5. BLENDED REALITY CHARACTER
A Blended reality character is designed to maintain visual and kinetic continuity between the fully virtual and the fully physical. The character is persistent in that it can only exist in one location (or subspace) at a time. All appearance, movement, actions and attitudes must consistently build towards the character’s style or personality. This essence must be maintained across the blended reality context of interaction in order to trigger a social response. Research shows a character doesn’t have to look like a real person to give and receive real social responses [18]. Information about personality can come from anywhere. Inconsistencies in the presentation of characters, however, will diminish the purity of personality and thereby contribute to confusion and even dislike. The internal consistency of the character is doubly complicated by its dual representation in blended reality. A strong, consistent personality embodied in a simple form helps reduce complexity and delivers on expectations. By design, interactions with a blended reality character should be simple and causality must be clearly shown or it will fail. The approach used in designing this blended reality character took as its departure point the concept that children should be able to use what comes naturally as situated learners in the real world with real developmental needs and an insatiable appetite for play.