Meta Avatars SDK Update Improves Graphics & Finally Adds Legs

The publicly available Meta Avatars SDK finally includes legs.

In the past Meta's VR avatars faced widespread ridicule on social media and in tech circles for their upper-body-only appearance.

In August Meta added legs to the Meta Avatars in the Quest home environment, and in September legs arrived in its Horizon Worlds "metaverse" platform too. But the publicly available Meta Avatars SDK used by third-party apps such as GOLF+ and Eleven Table Tennis wasn't updated to add legs, until now.

Meta’s Horizon Metaverse Avatars Finally Have Legs

Meta Avatars in its Horizon Worlds “metaverse” platform now have virtual legs.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Version 24 is the first new release of the Meta Avatars SDK in almost six months. As well as adding legs, it improves the graphics quality of avatars and makes the SDK available on the Unity Asset Store.

UPDATE: The legs are not animated by default.

Those graphics improvements include "more lifelike eye glints" and "more detailed hair and clothing with normal map textures". And thanks to new optimizations such as the Compute Skinner, Meta claims the improvements come at no performance cost.

We've reached out to the developers of GOLF+ and Eleven Table Tennis to ask if they plan to add legs to their games soon, but given we're well into the holiday period now don't expect work on this to begin until the new year.