Bigscreen just launched its Avatar 2.0 update.
Bigscreen is a social VR app designed around cowatching video content remotely. It supports YouTube, Disney+, Amazon Prime, movie rentals, and its own TV channels for shows like Rick & Morty.
The new avatars now have necks and estimated arms (no current VR headset has built-in arm tracking). They also have a wider range of skin colors, body types, hairstyles, gender-agnostic outfits, facial features, and more accessory options.
before (above) and after (below)
Despite the new features, Bigscreen claims the new avatars are significantly better optimized than the old ones. This should mean more avatars can be rendered in the same space without impacting performance, which is especially useful for standalone headsets like Quest.
The company plans to add support for hand tracking and eye tracking later this year for the new avatar system. Meta’s Horizon Home already supports eye and face tracking on Quest Pro and is getting YouTube cowatching at some point. Some VRChat worlds also support cowatching videos, and the platform will natively support eye tracking soon too, including on Quest Pro.
Bigscreen is also launching its own SteamVR headset later this year with 2.6K OLED microdisplays, called Beyond, set to be the smallest and lightest VR headset ever sold.
