Full-Body Avatars Upgrade The Metaverse Experience

Throughout its history, fashion has been about a particular form of self-expression and autonomy. Not only about style but also about identity, the very idea of fashion provides a way for the wearer to express through their clothes who they are. Now, Web3 technologies are turning the online experience into a more human-centric one, where consumers’ identities, in the form of accessorized, lifelike digital avatars, are more tangible and the experiences they have more real.

Spatial, a creator-driven metaverse platform, is one company focused on bringing greater representation and inclusive self-identity to Web3 experiences through the activation of virtual-twin avatars. The Spatial metaverse has enabled the integration of full-body, customizable true-to-life avatars as the key to user experience and virtual-world exploration. Digital-twin platform Ready Player Me, which creates lifelike virtual-twin avatar representations from user-provided selfies, is providing the tech behind the Spatial metaverse platform’s avatar system. Creatives using Spatial’s metaverse to build their own online worlds, NFTs, and Web3 experiences across web, mobile, and VR will be able to use the new tool to express their identity not just by what they do, but also with how they look. 

Many of the customizable user avatars that are currently available, at least at this point in the metaverse’s iteration, tend to be legless, hovering torsos. Because the user-generated avatars from Ready Player Me are full-bodied with legs, feet, everything; it makes them more attractive not just to users who are looking for a full range of motion to show off their customized skins and accessories, but also to the companies and creators who are selling a wider variety metaverse-based fashion and accessories and other digital collectibles. After all, it is difficult to sell NFT sneakers to an avatar without feet.

Full-body, inclusive avatars allow their users to unlock NFT wearables and other exclusive accessories across multi-world metaverse experiences. Within just the Spatial metaverse alone, top fashion designers and brands like adidas, KAHANI, ALTAVA, Exclusible, and others both digitally-native and not, are selling NFT clothing and other digital collectible accessories for consumer avatars to wear and show off to their friends, as more people in the metaverse create digital versions of themselves.

In virtual realms, creative content, authentic engagement, and community building experiences are critical, especially for Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers already steeped in the worlds of gaming and digital, where micro-transaction marketplaces and native currencies abound. 

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This article originally appeared in the PSFK iQ report, Fashioning Virtual identity.