Meta Used Motion Capture for Avatar Legs at Connect Event, Report Says

Meta showed off its next-generation avatars with legs at its Meta Connect event, but according to a report from UploadVR, the legs shown at the event were pre-animated before the event using motion capture technology.

“To enable this preview of what’s to come, the segment featured animations created from motion capture,” Meta told UploadVR.

“Legs are hard,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the event. “We’re going to bring legs to Horizon [Worlds] first, and we’re going to keep bringing them to more experiences over time as we improve our technology stack.” The company’s present-day avatars appear as floating torsos with heads, arms and hands.

Meta didn’t immediately respond to CNET’s request for comment.

In addition to legs, Meta said, avatars will also show a wider range of facial expressions and reactions to better convey how people are feeling. People will also be able to choose more body types and skin tones for their avatars to better represent who they are.

Meta also announced a new feature that lets you use your avatar in Zoom meetings. Once it’s launched, if you don’t want to be on camera but you still want to show up on screen, your avatar will be able to take your place.

These features are expected to arrive in 2023.

Facebook rebranded itself as Meta in 2021 to signal its ambition to be one of the driving forces in metaverse adoption.

“In our DNA, we are a company that builds technology to connect people, and the metaverse is the next frontier,” Zuckerberg said at the time.

Zuckerberg envisions the metaverse as a 3D virtual world that you might enter while wearing a headset or AR glasses — like Meta’s Quest 2 VR headset.

For more from Meta Connect, check out CNET’s Quest Pro hands-on review, read the news about Meta and NBCUniversal’s partnership, and venture behind the doors of Meta’s Reality Labs.

Correction, Oct. 12: A previous version of this story named the feature that will let Meta avatars appear in Zoom calls. This feature hasn’t been named yet.