{"id":683,"date":"2016-10-07T05:43:54","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T05:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/facebook-invents-virtual-reality-emoji-gestures.html"},"modified":"2016-10-07T05:43:54","modified_gmt":"2016-10-07T05:43:54","slug":"facebook-invents-virtual-reality-emoji-gestures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/facebook-invents-virtual-reality-emoji-gestures.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook invents \u201cvirtual reality emoji\u201d gestures"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Shake your fist and your VR avatar\u2019s face will turn \u201cangry.\u201d Put your hands on your face Home Alone-style to express \u201cshock.\u201d Triumphantly thrust your hands in the air and your virtual self\u2019s face will show \u201cjoy.\u201d <\/p>\n

These are what Facebook calls \u201cVR emoji,\u201d and they\u2019re the company\u2019s vision for how we\u2019ll convey emotion in virtual reality. We\u2019re not talking about yellow illustrated emoticons popping up over your head. Instead, your avatar\u2019s eyes, eye brows, mouth and other facial features will change to mimic how we exhibit body language in the real world.<\/p>\n

Face-to-virtual-face<\/h2>\n

Michael Booth, Facebook\u2019s head of social VR, describes that \u201cwhen\u00a0you send a message and you want to make an emotional point, you stick an emoji on there.\u201d We lose tone and physical cues when we text, so emojis emerged to clarify what you really mean. Otherwise, the recipient won\u2019t know whether you\u2019re excited or worried when you say \u201coh my.\u201d<\/p>\n

Booth wanted to alleviate similar sentiment\u00a0ambiguity that exists in social VR as you don\u2019t usually see someone\u2019s real face. The solution goes far, far beyond the \u201cReactions\u201d<\/a> you can leave on 360 News Feed content to\u00a0express more nuanced feedback than just a \u201cLike.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re coming up with a language that triggers your avatar to make certain emotions,\u201d aka \u201cVR emoji\u201d Booth tells me. \u201cWe can\u2019t just be a blank presence. [In VR] we have eyes, we have mouths. We need some kind of emotions or it seems like totally flat affect.\u201d If you say something shocking to a friend in VR, but their face stays completely static, it breaks your sense of presence. We\u2019re accustomed\u00a0to facial cues.<\/p>\n

\"oculus-cards-joy-emoji\"<\/p>\n

For example, in the real world if you\u2019re in the middle of a long explanation and someone doesn\u2019t understand you, you can recognize the confused expression on their face. That tells you to dumb it down a bit, provide more background context or say it again in a different way.<\/p>\n

Without VR emoji, your conversation partner would either have to interrupt you, flail their arms in a non-obvious way or wait until you\u2019re finished. With Facebook\u2019s VR emoji, you can shrug with your palms up, and your face will show an easily recognized expression of confusion \u2014 eyes scrunched and mouth crooked. Though Booth warns the gestures behind its VR emoji vocabulary are sure to change over time.<\/p>\n

\"zuck-brain-chemistry\"<\/p>\n

Mark Zuckerberg dives into how our brain processes social VR<\/p>\n

None of this depends on eye or facial tracking, which would require additional hardware to be built into VR headsets. Startups like FOVE<\/a>\u00a0are building these headsets, and apps like VR chat room\u00a0Altspace<\/a> make your eye movements visible on your avatar. But eye tracking isn\u2019t built into the Oculus Rift, Gear VR, Google Daydream and Cardboard, HTC Vive or PlayStation VR headsets. The hand-tracking that VR emojis require is proliferating much faster toward the scale Facebook craves for its product.<\/p>\n

Booth details four of the main goals Facebook has for using avatars to create the sense of believable human presence in social VR:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cYou\u2019re comfortable with the way you look\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cFriends can recognize you at a glance\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. \u201cIt\u2019s not creepy and disturbing\u201d<\/li>\n
  4. \u201cFacebook can create avatars that represent each of its 1.7 billion users\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Facebook is still experimenting with different ways to personalize avatars<\/a> so they look like you.\u00a0One option is an internal drawing tool where you illustrate a version of your face to plaster onto your avatar. Another is to use an Occipital Structure<\/a> sensor or other image-capture device to model your head. Facebook could potentially even try to recreate your VR face from the photos tagged of you on its social network.<\/p>\n

    \"vr-surprised-emoji\"<\/p>\n

    Whatever it offers will have to work reliably, otherwise you could end up with a grotesquely disfigured avatar version of yourself that would break rules No. 1 and No. 4 above.<\/p>\n

    Live VRing<\/h2>\n

    Luckily, Booth knows plenty about avatars. He\u00a0spent 10 years making video games at Valve and another two at Blizzard. He was planning to start his own VR game studio, but then Facebook showed him the \u201cToybox\u201d social VR demo, which he says \u201creally blew my mind.\u201d He joined Facebook, and since December has been working on the successor to Toybox, Facebook\u2019s unnamed social VR prototype demoed today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    Presence isn\u2019t enough. VR needs utility \u2014 things to do in there. Along with the VR emojis, Booth and Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated the ability to visit VR destinations with your friends\u2019 avatars<\/a> overlaid on the scene. They showed how you\u2019ll be able to play cards, watch TV and sword fight together. If you see something cool, you\u2019ll be able to take a VR selfie, turn to your wrist and see a button to instantly share the photo to Facebook. You\u2019ll even get a change to take a Facebook Messenger video call and show someone in the real world what your avatar is up to in the virtual realm.<\/p>\n

    That\u2019s just the start, though. Facebook is plotting to turn you into a VR videographer. Booth tells me it\u2019s developing a way for you to \u201cbasically have a virtual camera you can pick up and move around.\u201d This way, friends without headsets can see what all the hype is about by watching your VR antics straight from the Facebook News Feed. \u201cYou become a 2D camera man for your friends in VR,\u201d Booth says. \u201cWith video streaming, you become a superstar.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \"image_facebook-avatar-design-experiments\"<\/p>\n

    The evolution of Facebook\u2019s social VR avatars, from generic figures to blocky heads to polished faces to emotional creatures<\/p>\n

    That concept of expanding Facebook Live streaming from the physical world to your adventures in the digital one ties social VR back to the company\u2019s core product that\u2019s increasingly focused on video. While Oculus and Facebook started quite distinct, the dividing lines are blurring.<\/p>\n

    If Facebook can build a compelling social VR experience at scale, Booth says \u201cwe\u2019ll figure out some way to monetize it.\u00a0I\u2019m sure advertising will be very interesting in VR.\u201d<\/p>\n

    For now, though, this is all just the next way Facebook wants to accomplish its mission of connecting the world, making friends feel closer together no matter where they are. From basic profiles to photos to auto-play videos in the News Feed, from text chat to multi-media Messenger apps, from web to mobile and now to VR, Facebook continues to evolve. But no matter the technology, Booth says Facebook\u2019s staying true to its principle of \u201cPeople First.\u2019<\/p>\n

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    Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/seGk6JDmOMc\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Shake your fist and your VR avatar\u2019s face will turn \u201cangry.\u201d Put your hands on your face Home Alone-style to express \u201cshock.\u201d Triumphantly thrust your hands in the air and <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t