Facebook launches tool to create VR avatar with more realistic expressions

Facebook is getting closer and closer to assemble a virtual version of its members. The company has released an update to Oculus Avatars, software for its virtual reality headsets aimed at creating a digital doll of itself. Now the program is able to create broader expressions and try to make the dolls look more human.

In a post on the Oculus page, the company explains that the system is called Expressive Avatars, aimed at doing the simulation captured by the headset. It creates an avatar with simulated eye movements and mouths so people have a closer relationship to each other in the virtual universe.

For this, the team developed an algorithm that seeks to repeat in a more perfect way possible how the human being talks, looks and interacts with objects. The big challenge, according to the post, is to do it all without cameras.

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"Expressive Avatars does not record the movement of your eyes or face with cameras, it just simulates everything based on sophisticated models. The Oculus team was able to code these behavioral models for virtual reality and then had the fun of refining the moves to make interactions that are more like the real ones, "the company statement said.

This means that the system is not able to take all its movements and expressions to transform into a virtual version of you. It makes a sequence of reactions based on behavioral models.

Oculus Avatars was launched in December of last year as the social hub where people could assemble their dolls to be the representation of interactions between them. What Facebook realized, however, is that the interactions needed to be more human so people could use the platform. Because of this, the development of Expressive Avatars began.

To test the tool, Oculus Go or Rift users can use their dolls in the home operating system of both devices. The company also said that some third-party apps will be able to use the avatars inside their platforms. The system will become compatible in the coming weeks with Poker Stars VR, Tribe XR DJ and Epic Rollercoaster.

 

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