Anyone who has seen the current Horizon Worlds graphics should recognize that they aren’t incredibly detailed.
Currently, except for some posters and marquees in officially-sanctioned spaces, Horizon Worlds doesn’t offer more than a handful of basic textures.
While Horizon Worlds utilizes particle effects and fog, and surfaces can glow and reflect, virtually everything in Meta’s virtual world is flat-shaded for the moment.
The detail level of a world within Horizon Worlds primarily depends on the builders and their ability to use basic shapes to build more-complex objects.
But graphical updates are coming to Horizon Worlds.
The Updates are Coming
Some people weren’t impressed with current Horizon Worlds graphics.
Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement last week that Horizon Worlds would be launching in Spain and France sparked a rash of online ridicule of the app’s current graphical state.
The ridicule was in response to the image that accompanied Zuckerberg’s post.
The picture showed a rather basic-looking Mark Zuckerberg avatar, Eiffel Tower, and cathedral in a meadow.
Some people compared Zuckerberg’s avatar to Mii avatars from the Nintendo Wii console, which debuted in 2006.
But Zuckerberg responded with a post showing the next step in Horizon Worlds’ graphical evolution, stating that updates are coming.
Zuckerberg included images in the post showing an improved avatar and more-detailed environment.
“Major updates to Horizon and avatar graphics coming soon,” said Zuckerberg. “I’ll share more at Connect. Also, I know the photo I posted earlier this week was pretty basic, it was taken very quickly to celebrate a launch. The graphics in Horizon are capable of much more, even on headsets, and Horizon is improving very quickly.”
Teased graphical updates in Horizon Worlds
According to Zuckerberg, Meta will share more details at the company’s annual VR and AR-focused Connect conference.
After two years of testing, Horizon Worlds entered its open beta stage in December 2021.
Within two months, Horizon Worlds’ user base grew to 300,000 users, and user-created worlds reached 10,000.
For the moment, Horizon Worlds is a VR-exclusive app, but Meta says it will be coming to mobile and web-based platforms.
Raised on geek culture, Benjie has been in cannabis news since 2014, and a consumer since long before that. Before starting CannaGeek, he wrote for the Candid Chronicle and co-hosted the Nug Life Radio Show.
