At the Meta Connect event this week, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a slew of updates to avatars in Horizon Worlds. Meta has invested billions of dollars in its metaverse thanks to Zuckerberg's growing bullishness on VR. To better reflect its increasing focus on the metaverse, the company also changed its name from Facebook to Meta last year in a move that many suggested was an attempt to divert the negative media publicity following multiple scandals.
Despite Meta's unwavering faith in the metaverse, VR has largely failed to attract mainstream consumers. While the various variants of the Oculus Rift and other VR headsets have their takers, the sector remains a niche, and is restricted to gamers for the most part. Undaunted by the lack of mainstream support, Meta is going ahead with its planned VR announcements, including the Meta Quest Pro mixed reality headset that was launched for a whopping $1,500. As pointed out by many social media users, that price is higher than the combined cost of buying a PlayStation 5, an Xbox Series X and a Nintendo Switch, so it might not have many takers.
According to press release by Meta, one of the impending changes to the Horizon Worlds avatars is the introduction of legs that the company says will happen sometime next year. As of now, the avatars include only the torsos that hover unnaturally off the ground, but the addition of legs will enable them to walk around in the metaverse to more closely resemble real-world human movement.
Legs Are Coming To Metaverse Avatars
Zuckerberg says avatars with legs is the single-most requested feature on the company's roadmap, but is hard to implement. Avatars in other VR systems don't have legs either because it is challenging for VR headsets to accurately estimate the exact positioning of people's arms and legs, meaning they could show up inaccurately in the metaverse. While the company's algorithms have gotten better at figuring out the positioning of people's arms, Zuckerberg believes that legs can be more difficult due to occlusion. Avatar legs will first come to Horizon Worlds before being available in third-party apps.
Meta is also adding a myriad of other features to its metaverse avatars, including the ability to customize them with a diverse variety of skin tones, abilities, facial features, hairstyles, and clothes. According to the company, metaverse fashion could soon be a big deal, with buyers getting to buy virtual Prada and Balenciaga products for their avatars if they are willing to spend the big bucks. What's more, users will even be able to show off their avatar's clothes and accessories within any VR app, irrespective of whether they're owned by Meta or not. Meta also announced it will launch a VR store later this year to help users shop clothing and accessories for their avatars. Some of the apps that will support Meta's upgraded avatars include Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, Zoom, and more.
Source: Oculus