The document discusses social VR practices in connected environments and the impact of 5G networks on digital retail. It covers theoretical backgrounds on social commercial features, social play, and prosocial interaction in VR. Key aspects analyzed include avatar affordances, recursive identities in avatar customization and world building, and a social VR cross-channel cloud model. Future research questions explore spatial cognition in connected "twin world" environments and the transformation of markets and values with 5G network spaces.

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Creative Social VR Practices in Connected Environments:
The 5G Lift for Retails in Digital Urban Context
Heejung Kwon, Ph.D.
Information & Interaction Design, Underwood International College, Yonsei University
Andrew Hudson-Smith, Professor of Digital Urban Systems
The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL
Time : Thursday, 06 August 2020, 10 -11 am (EDT) Track 2 Session 1

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3. Introduction
• Social VR, the new digital ecology
− “What is home?”
− Research Questions
• First, how will the interaction between ecological conditions, and human
cognitions shape the requirements of emerging experience architectures?
• Second, what digital instruments will facilitate and enhance the distributed
collaborations among users?
• Lastly, what model will explain the dynamics between the normative evolvement,
and digital instruments as social infrastructures?
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4. Theoretical Background
• Social Commercial Features (Kolesnichenko, 2019)
1) Embodied Locomotion (teleportation, flying, jumping, walking)
2) Avatar Aesthetics (visual and behavioural fidelity, avatar selection,
appearances, customization)
3) Personal Space (avatar personal bubbles)
4) Social Mechanics (friending, emoting, muting, blocking, etc.)
5) Avatar’s Relation to Virtual Identity (such as personalization
affordances of avatars)
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5. High Level Analysis of Avatar Affordance in Social VR Application (Kolesnichenko et al, 2019)
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Facebook Spaces Mozilla Hubs High Fidelity Rec Room AltspaceVR Anyland VRChat
Embodied Locomotion:
Teleportation ○ ● ● ● ● ● ●
Other Navigation Mechanics ○ ○ ● ● ● ● ●
Create Custom Worlds ○ ○ ● ● ● ● ●
Default Avatar Selection ● ● ● ● ● ○ ●
In-world Avatar Customization ● ○ ● ● ● ○ ○
Import Avatar ○ ○ ● ○ ○ ○ ●
Share Custom Avatar ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ● ●
Humanoid Avatars ● ○ ● ● ● ● ●
Non-humanoid Avatars ○ ● ● ○ ● ● ●
Photo-generated Personal
Avatar ● ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
Built-in Facial Expressions ● ○ ○ ● ○ ○ ●
Emoting System ● ○ ● ● ● ○ ○
Personal Space Mechanics ● ● ● ● ● ○ ●
Embodied Social Mechanics ● ○ ● ● ● ○ ○
Unique Affordances Image Recognition Import Media File in VR Platform Creation Tools Group Travel Cross-platform Support In-world Creation Tools Import Custom Avatar

6. Theoretical Background
• Social Play (Isbister, 2010)
−Contextual Factors
−Motivational Factors
−Conceptual and Theoretical Grounding
• Social Learning
• Emotional Contagion
• Physical Feedback Loop
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7. Theoretical Background
• Prosocial Interaction (McVeigh-Schultz, 2018)
− In VR worlds, user experience interests escalates emotional and social
aspects of everyday usages.
− UX research concerns focus on how embodied digital spaces amplify
emotional experiences, and how it changes people’s interactions even more.
− People tend to be more friendly, or sometimes more aggressive, or
sometimes extremely raged.
− What is “being social” in virtual world? Or how pro-social behaviours affect
the interactions in virtual worlds?
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10. Recursive Identities
• Social VR Retail Model
− An avatar is a pivotal substance that proposes and operates social
relationships (Kolesnichenko, 2019)
− Component-based Social VR avatar commerce is a unit architecture that
builds up meta-social VR worlds, which is equivalent to what city is for
society.
− Figure 1 shows the Sansar project inworld merchant system UI. Sansar
project corporate system only mediates the distribution of user-created
fashion items in the cross-channel of inworld and web interfaces.
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12. Recursive Identities
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Figure 2. The Aneja’s recursive avatar creation research(2019) presented two pipelines for retargeting an expression from human to the
avatar. A) Expression Synthesis via Action Units Controls. Its pipeline takes a human video as an input, recognizes 12 FACS Action Units from
the user’s detected face and synthesizes the same expression on the avatar’s face. B) Expression Synthesis via Bone Position Controls. Its
pipeline takes a human video as an input, detects the user’s face, generates 3D parameters on the primary character ’Ray’ through a 3D-CNN
and synthesizes the same expression on the avatar’s face.

13. Recursive Spaces
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Figure 3. Hierarchical Recursion Generating Fractal Self-Similarity: Top-Down (left) to Bottom-Up (right) (Batty & Hudson-Smith, 2007)

14. Recursive Spaces
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Figure 4. VRChat Home Kit: A shell of
recursive world

15. Recursive Spaces
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Figure 5. VRChat Recursive instances that
unlimitedly copy the original world

16. Research Method
• Artefact Analysis and Model
− Artefact Models in 3D worlds
− The 3 Tier model of participants,
application artefacts, and
controller suggested how we
should standardise the design
artefacts analysis targets in VR
environments.
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Figure 6. Principal VW layout with space 'dimensions'
and application 'artefacts' (Christiansson, 2001)

17. Data Collection & Analysis
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Category Features Functions
Creation
Avatar Customization Identity Creation
Store Exchanges
Digital Currency Pro-social Market
World Building Environment Creation
Social
Events VR Meetup
Discord Connection Tutorial/Technical Help
Who’s online Connectivity
Who’s near me Voice Interaction
Table 2. Social VR Components

18. Data Collection & Analysis
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Figure 7. Recursively Embedding the Virtual City (Batty & Hudson-Smith, 2007)

19. Results & Conclusions
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Channel Artefact Action Code
Social VR Inworld Avatar Customization
Shopping Interface
Currency Market
3D Building
Emote Controller
Communication (Voice/Chat)
Avatar Locomotion
World Quest #Creation
#Internal
Discord Team Features
Communication with Service Providers
Event
Help/Tutorial
World Quest Support
Peer Leaning
Wider Connection
#Information
#External
#Community Hub
Web Administration/Profile
Shopping
Event
Help/Tutorial
Downloads
Program Updates
Shopping
Learning
Administration
#Backend
#Trade
Table 3. Cross-channel Artefacts of Social Play

20. Social VR Cross-Channel Cloud Model
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Aggregation
Avatar
Locomotion
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Future Studies
• The Architecture of Digital Labyrinth
− Spatial cognition and human perception in connected environments of twin world
− HCI models for AI: Autonomous systems and human creativity
• More Research Questions
− What will be a locus of attention when we are collectively migrating digital spaces
that are embodied to contain and transit multi-layered experiences of human and
artificial intelligences?
− How will the shell of 5G network spaces transform markets, and their values?
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