Create a custom avatar for social events and work meetings.
The process is simple, you take a quick selfie on your phone and the app then analyzes your photo and creates a 3D representation of your likeness. You then take a few minutes to polish up your VR avatar to look even more like you by tweaking the shape of your face, the shape of your nose, choosing an outfit that reflects your personality, and adding accessories.
Virtual You gives you the ability to create a detailed VR avatar of yourself, whether it be an accurate representation of your real-world appearance or a completely original character.
There are literally over a thousand combinations available to you through the app.
Once you’ve settled on a look, you can then pair your newly-created avatar and import it into your High Fidelity account or into any VR environment that uses High Fidelity’s open-source software, and use it during VR social events or work meeting.
Virtual You: 3D Avatar Creator is powered by VR/AR developer Wolf3D, a company focused on exploring the idea of bringing humanity and VR/AR together through realistic avatars that you can use in games and other virtual experiences.
In an official press release, Timmu Tõke CEO of Wolf3D said, “One of the first things people want to do in VR is make an avatar. Helping people do that quickly and easily, using the tools they already have, sets them up for a better VR experience.”
Virtual You started off as High Fidelity’s virtual office project – which is currently in development – to help give today’s modern-day workforce of global remote workers and traveling sales teams a way to collaborate and work together in VR. The company believes recognizable avatars will make virtual communication feel more seamless for remote teams; almost like flagging down a colleague for a quick discussion or finding your team in a crowded cafe during lunch—only instead of doing this in the real world, you’re doing it in VR.
“Personalized avatars allow for the best of both worlds: an interactive, identifiable presence which resembles us, but one that requires no grooming, no clothes to be ironed and always has our game face on. Decades of research has shown that avatars can display superpowers — for example, the ability to maintain eye gaze via algorithm — that is impossible to achieve either face-to-face or over videoconference,” said Jeremy Bailenson, director of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab.
In recent years, avatar rights have become a bit of a hot topic issue as more VR users begin recognizing the importance of their avatars. Last year VR social platform AltSpaceVR was faced with criticism during a townhall when they announced that they were planning on eliminating their recognizable robot avatars. The announcement inspired the BeeBot sendoff, during which AltSpaceVR users switched their avatars to the BeeBot and gathered together in the virtual space to say one last goodbye to their little yellow flying robot.
RIP BeeBot.
Although High Fidelity’s VR office application isn’t available at the moment, the company is publicly releasing Virtual You based on the demand they have seen for personalized avatars in other use cases of its open-source software.
“As VR begins to transform our daily lives, we will often want to easily appear in virtual worlds as we do in the physical world,” said Philip Rosedale, CEO, and Co-founder of High Fidelity. “Avatars have always been a pillar of VR and virtual worlds, but unless you’re a dedicated enthusiast, creating them hasn’t been easy. By making 3D customizable avatars available through a mobile app, we’ve cleared an important step towards bringing VR to billions of people.”
Just last year, High Fidelity pushed the limits of VR environments when they hosted their FUTVRE LANDS VR music festival, which brought in users from multiple platforms to participate in games, enjoy live music from professional DJ’s, watch a theater performance, and shop in a virtual marketplace bazaar; all culminating in a real-time live performance from five-time Grammy-nominated 80’ synth-pop artist, Thomas Dolby.
High Fidelity VR platform is able to host up to 500 people at a time.
Virtual You: 3D Avatar Creator is currently available on compatible iOS and Android devices. High Fidelity is available via SteamVR and Oculus.
Feature Image Credit: High Fidelity
