Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared that his company will introduce legs to make its virtual reality metaverse avatars more lifelike, which will be a significant change in Metaverse.
Zuckerberg unveiled Metaverse nearly a year ago, and many quickly criticized the virtual reality platform as unrealistic and ridiculed the 3D digital avatars meant to mimic our bodies lacking lower limbs. Zuckerberg himself was mocked online when he enthusiastically shared a screenshot of his avatar on his Facebook page in August.
Meta says, “Legs have been one of the most requested features on our roadmap, and it’s been a significant area of our focus.”
These upgraded avatars will be available in Horizon Worlds before Meta officially opens them up to other developers.
In Tuesday’s presentation, a visually improved avatar version of Zuckerberg said, “I know you’ve been waiting for this. Everyone has been waiting for this. But seriously, legs are hard, which is why other virtual reality systems don’t have them either.”
In addition, users will soon be able to create and share their Meta avatar in Messenger, WhatsApp (video calls as well), and Instagram. They will be programmed to imitate your expressions and movements during calls, similar to Apple’s Animoji.
“With standalone virtual reality headsets, understanding your leg position is surprisingly difficult because of occlusion. So if your legs are under a desk or your arms block your view of them, then your headset can’t see them directly, and you need to build an AI model to predict your whole body position,” Zuckerberg explained the technical obstacle in the presentation.
Many say that if Meta can’t figure out something as simple as legs and persuade the public that the Metaverse is worth diving into, the company’s future could be at risk. Maybe this is why Zuckerberg gave in and vowed to give the people what they want — no matter how technically intricate that could get.
