Facebook Spaces Gets New VR Avatar Customisation Options for More Realistic Experiences

Facebook Spaces has received an update that brings tons of customisation options to enhance your virtual appearance. The social networking giant has also upgraded the controls to fine-tune your looks on a screen. The new changes are a part of Facebook's strategy to make people feel natural in virtual reality (VR). However, the Spaces app remains limited to the Oculus and HTC Vive platforms and is only accessible on either the Rift or the Vive VR headset.

Prior to the latest update, Facebook Spaces had just a handful of customisation options that you could leverage to bring your presence to the VR world. There were the options to change your eye and hair colour. But now, Facebook has added hundreds of new abilities to let you customise even your body type, head shapes, and facial features. You can also use the new controls to adjust the size, position, and angle of your features in the avatar creator. Similarly, Facebook's VR team has added richer materials as well as better lighting and shadows to uplift your overall immersive experience. The engineers behind the Spaces app have also used machine learning algorithms to provide avatar suggestions to help you get the best of you in the virtual form.

Facebook says that the latest Spaces update is the result of the joint efforts of various designers, artists, and engineers who have employed techniques from animation, game designing, and mathematics to make customisations possible. Moreover, you can leverage the changes to adjust your facial features to particular angles or to change the position of your eyebrows, eyes, and mouth, or to even adjust your body shape.

"In order to have a meaningful social experience in VR, you need an engaging avatar that represents you and helps you relate to other people in the virtual space. It's a huge part of feeling like you're 'really there' together. That's why we've been continuously working to learn what helps people represent and express themselves while spending time with friends in VR," Facebook said in a statement.

Facebook hasn't specified any particular schedule for the new update. It does mention that the new changes will be rolling out this week, though.