Today, we’re releasing two new robot avatars and an exciting new avatar line–our first human avatars.

Launch AltspaceVR to try them out today.



Our vision at AltspaceVR is to enable natural communication online, where talking to another person in VR can feel like being together in the same place. Avatars are central to this vision. We want every user to find avatars they want to represent themselves, and avatars that they enjoy communicating with. We think these new avatars are a big step towards that goal.

With the new robot avatars, we wanted to offer a more whimsical option while staying consistent with the current AltspaceVR style. Both riff on the head-only concepts present in other VR apps, with the addition of tracked hands, some animated elements, and a few small details that you’ll have to see for yourself.

Our two human models are a major milestone for several reasons.

First, it’s hard to design human avatars that are pleasant to interact with in VR. The balance of detail and animation has to be perfect. Show too much detail on the avatar without enough animation and it feels like a mannequin. Don’t show enough and it doesn’t feel human. We iterated on many different concepts before landing on these two models for our initial release. We hope you’ll agree that they feel natural to communicate with.

Second, we wanted to add variety to improve how people felt they were represented. Each human avatar launches with five hair styles, three skin tones, and three shirt styles, totalling 90 human variants. This is a huge step for avatar diversity in AltspaceVR, and it’s just the beginning.

These avatars are live in AltspaceVR right now, so launch the client and check them out today.