Proceedings of the Conference on Mathematical Foundations of Informatics MFOI’2018, July 2-6, 2018, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova An Anthropomorphic Avatar-based Approach for Virtual Tutoring Software Olesea Caftanatov Abstract This paper presents the currently most used types and styles of avatars, reviews the attention effect of the anthropomorphic avatars on users and, finally we purpose an anthropomorphic avatar-based design for our GeoMe’s virtual tutor. Keywords: avatar, virtual tutor, visual identification, anthropomorphic avatar. 1. Introduction In an increasingly digital world, where the popularity of web-based social networking is permanently growing, people communicate through technical devices, practically, same often as without using them. In order to visually represent themselves when communicating with each other online, the users often exploit a software component called “avatar”. Generally, an avatar is an embodiment of a person or an idea. The term “avatar” originates in Hinduism, from the Sanskrit noun “avatāra”, the meaning of which is “down coming”. It refers to a “descent” of the divine into realm of material existence, usually for the purpose of protecting or restoring dharma (cosmic order, righteousness) [1]. Avatar literally means “descent, alight, to make one’s appearance” [2] and refers to the embodiment of the essence of a superhuman being or a deity in another form. This word also implies “to overcome, to remove, to bring down, and to cross something” [3]. In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user’s alter ego or a character [4]. Avatar’s form can vary from 2D model to 3D model or even to 4D model. In general, two-dimensional avatar represents a static or animated user picture used in communication © 2018 by Olesea Caftanatov Olesea Caftanatov between people, like in socialized web sites, blogs, forums or even live chats. Moreover 3D avatar model is used for computer games, since 1979. The early use was in role-playing computer game “Avatar” created in the University of Illinois Control Data Corporation PLATO System [5], which was influenced by many other games, but especially by dnd (A.k.a “The Game of Dungeons”) [6]. The first time this word was used as a term for the user’s identity on screen in “Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar” of 1985 [7]. Recently, the greater challenge became the creation of the 4D avatars (like hologram avatar). An example of this can be found in [8] – this is a footage from an exhibition game match in “Yu-Gi-Oh!” from World Championship 2017. Nowadays, in addition to games, the use of avatars influences all fields of our life including business, marketing, science, healthcare, digital art, telecommunication and educational systems. In this work, we will focus our attention on the design of an avatar for educational software GeoMe. In our case, the avatar is the tutor’s embodiment, which helps the users to learn geometry courses. 2. Types of Avatar Design According to [9-12] reviews various types of avatar are used, and based on one of which experts can detect and make the psychological portrait of user. Avatars offer a broad range of behavioral and emotional expressions. Below there are described only five types of avatar design. Anonymous avatar – basically, this type of avatar is used by new users (beginners) or by the category of people, who visit some web sites for the first and last time, or by people that do not care how their avatar looks like. In early days, different applications used a grey picture of a man or a woman to represent an anonymous avatar. While in present, exist various ways to make more creative anonymous avatar. For instance, GitHub generates identicons for anyone without avatar on their platform [13]. Their identicons are unique geometric 5x5 pixel patterns generated based on a hash of a user’s IP address (see Figure 1). 4 An Anthropomorphic Avatar-based Approach for Virtual Tutoring Software Figure 1. Identicons generated by GitHub Another creative style of anonymous avatar is initials with a unique background color. Depending on what kind of information is available from the user profile, system will display the first or last initial, like Google does (see Figure 2), or combination of initials as Dropbox does. Figure 2. Initials generated by Google Additionally, Google found a funny way to represent the anonymous users who visualize the shared document. Instead of only using initials icon with different background colors for each person, they associate each person with an animal [14] (see Figure 3). In addition, to some expected animals like dog, kitty or bear, they also display extinct or mythical animals [15], such as auroch, chupacabra, ifrit etc. 5 Olesea Caftanatov Figure 3. Anonymous animal type avatar generated by Google Drive Animal avatar – regarding this type of avatar, people themselves use it as much as various systems that generate anonymous