Oculus Avatars — Why does it matter?
Last week Facebook held an annual developers conference focused exclusively on VR — Oculus Connect. Many new developments around their platform were announced, some very important for Wolfprint 3D.
Social VR is developing
Mark Zuckerberg came on the stage first, demonstrating the new social VR platform that Facebook has been working on. You can play games like chess or cards, sword fight with pre-made or DIY-drawn swords, or watch a giant TV screen together with your friends in VR. You can even take a phone call inside Facebook Messenger, or take a VR selfie and instantly share it to Facebook.
“Enjoying VR together with the people you care about is one of the most meaningful experiences that VR can offer.” — Lauren Vegter, Product Manager in Oculus
Facebook knows how powerful social VR can be. We are happy to see they have made another big step towards bringing that technology to the consumer market.
Oculus avatars
The most exciting announcement for was the Oculus Avatars.
“We’ve talked a lot in Oculus over the years how we believe social is going to be one of the primary platform pillars of VR. And avatars are a really important part of that vision.” — Nate Mitchell, Head of product in Oculus
Oculus launched an avatar platform where users can choose between pre-made hairstyles, face types and clothing to create a virtual representation of themselves.
The Avatar system will go live in December, and it looks like you’ll be able to use the Avatar in a few different games and apps. One of those apps is Oculus Rooms, which is essentially a virtual hangout space for you and your friends.
Creating a virtual representation for yourself for virtual reality experiences is going to be very important part of making VR truly social. We know it, Facebook knows it. We are happy to see Facebook going to the direction we always thought it will.
“Avatars are going to form the foundation of your identity in VR, enabling you to represent yourself in social interactions” — Lauren Vegter, Product Manager is Oculus
What does it mean for Wolfprint 3D?
While the Facebook’s new avatar system leaves room for some personalization, their avatars are still very far from being an accurate representation of a real person. For creating authentic connections, a better solution is needed. The only way to create realistic life-like 3D avatars is by using high-quality 3D scanning technology. Wolfprint 3D is in a good position to solve that problem.
“I believe developing virtual humans is going to be the single most important factor in making VR a part of our everyday lives thanks to the social interaction it will enable.” — Michael Abrash, Chief Scientist in Facebook
References:
Social VR Demo | Avatars demo | Keynote highlights | Full Keynote
