In past blogs in this series, we’ve talked a lot about how the new full-body option will look. In this one, we’ll show off how it moves and interacts with the game world.
Just chillin’
There are so many ways we express ourselves through our avatar’s movements. We point, give a thumbs up, jump, slide, and dance. We shoot lasers, dodge paintballs, throw dodgeballs, and raise our hands in celebration! The full-body option needs to look great doing all those things and more. As you can see from that list, how we move our hands is a big part of how we interact with the world, so let’s start there.
Helping Hands
One of the most important ways we use our hands in Rec Room is to connect with other players. When we wave hello, fist bump to join a party, or give a high-five, we’re expressing ourselves to others, and we want those expressions to look great. To accomplish that, we need to think from the hand through the wrist, arm, elbow, shoulder, and even down through the torso, hip, and legs.
Pretend someone you know is across a crowded room from you, and wave at them. Do it now. We’ll wait. Notice how your whole body moves and shifts a bit as you raise your arm. Those are the subtle movements we’re trying to capture in the avatar animations to make them feel alive.
Hello there!
Another area we think a lot about with hands is how they hold objects. Currently, your hand disappears when holding any object. While this was useful in the early days of VR, as we develop full-body avatars, we want hands to be more expressive as you grab objects. It would look a bit weird to cut off your hand while holding something, so instead, your hand and fingers take a position that is natural for each object. You'll pick up a coffee mug like you normally would and throw a frisbee while grabbing an edge. Picking up objects will feel more realistic, and your hands will seamlessly pose to a natural fit for everything in Rec Room. You'll be able to do all the same things you normally can, except now the objects will be connected to your avatar via your hand.
And it’s not just hands and fingers around objects that we’re thinking about. With finger tracking, we need to think about the full range of finger movement. You’ll no longer be restricted to a small set of hand motions. Want to wiggle your fingers - go for it! Want to bust out the horns - rock out! Want to put up a peace sign - groovy! (Note: finger tracking will ship after the full-body avatar option, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t stoked about it.)
Here’s an example of how hands might move with finger tracking
Get a Move On
Let’s zoom out and look at how the rest of the body moves. There are several ways we move around in Rec Room: walk, run, jump, climb, crawl, slide, and wall run. Each of those needs to look good individually, and the transitions between them need to be seamless. Also, even more so than hand movements, these actions require the whole avatar to be moving in sync to look natural. Take a look at the run animation below. Notice how it’s important to get the arms, shoulders, and head moving in sync with the legs.
Walking, Jogging, and running are looking pretty good. Climbing… still needs some work
Game Balance
One of the questions we’ve gotten about the full-body option is, “How will it affect game balance in PVP rooms?” Specifically, since the full-body option has more surface to get hit, will people who choose that option be at a disadvantage in rooms like ^Paintball?
We see Rec Room as a fundamentally casual game, one that isn’t optimized for rigorous competition, but we still took that question seriously. We ran playtests with some of the most skilled paintballers at Rec Room, where we pitted a team of floating beans against a team of full bodies. The same players took turns using each avatar option, and any part of the avatar hit with a paintball counted as a KO. We found floating beans don’t have a significant advantage (and we found the full bodies are delightful to compete against).
With all that in mind, here’s the plan. You will be able to play with either avatar option in any room. Any part of the avatar you can see (arms, legs, etc.) will be a part you can hit. For competitive formats, like Leagues, where even the tiniest advantage seems meaningful, organizers are welcome to restrict participants to one avatar type or another.
Full-body or floating bean, you’re gonna get KO’d if you stand on a container and let everyone shoot you🙂
What’s Next?
Looking back on the whole blog series, we’ve given you the gist of how the full-body avatar option will look, move, and represent you in the Roomiverse. But there’s one more big piece we haven’t gone deep on yet. The full body is the foundation that you’ll build on when you make your own clothing and, eventually, your own avatars. We’ll dig into that in the next avatars blog.
But before we get to that, we’d like to leave you with the latest iteration of the full-body option!
What do you think?