Zuckerberg’s virtual universe takes a “big” step: adding legs for 3D avatars

The most requested feature in Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse has finally arrived: the legs for the virtual characters in this universe.

Although it looks very strange, so far the avatars in Meta’s Horizon Worlds virtual reality social network have moved without legs underneath. Instead, these avatars are floating on the ground with no legs underneath.

This is because it is very difficult to accurately render the legs while they are moving and can make the image look distorted and ugly. Mr. Zuckerberg said during the Meta Connect VR conference on Tuesday: ” The legs are especially hard. That’s why other virtual reality systems don’t describe it either .”

Meta’s current solution is to attach some legs to the floating bodies to make their VR system more realistic. But now the company is preparing to introduce full-body avatars to the Horizon World social network, using machine learning algorithms to precisely position body parts together, even when you are sitting in a chair and wearing a virtual reality device.

Adding extra legs to these characters could be Zuckerberg’s answer to criticisms of low-quality graphics in the company’s metaverse. In August, when Zuckerberg shared a 3D avatar of himself in Horizon Worlds, it became an internet joke when it came to graphic quality comparable to the Nintendo Wii console from 2006.

But not only trying to create full-body 3D avatars, Meta is also wanting it to come to life. During the last Meta Connect event, Zuckerberg also showed off a high-tech avatar that looks exactly like his real face.

This technology comes from Meta’s 2nd generation “Avatar Codec” system, which can create incredibly realistic 3D avatars from anyone’s face. The same system was also able to recreate the vivid facial expressions when the avatar spoke, while maintaining the correct effects of lighting and shading on the character’s skin and hair.

However, the Avatar Codec requires complex technologies to shape the character. So Meta has developed a solution so that users can use their smartphones and create Codec Avatar with the same quality.

The solution, called “Instant Avatar,” allows you to use video clips that capture your face from multiple angles and then create a variety of facial expressions in a matter of minutes. While the end result isn’t quite as impressive, it’s still very realistic.

It still takes a long time for Meta to perfect its technology, along with new security measures. As such, the company plans to first implement leg grafting on avatars in Horizon Worlds before expanding the full-body avatar rollout to other VR applications. Next year the company will make its technology available to third-party developers so they can add custom actions and behaviors to their avatars.

Refer to CNET, PCMag