Nearly a year after announcing at Connect 2022 that it would make Quest Home’s virtual avatars “legs,” Meta has finally started beta testing. Because general VR headsets cannot see the wearer’s feet, they usually cannot correctly respond to the movements of the feet. Meta’s original solution was to simply make the avatar have no feet at all and float directly in mid-air, but this is really too unnatural.
In the latest beta version of the Quest software, you still can’t look down to see your “feet”, but other people can see your feet, and you can also see your feet through a virtual mirror. This is a bit like the situation in first-person shooters, allowing Meta to bring the walking motion through with relatively simple animations without worrying about the correct position of the feet. However, when you crouch or sit down, there is currently no corresponding animation in third-person view, so it is not sure how this part will be handled.
At present, “feet” has not come to the VR version of Horizon Worlds, and testers can only try it on the mobile version and web version. In addition, Meta has not yet provided relevant development tools to external developers, so they have not yet had the opportunity to play with new “feet”. Meta expects to hold this year’s Connect event next month, and perhaps there will be a more formal announcement by then.