Why Meta's virtual-reality avatars are finally getting legs - ABC News

MENLO PARK, Calif. -- Why is it truthful hard to physique a metaverse avatar — a ocular practice of ourselves successful the integer satellite — that walks connected 2 legs?

“I deliberation everyone has been waiting for this," said a cartoonish integer mentation of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, unveiling his caller avatar legs and jumping up and down astatine a virtual-reality lawsuit Tuesday. "But seriously, legs are hard. Which is wherefore different virtual world systems don’t person them either.”

Early avatar models introduced by Meta, arsenic good arsenic Microsoft, person been ridiculed for appearing arsenic legless, waist-up bodies floating astir their virtual worlds.

That's successful portion due to the fact that tech companies person been anxious to amusement disconnected their advancement successful gathering retired virtual-reality environments portion inactive moving connected the method challenges of making avatars much human-like and realistic. Meta renamed itself from Facebook past twelvemonth successful hopes of jumpstarting its firm translation into a supplier of metaverse experiences for enactment and play.

Zuckerberg described legs arsenic “probably the astir requested diagnostic connected our roadmap” and said they volition beryllium disposable soon connected Meta's Horizon virtual-reality platform. He said the situation is perceptual, involving however the encephalon — taking successful images seen though a virtual-reality headset — accepts a rendering based connected however accurately it is positioned.

Legs are harder to render accurately due to the fact that they're often hidden from view.

“If your legs are nether a table oregon if your arms artifact your presumption of them, past your headset can’t spot them directly,” helium said.

Zuckerberg said the institution has been moving to amended however its artificial quality systems way and foretell wherever legs and different assemblage parts should beryllium moving.