Mark Zuckerberg was able to demonstrate his “Avatar Codec” technology for the first time and the result is very impressive. We’ve come a long way from the Mii-style avatars that were revealed and regularly mocked last year.
Three Mark Zuckerberg // Source: Lex Fridman
In August 2022, Meta launched Horizon Worlds, its Metaverse platform, in France. The problem: The graphics of the avatars and, more generally, the 3D universes did not correspond to the taste of Internet users. This means that on social networks, both Metaverse and Mark Zuckerberg mocked the Metaverse until it became a meme. Likely upset, the company’s CEO appears to have doubled down on technology. He appeared on Lex Fridman’s podcast for an interview in which the two interviewees appeared as avatars. The result is impressive.
The metaverse is real, at least its graphics
The legs are now there and the faces are more than realistic. “It feels like we’re in the same room,” Lex Fridman says during the podcast, as Futurism reports. He goes even further: “It is truly the most incredible thing I have ever seen. »
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During an hour-long conversation, the two men were not in the same place at all, but were both equipped with Quest Pro headsets. Their avatars were gathered in the metaverse and represented by a 3D portrait on a black background. They covered several topics: the metaverse (although Mark Zuckerberg’s word was not mentioned), video games, virtual reality, etc.
A video conference that is difficult to set up but could be the future
To conduct this interview, Lex Fridman and Mark Zuckerberg were modeled in 3D. The scans are deepened to the facial level to better convey the facial micro-expressions. A very important element to give humanity to the avatars and, above all, not to make them seem strange. It took several hours and required hundreds of cameras.
Lex Fridman and Mark Zuckerberg, in avatars // Source: Lex Fridman
This is the virtual reality headset that recognizes facial expressions and transmits them to avatars in real time. Mark Zuckerberg points out that “it can send an encoded version of what you want it to look like over the cable.” The technical explanation is that this method is more bandwidth efficient than sending a live video stream. This pushes the Quest Pro to its limits, but it seems to work.
Mark Zuckerberg equipped with a Meta Quest Pro // Source: Lex Fridman
It should be noted that the demonstration was probably not carried out live for technical reasons. In addition, we could question the facial expressions of Lex Fridman and Mark Zuckerberg: these two people were not very expressive. If this is their nature, it is unclear whether it was a necessity for the demonstration.
It’s a few steps from Mii avatars to hyperrealistic models: it’s still very expensive and requires equipment. But according to Mark Zuckerberg, the fast scanning technology used here should be feasible from a smartphone, although not without graphics limitations, as we can assume.
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