High Fidelity Achieves Fully-Articulated, Real-Time, Motion-Captured Avatar Finger Movement, Leads to the Inevitable

Ladies and gentlemen, High Fidelity has achieved the the ultimate in customized avatar expression:

One small step for Mankind? Today @highfidelityinc we saw 1st networked avatar with fingers https://t.co/pmf7jZTxdW pic.twitter.com/VDjNCXpjnM

— Stanford VR (@StanfordVR) February 19, 2016

"This was a demonstration of using Leap Motion's new 'Orion' update with High Fidelity," company founder Philip Rosedale tells me. So now Alpha users with Leap's motion capture camera and a High Fidelity script can translate their real world finger movements to the fingers of their avatar.

Juvenile bird-flashing aside, this is an extremely impressive, well, leap for Leap:

"Leap is now tracking much better, so it may be a good choice for hand controllers," Philip adds, "particularly for those wanting finger movements - for which only Leap and Perception Neuron offer a solution."

I'm really curious to see how articulate this finger articulation actually is in practical terms -- for instance, could someone communicate in real time in American Sign Language through their avatar?* In any case, one small birdflip for an avatar, one giant Leap for avatar-kind. (See what I did there?)

UPDATE, 2:15pm: High Fidelity's Chris Collins says Yes, indeed, your avatar could do American Sign Language through this system.

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Comments

[DrFran]

And...High Fidelity is creating a small community of energized geeks who have a warm feeling of relationship. The geniuses have fun and create magic, while the onlookers (like myself) get to see history in the making.
Did I drink the Kool-Aid, you think? Nah, I love the vibe there.
Come join us, and see. Alpha? Yes. Moving forward? Oh, yes.

[sirhc deSantis]

Interesting that you went with ASL as a possibility for this.

Reading through the hifi digest mailer the ongoing (a year now) debate on the pros and cons of a universal text chat capability seems to have opened up again after a hiatus. Its been fascinating to watch as an outsider, some rather good arguements against that really highlight the different approach this thing might eventually achieve.

Now, this seems strangely - apt.

[Gwenette Writer SInclair]

Well, I guess it's time to visit High Fidelity again ;-)