The Touch launch is just around the corner, and today, we’re giving you a first look at some exciting new features for Rift.

Oculus Avatars

Starting December 6, you can create a custom Oculus Avatar. Step into your own sleek, private dressing room and choose from a wide assortment of faces, hairstyles, eyewear, clothing, and texture effects—there are more than a billion permutations available at launch!

We’re also launching the Oculus Avatars SDK with Touch on December 6, so developers can start integrating avatars into their VR experiences. Many of our favorite titles, including Sports Bar VR and Kingspray, will feature full support for Oculus Avatars at Touch launch.

If you have a Rift, you don’t need Touch to create an Oculus Avatar. It works great with the Oculus Remote and Xbox controller! We’re also working to bring Oculus Avatars to Gear VR, so you can take your avatar with you across the entire Oculus platform.

Introducing Oculus First Contact

We’re excited to announce Oculus First Contact, a brand-new experience to help get you familiar with Touch! This playful, ’80s sci-fi throwback features a lovable robot that shows you how to interact with the virtual world using your own hands.

Fire toy guns, make objects float in mid-air, and even 3D print holographic butterflies while your robot sidekick reacts and plays along.

Oculus First Contact ships with Touch December 6. We can’t wait for you to check out this highly-immersive playground!

Asynchronous Spacewarp

Today we’re launching Asynchronous Spacewarp (ASW), a technique that extrapolates frames and lets VR titles run at up to half rate, while delivering a visual experience that’s almost as good as native 90hz rendering! This means lower-end machines can more easily power Rift, which opens up a new minimum spec. Click here to learn more about how ASW works.

We have an exciting month ahead as we prepare for Touch launch. We look forward to sharing the full launch line-up along with a few surprises soon.

— The Oculus Team