Meta says the segment at Connect 2022 announcing the addition of legs to Horizon World avatars in 2023 “featured animations created from motion capture”
Parmy Olson of Bloomberg was not impressed with Meta's announcements at Connect 2022: James Troughton / TheGamer : Meta's Virtual Leg Update Was Actually Motion Capture Jonathan Vanian / CNBC : Mark Zuckerberg said he missed a giant shift in social networking Mashable : Meta's VR legs aren't real and can't hurt you Tweets: Ian Hamilton / @hmltn : For those who've been wondering about the legs shown in the Connect keynote (@hrafntho). Meta: “To enable this preview of what's to come, the segment featured animations created from motion capture.” Laurie Voss / @seldo : The metaverse video in which they said they've added feet was faked, they have still not cracked the technology for adding legs. https://kotaku.com/... Tim Sweeney / @timsweeneyepic : Meta's hardware investment strategy is sound. Constantly release new devices to learn from the consumer experience at affordable prices, and drive the leading edge through high-end devices whose tech will later migrate to the mainstream. Ben Kehoe / @ben11kehoe : You can't make this up. This is what we're doing in 2022. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... @intelligencer : “A certain sort of boss is perpetually paranoid about missing out on the next big thing in business, and in any even vaguely tech-adjacent industry, the metaverse still beckons.” @jwherrman writes https://nymag.com/... @nymag : In the middle-upper tiers of LinkedIn, in boardrooms and board-Zooms across the country, and at business conferences around the world, the metaverse is very much just around the corner, and everyone is desperate not to be late. @jwherrman writes https://nymag.com/... @brendaneich : Will there be ad blockers for VR/AR gear? Not holding my breath if the gear is built by an advertising-revenue-dependent big tech company. What about the wealth of personal data captured, a separate concern from which ads show and get the most attention? https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Fred Oliveira / @f : Oh come on, Mark. It's been $15 billion so far. https://kotaku.com/... Chaotic Goode / @laurengoode : “Eye tracking data could be used ‘in order to understand whether people engage with an advertisement or not,’ said Meta's head of global affair Nick Clegg in an interview with the Financial Times. (Meta didn't respond to Gizmodo's request for comment.)” https://gizmodo.com/... Tony Fadell / @tfadell : Oh this is going to go well... Meta/Facebook has never fucked up anything before!!! 🤯😱 Meta's New Headset Will Track Your Eyes for Targeted Ads https://gizmodo.com/... Hannah Weinberger / @weinbergrrrrr : The claim, it turns out, did not have legs https://twitter.com/... Clive Thompson / @pomeranian99 : Billion dollar legs https://twitter.com/... Tracy Chou / @triketora : wait wait wait the legs in the demo aren't even actually vr yet?? https://twitter.com/... David Carroll / @profcarroll : Fake legs are a silly distraction from what Zuck is going to do your real eyes. The metaverse is where the last vestiges of your privacy go to die as folks affix a vampire squid to their bodies so that Zuck can regain invasive microtargeting supremacy. https://gizmodo.com/... Paris Martineau / @parismartineau : update: legs are not in fact coming soon https://kotaku.com/... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... @violetblue : Facebook's playtime genocide, discrimination, and insurrection were real, the billionaire's playtime legs while the planet burned were fake Like humanity, legs are too hard https://twitter.com/... Jes Skolnik / @modernistwitch : the reports of legs have been premature, apparently https://twitter.com/... Michael Seibel / @mwseibel : The folks who are shitting on Zuck re Oculus should shut up. He is trying to invent something new. Just give him some time to try. Why tear down someone who is actually trying hard? @daftpina : >1,500 USD headset lasts max 2 hours >Can't even track legs yet >Meta employees hate using the metaverse >Soulless avatar style Great work so far Mark https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... @quendergeer : lmao this is even sadder than musk's fake robot https://twitter.com/... @beardedgenius : Hire the person who added legs in the fake video. They know how to add legs https://twitter.com/... An-Tim Nguyen / @antimnguyen : We got E3 demo'd lmao https://twitter.com/... Steve Bowler / @gameism : A gentle reminder that in 2017 we brought you the first commercially available toe-tappingly accurate full body VR avatar, and we didn't have to lie or make up fake video footage about it. