Meta is rolling out replace v57 to your Meta Quest Professional and Oculus Quest 2. This final patch earlier than the Meta Quest 3 launch occasion later this month is underwhelming in comparison with earlier ones, nevertheless it fixes just a few snags that ought to make the Quest 3 really feel super–smooth and intuitive on its launch.
The largest change coming on this replace is to avatar customization, although Meta is just including just a few tweaks. After updating to v57 you’ll have higher management over your avatar’s pores and skin tone, hair and eyebrow shade, and the make-up they’re sporting. These adjustments ought to make it simpler on your digital illustration to raised match your IRL look and elegance.
Meta’s avatars aren’t simply utilized in its personal suite of VR apps like its Horizon Worlds metaverse; they’re additionally utilized by a complete bunch of third-party experiences like ForeVR Bowl – a recreation this author is a champion in. These new customization choices will can help you convey a extra correct illustration of your self to a wider vary of VR actions – and these adjustments may encourage extra devs to assist Meta avatars of their software program.
One other change is the power to lastly discover extra of your Horizon House – the VR area you first land into while you boot up your headset. Beforehand you’ve solely been capable of bounce between preset hotspots within the VR area. Whereas this mounted method is accessible to new VR customers, Meta admits that this restriction turns into increasingly jarring as you discover different digital actuality experiences and get used to a excessive diploma of freedom that isn’t current in your Horizon House.
With replace v57, Meta is unlocking free-form locomotion, so you possibly can teleport (nearly) wherever within the area. Simply push the joystick ahead on both controller and an arch will seem that exhibits you the place you’ll journey to – launch the joystick when the arch is white and also you’ll teleport, however you gained’t transfer if the arch is pink.
Lastly, Meta is including the power to unsend picture messages in VR and within the Meta Quest cellular app – at the very least for customers in Australia, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the US. To unsend a message you simply need to hover over the picture in VR (or faucet on it within the Quest cellular app) and choose Unsend to appropriate any errors you’ll have made by sending the flawed picture to the flawed individual. The one hint of the outdated message can be a notification that one thing was unsent, which the recipient will see as an alternative of the picture.
Extra to come back?
This v57 replace is a tad disappointing in comparison with some earlier Quest updates which have introduced direct contact for hand-tracking, vastly improved video settings, and main CPU and GPU efficiency upgrades. However with the Meta Quest 3 simply across the nook, it makes a little bit of sense.
For one, Meta could also be saving some huge platform adjustments for an replace that releases after the Quest 3 has launched, serving to the brand new headset to really feel contemporary and thrilling from each a {hardware} and software program perspective.
Alternatively, by getting these minor annoyances mounted forward of the Quest 3 announcement, Meta is leaving the Quest OS in a great place for just a few months whereas it really works on growing any user-requested options that are available in after launch.
Most Quest updates usually drop month-to-month, however the first Quest replace after the Quest Professional launch (v47) was launched roughly two months after the earlier one. That’s seemingly as a consequence of Meta including options like blended actuality seize and background audio playback that the Quest Professional neighborhood was clamoring for very vocally. However these sorts of reactive updates seemingly take a bit extra time to develop, as a result of Meta can’t begin engaged on fixes till customers inform it what they need modified.
Meta could also be anticipating the same replace schedule for the Quest 3, and so it desires to eliminate some smaller snags now, in order that it has the time and capability to work on extra main options that customers request.
We gained’t know precisely what Meta is as much as till the Quest 3 launch, nonetheless. To search out out extra in regards to the new headset as quickly because it’s introduced, you’ll want to examine again with us for our Meta Join 2023 protection when the occasion takes place on September 27.
