Mark Zuckerberg just previewed Meta's new VR avatars – and they don't suck

Mark Zuckerberg (R) appeared as an AI avatar during a podcast interview with Lex Fridman (L).

YouTube/Lex Fridman Podcast

• Mark Zuckerberg showed off Meta's new photorealistic VR avatars in his first "Metaverse interview."
• He said Meta plans to integrate them into its apps, but that the technology isn't quite ready yet.
• Zuckerberg was mocked on social media last year for posting a selfie of his cartoonish VR avatar. 

Mark Zuckerberg has demoed Meta's brand new photorealistic avatars, and they are scarily lifelike.

In a "Metaverse interview" on the Lex Fridman podcast, Zuckerberg showed off Meta's new Codec virtual reality avatars that use scanning technology to build 3D models of the user's face.

And unlike the company's original Metaverse avatars, which were mocked for being legless, dead-eyed, and deeply disconcerting, these projections are extremely realistic.

"This gets to the core of what the vision around augmented reality is, of delivering a sense of presence no matter where you are in the world," the Meta CEO said in the interview, which was conducted primarily in the virtual space.

The Codec avatars require the users' faces to be scanned to build a 3D virtual model.

YouTube/Lex Fridman Podcast

"Most of communication is not actually through words, but with expressions – we tried to capture that with the more cartoon-designed avatars that we have, but there's obviously a certain realism that comes with delivering the photorealistic experience," Zuckerberg said.

He suggested that users would be able to edit their virtual doppelgangers to be more emotive, and joked that he might use it to adjust his famously expressionless delivery.

Impressive as the avatars are, it will likely be a while before they are widely available. Zuckerberg said that Meta was still working on simplifying the scanning process and that the company will begin integrating the technology into its products over the next few years.

The photorealistic projections are a dramatic improvement over the cartoonish avatars used for Horizon Worlds, Meta's free VR gaming and social platform.

Mark Zuckerberg's much-mocked original metaverse selfie.

Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg was savagely mocked on social media last year after posting a selfie of his metaverse avatar outside a virtual version of the Eiffel Tower, with commentators comparing the graphics to 1990s video games.

Zuckerberg acknowledged at the time that the avatar was "basic."

Meta has struggled to drive interest in Horizon Worlds, even among its own employees, and Zuckerberg told Lex Fridman that the new photorealistic avatars may help lure in people put off by the Metaverse's uncanny graphics.

"People were blown away by the experience, but we do get some feedback that people are saying that the avatars don't feel as realistic in this environment," he said.

"I think something like this could make a very big difference," he added.

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Contributer : Business Insider https://ift.tt/nJs45Rm

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