icons. According to [16] people like to use animal avatars because it somehow relates to their pets or because animals symbolize certain traits or attributes (e.g. strength, loyalty, grace, independence, cunning, etc.) or characteristics admired by the person. Also, in some case the chosen animal probably bears some psychological significance to a person, perhaps it represents some aspect of his identity. For example: a cat means weasel, domesticity, independence; a dog – loyalty, honesty; a snake – wisdom; a fox – cunningness; a bull – strength, perseverance [17]. Figure 4. Animal avatars 6 An Anthropomorphic Avatar-based Approach for Virtual Tutoring Software The opposed type of avatar to anonymous one is real face avatar. Some users prefer to use real face avatar, it can be their self-photo or their loved one. Usually, when a user presents a photo with them, it may be a gesture of honesty, romance or a sign of friendship. The peculiarities of people with this type of avatar are their complete confidence in their rightness of their way of life and thoughts (Figure 5). Meanwhile, real face avatar has its patterns too, for instance: if the presented image displays a couple – it means demonstration of their own relations, their own usefulness; a photo from childhood – means melancholy, users miss the time from past; a selfie – usually, behind of a self-avatar can hide a real narcissus. Owners of self-avatars often change profile image, it is a way to demonstrate what they like, what they can be in various angles in different situations with a large range of emotions that they express. Figure 5. Real face avatars Nature avatar – it can be natural landscapes (e.g. mountains, sea, waterfall, space, etc.), natural phenomena (e.g. lightning, explosion, fire, snowing, sandstorm, rain, etc.), floral, etc. Architectural design considers belonging to the same type of avatar (see Figure 6). For this type, the background is more important than the details. People that hide beside such avatar are inclined to non-standard thinking. Usually, they do not like to talk about themselves, but they are always ready to speculate about the world order (e.g. philosophy, politics, science, economics and other favorite topics). 7 Olesea Caftanatov Figure 6. Nature avatars Character avatar – this type includes a wide range of fantasy styles, it can be an idol from movie that they greatly admire and love. Many users have desires (conscious or unconscious) to have superpowers like movie heroes (Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, Flash, Cat-Woman, etc.). Often behind such avatar a teenager hides. Anyway, who does not want to be strong and invulnerable? This type of idolization does not limit only to movies, but to cartoons, books, comics, games, manga, anime too (see Figure 7). Figure 7. Character avatars 8 An Anthropomorphic Avatar-based Approach for Virtual Tutoring Software 3. Avatar vs Gravatar As we know, an avatar is an image that represents us online - a little icon that usually displays next to our nickname. It can be static image (.jpeg, .bmp, .png, etc.) or animated (.gif). The acronym “GIF” stands for the Graphics Interchange Format and is one of the most common avatar formats on World Wide Web. In order to not overuse the memory capacity of application, all systems have a size file limitation indifferent of what avatar format we use. Therefore, depending of websites or other application we need to resize our images according to avatars size limitation. It can be 24 x24 pixels or even 200x200 pixels. Sometimes when we resize our favorite image to the needed requirements, our image deforms and this can really frustrate. We are compelled to go through this process many times, because we daily use not only one website or live chat. For those users who like to change their avatar very often, obvious it costs time, so one solution can be using Gravatar. A Gravatar is a Globally Recognized Avatar [18]. Gravatar is a service for providing globally – unique avatars and was created by Tom Preston – Werner [19]. The main point is that user needs to create and upload profile just once, after that wherever he (she) participates in any Gravatar-enable sites, their gravatar image will follow them automatically. Therefore, this allows each commenter to have their identity throughout the World Wide Web. Those users who want to keep their profile low should use avatar, but people who have their own business, developers, bloggers or anyone who wants to build a brand should start using a gravatar [20], because the gravatars help them to be recognized on large scale. 4. Avatar Design Principles According to [21] Park Ji Yong and Nam Yong Hyun review, various types, style of avatar build up a well-articulated set of design principles for effective avatar design. Based on avatar design consideration (mediator, personality, customization and interactivity) the foundations for five avatar design principles were set.