Video of Meta’s legs in VR was a lie, some mockup was used
Earlier this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage to demonstrate that—spending billions of dollars create a virtual reality universe (Horizon Worlds) it looked like it was from 2004—his company has been working on improving this universe to look like it was from 2009. An integral part of this update was the fact that avatars would no longer be just floating torsos, but soon legs.
It was a very strange video that existed in a very strange space, as Ethan wrote at the time:
Today’s model is clearly a continuation of that early render and finally takes the VR platform beyond the likes of Fire Emblem: Awakening on the Nintendo 3DS, another game that didn’t have legs. And this despite the fact that this year Meta spent only 10 billion dollars on this technology. Who knows what another small fortune will bring? If anything could catapult the Oculus storefront into the green space, it’s the growing market for foot photography in virtual reality. It may seem like we’re being ridiculous here, but know that the live chat, along with the virtual audience watching it all, just exploded when Zuckerberg started talking about legs.
While updates bringing full-body avatars aren’t expected until 2023, Zuckerberg clearly saw him jumping around in the video, giving everyone an early look at the technology. Or was he?
The one who’s ever been around*checks culture*—any marketing ploy needs to know that not everything is as it seems when a company is trying to sell you something. And in this case, the video Meta showed was made with some help.
As UploadVR Ian Hamilton has since reportedMeta released a follow-up statement saying: “To make this preview of what’s coming next, the segment featured animations created with motion capture.”
Deep down, of course, you knew all this. From vertical slices at E3 to photo stunts shown at Apple events, there are always grains of salt we need to chew on every time a company tries to sell us something that hasn’t been released yet.
But there’s something especially funny about the fact that a project that spent billions of dollars to make it look like a demo of the Kinect — hardware first showcased in 2009 — ended up getting its own silliness. leg moment.
Who knows, maybe when the technology is released it will look like this! Maybe it’s not. Maybe none of us will ever use Horizon Worlds and will forever remain a mystery.