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... @amyzenunim : having looked extensively into mocap solutions: there is no way you can do full body glitchless computer vision mocap at a decent frame rate without a top of the line PC and multiple high def cameras. it just isn't happening on a self-contained device. https://twitter.com/... Fabian Offert / @haltingproblem : “Zuckerberg took to the stage to demonstrate that, having spent billions of dollars to create a virtual reality universe that looked like it was from 2004, his company was working on improving that universe to make it look like it was from 2009 instead.” https://kotaku.com/... @darth : “COME BACK HERE AND EXPLAIN THIS MARK FACEBOOK” https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Bridget Carey / @bridgetcarey : The legs were faked? You don't say! This company's entire business model is about profiting off fake things. https://twitter.com/... Grady Booch / @grady_booch : It's fair to say that @meta was pulling our leg. They really don't have a leg to stand on to defend their profoundly unethical behavior. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Wagner James Au / @slhamlet : Pretty jaw-dropping aside by Carmack for why the Quest 2 price was raised! Meta developed it to grow the market for its metaverse platform. Instead, Quest 2 owners are going in droves to FTP @VRChat & @recroom — leading metaverse platform competitors. https://t.co/I8Yqni6X1o @banditelli : Everything @MetaHorizon does is a lie. https://twitter.com/... Matthew Reichbach / @fbihop : Be kind to Meta. In the decades we've had of video games, NO characters have had legs, so they're trying to break new ground. https://twitter.com/... Brandon Wall / @walldo : Absolute lols upon lols https://kotaku.com/... Rusty Foster / @fka_tabs : So after all that, the legs weren't even real https://kotaku.com/... Paris Marx / @parismarx : I regret to inform you that legs have not, in fact, arrived. They were not captured through VR headsets, but motion capture. Pretty much any metaverse demo that doesn't look like total shit is a fake. https://kotaku.com/... Marty Swant / @martyswant : How many times has Meta/Facebook/Oculus used motion capture, CGI or other animation tools in their demos over the past few years that exaggerated VR's current capabilities? https://twitter.com/... Anil / @anildash : ahhh who could have foreseen https://twitter.com/... Dhruv Govil / @dhruvgovil : I really wish #Meta would show more real content in their keynotes instead if so many aspirational pieces. Stand by the cool tech your folks are making. https://twitter.com/... @rmac18 : This is Mark Zuckerberg's version of putting a person in a shiny plastic suit and announcing an AI humanoid robot. Alex Heath / @alexeheath : I can barely stand how this news cycle has run away with itself https://kotaku.com/... @rmac18 : The funniest thing about this “problem” is that it was of Meta/FB's own making by not giving avatars legs in the first place. Then they said it was difficult “problem” to solve and pretended it was a massive deal to create a *feature* that everyone expected in the first place. Mat Honan / @mat : I knew this story didn't have legs https://twitter.com/... Ian Hamilton / @hmltn : Zuckerberg: “We have legs!” Devs: “Those aren't real.” Meta: “Yeah, I know.” Deep Dive Dev Videos: “Quest Pro has true multitasking and its controllers have significant new haptic and tracking features.” Devs: “Omg, why wasn't this in the keynote?” Meta: “...” Kami / @triqona : bravo, way to mislead people... they didn't solve shit apparently, or at the very least scared to show the actual results https://twitter.com/... Eniko Fox / @enichan : meta employee: oh hey u guys are back early vr headset owner: legs're fake meta employee: what? headset owner: *loading a pistol and putting headset back on* legs're fake. https://twitter.com/... @growlithography : this is basically what every techbro fraudster like Zuck and Musk do. Have artists and animators and shit fake what they promise to do and then never actually follow up on it while stealing a bunch of government money that should be used on anything actually useful instead. https://twitter.com/... @crimsonzen : Ah good, taking a page out of the wildly successful magic leap playbook https://twitter.com/... Alex Morse / @alexmorse : @hmltn @hrafntho So they misrepresented the product? Hrafn Thorisson / @hrafntho : @SadlyItsBradley @hmltn Helps no one. Only helps fuel delusions that *not tracking physical presence* is a great idea. Hrafn Thorisson / @hrafntho : @hmltn So by that I strongly assume they mean classic motion capture, not actual VR software/hardware capabilities. Thanks for checking on this. Brad Lynch / @sadlyitsbradley : @hmltn @hrafntho Knew it 🤣 Ryan Mac / @rmac18 : lmfao they fukin faked it https://twitter.com/... Kaitlyn Molinas / @katy_mayy : How on earth is it okay to be like “We've got legs finally” and then silently not even use their own product to showcase the legs. Like yes you can capture legs with a $10000 rig