{"id":6484,"date":"2022-05-09T00:25:53","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T05:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.zoha-islands.com\/?p=6484"},"modified":"2022-05-09T00:25:53","modified_gmt":"2022-05-09T05:25:53","slug":"alter-ego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/alter-ego\/","title":{"rendered":"Alter Ego"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"entry-header\">FOX &#8216;s <em>Alter Ego<\/em>: A Mixed Reality Competition Show from Producers Who Don&#8217;t Understand Avatars or Why Virtual Worlds Make Them Real<\/h3>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"entry-body\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0Irl2pBmVZI\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Above: Pop star Grimes, who believes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en\/article\/evkgvz\/what-is-rokos-basilisk-elon-musk-grimes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">reality is a virtual world created by an omniscient AI<\/a>, explains how Alter Ego works<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Months after its producers began scouting among the Second Life community for avatar-based performers, the avatar-based reality competition show <em>Alter Ego<\/em> is here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox.com\/alter-ego\/?cmpid=org=fox-broadcasting::ag=mh::mc=CPC::src=googleadwords::cmp=fbc_mlm_alterego_s1_fy22&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwy7CKBhBMEiwA0Eb7amp3WGipfqIC-Km6fgj8bN9N_jxcG-GebF8yn9Oa11vzr-P6gH-OqBoCFyQQAvD_BwE&amp;gclsrc=aw.ds\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Watch on Fox TV&#8217;s site<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I just saw the first episode and I have mixed feelings about its mixed reality presentation. Fundamentally, the whole concept seems to be directed at an audience who don&#8217;t quite understand how virtual world avatars work, created by producers who definitely don&#8217;t know how they work. Which is strange, because the vast majority of the show&#8217;s target Gen Y\/Z audience (I&#8217;m tempted to say <em>all<\/em> of them) have an avatar in Fortnite and other virtual worlds.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of which, as I suspected, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/pro\/features\/alter-ego-singing-competition-augmented-reality-tv-show-virtual-avatars-1228045\/?fbclid=IwAR1kMaf3Umd5yqSxJ3rgwPQkUxfKUakmR06v3luXWfb3uD6TCR7rrkfDFb8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the show uses Unreal<\/a>, the graphics engine that also runs Fortnite:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-more\">\n<blockquote>To film, Alter Ego relies on 14 cameras, eight of which use advanced camera-tracking technologies. \u201cIt\u2019s not something that\u2019s done in post,\u201d creative producer Michael Zinman \u2014 who previously partnered with Fox on The Masked Singer \u2014 tells Rolling Stone on the still-empty studio floor. Above our heads, thousands of Infrared Reflective (IR) markers \u2014 one-inch-by-one-inch silver squares that, essentially, create a map for these cameras \u2014 twinkle like a mini galaxy. The smart cameras then communicate with Unreal Engine, a video-game design software [sic!], to render the avatars in real time.<\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8230; The problem is, outside a virtual world context like Fortnite, the Unreal avatars seem strange and disconnected from the live audience and judges.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341bf74053ef0282e1235c0e200b image-full img-responsive alignnone\" title=\"Alter Ego FOX reality show avatar virtual world Unreal\" src=\"https:\/\/nwn.blogs.com\/.a\/6a00d8341bf74053ef0282e1235c0e200b-800wi\" alt=\"Alter Ego FOX reality show avatar virtual world Unreal\" width=\"796\" height=\"382\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And while I like the concept of real people who were previously afraid to perform in real life, afraid they&#8217;d be judged on their real life appearance because they don&#8217;t fit the expected mold&#8230; that&#8217;s <em>already a core concept to the reality show competition format<\/em>! (Hello, Susan Boyle became famous for that very reason back in 2009.)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>No: The magic of avatars is not the 3D graphics in and of itself, but the immersive social context of the virtual world in which they appear. It&#8217;s why hundreds if not thousands of people now have full-time professions as performers in countless virtual worlds.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m hopeful the show succeeds but it&#8217;s hard to see that happening, especially after the mocap gimmick wears off. Again, it&#8217;s still missing the opportunity of recruiting virtual world-based performers like Skye Galaxy from Second Life or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCYsGgCD6kvTEYo-Q75VD64g\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TFMJonny<\/a>\u00a0from VRChat to appear, bringing those worlds&#8217; fanbases with them. to cheer them on. But maybe that&#8217;s coming up in later episodes.<\/p>\n<p>If the show survives long enough, that is, because&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tv-and-radio\/2021\/sep\/22\/alter-ego-worst-tv-show-of-2021\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">yikes<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"dcr-1m34hpq\">I\u2019m working on the assumption that <em>Alter Ego<\/em> will be canned after a single episode, because for my own sake I have to place some faith in mankind. But if it isn\u2019t, and this wretched series eventually ends up with a winner, then who will actually become famous? Is it the shy, fallible human who performs backstage with a camera stuck to their forehead? Or is it their perfect avatar? For the life of me, I hope it\u2019s the former. Singing competitions have always carried a sheen of exploitation to them, so imagine how much worse it would be when you\u2019re put to work as the workhorse component of a cartoon fairy. It doesn\u2019t bear thinking about.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1m34hpq\">Hand on heart, Alter Ego is the worst thing I have seen on television in a decade. Please, someone, fire this monstrosity into the sun so it cannot hurt us any more.<\/p>\n<p>A very special thank you to Wagner James and nwn for this opinion post.<\/p>\n<p>Have a Great week from all of us at Zoha Islands and Fruit Islands<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FOX &#8216;s Alter Ego: A Mixed Reality Competition Show from Producers Who Don&#8217;t Understand Avatars or Why Virtual Worlds Make Them Real Above: Pop star Grimes, who believes reality is a virtual world created by an omniscient AI, explains how Alter Ego works Months after its producers began scouting among the Second Life community for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/alter-ego\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6494,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,3,4,5,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6484"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}