Meta updates its avatars with new body shapes, hair and clothing

Meta announced as we speak that it’s introducing new physique shapes, improved hair and clothes textures to its avatars. The corporate additionally introduced that a couple of billion avatars have been created throughout its platforms.

Beginning this month, customers will be capable of select from a wider vary of physique form choices, together with two curvier physique shapes. Meta says it’s updating a few of its current choices to assist differentiate them as properly. Though Meta has beforehand allowed you to decide on your avatar’s physique kind, the corporate says the previous choices had been all fairly related, which is why it’s launching new ones.

As well as, Meta has overhauled how an avatar’s hair, clothes and eyes seem in stickers, profile footage, cowl images and extra.

“Sparing you the nitty-gritty technical breakdown, we’ve added extra element and realism to each hair and clothes — which means whether or not you’re rocking a clear fade and go well with or bedhead and sweats, your avatar ought to pop a little bit higher than earlier than,” the corporate wrote in a blog post. “Stable glow-up, proper? We’ve additionally tweaked our lighting mannequin so as to add a little bit extra of a reflective gleam to your eyes, making them sparkle and produce your character to life.”

Meta has additionally partnered with PUMA to carry seven new outfits to the Meta Avatars Retailer, which launched final yr and allows you to purchase digital garments for his or her avatars.

The corporate first launched avatars in 2020 as a technique to compete with Snap’s Bitmoji and has been constantly updating them since. Most lately, Meta added extra expressions, faces, pores and skin tones and accessibility units to avatars.

Right this moment’s announcement comes as Meta lately opened up Horizon Worlds to teen customers within the U.S. and Canada, after beforehand limiting the social VR platform to customers 18 years of age and above. The transfer got here as lawmakers and children’s rights activists had urged Meta to desert its plans to open up the platform to younger customers.

The brand new additionally comes a day after regardless of large losses in its metaverse investments, CEO Mark Zuckerberg made it some extent to inform traders that he’s not making a u-turn into the AI lane. Somewhat, he sees AI as expertise that works in tandem with the metaverse.