in 2022, that was also true in the 90s, what the hell is this shit https://twitter.com/... Matthew Ball / @ballmatthew : The day after Facebook changed its name, Carmack, who still consults for Meta, said: “I really do care about [the metaverse], and I buy into the vision... I have been pretty actively arguing against every single metaverse effort that we have tried to spin up internally in Oculus” https://twitter.com/... Dean Takahashi / @deantak : John Carmack: VR should be a delight to demo for your friends. Not a chore. It should be easy and usable. By the way, Carmack has no legs. https://twitter.com/... Richard MacManus / @ricmac : Great piece on the dubious “openness” of Meta -> “It's offering tools for outside developers to use, but they ultimately funnel into one big Meta-owned world, not a robust independent protocol like the web.” https://www.theverge.com/... @audleyzdarke : 1) Zuck isn't doing shit 2) VR has existed for a while now, no one is inventing shit 3) The tech revolution of the 90s-2000s produced tools that were both useful and easily used- Zuck's Second Life clone is neither 4) He's not going to let you suck his dick, Brad https://twitter.com/... Tae Kim / @firstadopter : Going to ask the silly question. Why would anyone want to read email in VR? 2D screens work fine and you don't have to put a weighty headset on your noggin https://twitter.com/... @wholemarsblog : Facebook acquired Occulus in 2014, 8 years ago. How much longer does Zuck need? $META https://twitter.com/... Adi Robertson / @thedextriarchy : “We're at the beginning of a new era of computing,” says Zuckerberg as we near the end of Connect. We're discussing two values: the first is “putting people at the center of everything we build.” The second is “openness.” Kevin Roose / @kevinroose : John Carmack, the legendary game designer who has become an internal critic of Meta's metaverse strategy, is speaking now at the company's VR event. Earlier this year, he said the company's spending on metaverse stuff made him “sick to my stomach.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Anton Hand / @antonhand : Reminder that the core benefit that Carmack provides Meta, from a community/brand standpoint, is being the reasonable but critical Smart Guy™️ that voices nerd complaints to give you the experience that your views and expertise are respected by Meta when they are absolutely not. Benj Edwards / @benjedwards : It's remarkable that Meta gives Carmack a large platform to openly critique its products. I'm not sure I've ever seen any other situation like it in business (And if they're wise, they will take his advice) https://twitter.com/... Kyle Orland / @kyleorl : That said, I sometimes feel like Carmack is Meta's court jester. They let him play around, and he's the only one who can insult the king without penalty, but no one in the Court takes him too seriously
Context & Ripple Effects
Meta had already promised major Horizon Worlds avatar-graphics improvements after the mocked Horizon Worlds selfie, then outlined an AI model intended to predict avatar body position. The motion-capture disclosure narrows what Connect’s leg sequence demonstrated: a preview rather than live headset-driven behavior.
Later coverage shows the gap mattered operationally: legs reached Horizon Home’s public test channel in 2023, and Meta subsequently described Quest 3’s planned upper-body tracking and AI-estimated “Generative Legs” as the next implementation path.
First-order effects
- Meta must distinguish pre-rendered motion-capture animation from the live tracking capability it had presented as part of Horizon Worlds’ avatar roadmap.
- Horizon Worlds users and developers receive a less certain near-term signal on when full-body avatars will behave as shown in the Connect presentation.
Second-order effects
- The disclosure makes Meta’s future avatar releases more likely to be evaluated against the concrete rollout of legs in Horizon Home’s public test channel, rather than keynote animation alone.
- Meta’s reliance on AI-estimated body position becomes the product benchmark: later Quest 3 plans pair upper-body tracking with AI-estimated legs, tying avatar fidelity to tracking software rather than a static demo.
Third-order effects
- If Meta continues to preview avatar features through motion capture before live deployment, VR-platform credibility will increasingly depend on separating rendered demonstrations from device-level tracking capabilities.
- The longer product arc points toward avatars assembled from partial sensor input and AI inference, with full-body presence becoming a software feature delivered in stages rather than a single hardware capability.
The trend: Social-VR avatar systems are moving from fixed upper-body representations toward AI-inferred full-body presence, while product demos face tighter scrutiny over what is live versus pre-rendered.