I found out why metaverse avatars don’t have legs
▻https://thenextweb.com/news/metaverse-no-legs-meta-microsoft-analysis
Story by
Ivan Mehta
It’s hard to escape the hype of the metaverse even if you can’t experience much of it. Last year, both Microsoft and Meta (rebranded from Facebook), demoed their virtual worlds of the future.
In the videos depicting these dreamlike spaces — where you could work with your colleagues or hang out and play games — I had a burning question about the avatars representing users: WHERE ARE THEIR LEGS?
After all, the characters in most games with a third-person view have legs. Is it especially hard to do that with virtual versions of ourselves?
A lot of that has to do with sensors. Currently, metaverse experiences are largely restricted to VR headsets; some are compatible with handheld controllers, like the Oculus touch controllers. However, there are hardly any commercially available sensors and controllers for our legs. That means your leg movement can’t be accurately detected and depicted in virtual environments.
One of the things these metaverses are trying to do is to place your real-life self in a virtual setting. Dr.Rolf Illenberger, managing director of VRdirect, an enterprise-focused VR platform company, said that misrepresenting users’ height in VR could annoy them:
In VR, the “physical height” of an avatar can be quite different from your real-life impression. So people might feel the Avatar is pretty small or unusually tall, which is one of the reasons many of these platforms avoid legs for the time being.
He also pointed out that in real life when you look down, you’re used to seeing your legs are at a specific distance away from your face, which you’re used to. But in the virtual world, if that situation is not replicated, it could cause you to feel nauseous. So until there are better sensors to avoid this on headsets, companies might avoid creating legs.