, it's the person that you are in-world. i.e. Phoenix Psaltery is the avatar that belongs to the person I am in "real life."

But also, the word avatar is commonly used to refer to different forms that we wear in-world; for example, usually, I am a tall, dark-haired human male, but once in a great while I decide to wear a different avatar; a zebra, a bunny rabbit, an alien beast, etc.

Hope that helps.

P2

Ok thank you!

If you want a little trivia, the word avatar stems from Hindu mythology, and means the bodily manifestation of a god on Earth. In modern cyberspace, the word avatar refers to anything that represents a human user. Just as how in the mythology a mortal body would serve as a tool or vessel by which a deity's consciousness would be rendered able to interact with the real world, a digital "body" is what allows each of us to project our consciousness into virtual reality, and interact with the cyber world.

Here on the forums, you have the option to use a picture as your avatar (which you can set from the QuickLinks menu at the top of the screen). In Second Life, we all have 3-dimensional polygonal models that serve as our avatars. As Phoenix said, your avatar in SL is the physical representation of you as a user in the world.

Here's the relevant dictionary.com entry for avatar, by the way:

Thanks for the info!