Meta - previously known as Facebook - announced on Twitter that its avatars will have legs.
"Everyone has been waiting for this, but seriously, legs are hard, which is why other virtual reality systems don’t have them either”, said Zuckerberg at Meta Connect Development.
It was in 2021 when Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced a new term: Meta.
Meta’s focus is to bring the Metaverse to people’s home and every day life. It will help people connect, find communities and grow business.
The Metaverse is a hybrid between online social experiences expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world. Avatars will be the key characters in the functioning of the Metaverse.
This project will bring together augmented reality and virtual reality developers, content creators, marketers to celebrate the company’s growth.
Avatar soon will have additions: over $1499 “pro” headset, integration with Microsoft Office and The Office and - finally - legs.
Legs are the most requested item but their technological mechanism of operation is difficult.
Developers will try many positions of characters’ legs and feet using number of inputs employing advanced attempts to predict their moves based on models of human being’s anatomy transported to the virtual world.
In August, the Facebook CEO went viral thanks to a post in which you could see M. Zuckerberg’s avatar standing in front of the Eiffel Tower.
That photo was seen worldwide because it appeared to be innovative but, in reality, it was very basic.
Later, he shared a render of the past version and this is better because more realistic.
Zuckerberg said: “I know the photo I posted earlier this week was pretty basic – it was taken very quickly to celebrate a launch. The graphics in Horizon are capable of much more.”
Few months later, in fact, a fantastic news has arrived.
Previously were used cameras mounted inside the headset to track were in the virtual world a user is looking. But now, it enables new levels of observation with advertisers able to estimate who has looked at what promotions for how long.
Right now, upgraded avatars will be available in Horizon Worlds before Meta opens doors to other users.
Meta has created a software development kit and the avatars can be used in third-party VR experience and other apps.
VR experience will be support by Unreal Engine and iOS and Android support for Unity.
In Meta’s experience, users can create their own customer avatars which will be available on Messenger, Whatsapp and Instagram video calls. They’ll very realistic and will be imitate users’ expressions and movements on Meta Quest Pro - the high.
Meta will facilitate avatars creation in order to make the platform accessible even to less experienced users.
SOURCE: The Guardian
Chiara Chiommino is a graduating student in science of communication with work’s experience in social media marketing and web marketing as Brand Manager for Italian Cigar Group SRL. She took part in an internship experience entitled "Il Metaverso" in Italy.
