These volumetric humans look seriously impressive on Quest 3
Gracia offers the most believable volumetric capture of people I've seen in a standalone VR headset. And you can check it out for yourself.
Gracia is a VR platform for volumetric content. It uses Gaussian splatting to capture and render real-world objects, people or entire scenes from all perspectives.
I first tried the VR app this summer after it was released for Meta Quest. I wasn't very impressed at the time because the examples were just snapshots with no motion and the resolution was unsatisfactory.
With the latest update, Gracia received dynamic scenes for the first time on Quest 3 and 3S. I took a look at them and this time I'm starting to see the appeal.
Better than previous techniques
Volumetric capture of people has been around for many years. The subjects are usually captured in dedicated studios with dozens of cameras. Recent examples include the VR game The 7th Guest VR and the wellness app Alo Moves XR. What's new about Gracia is that it uses an AI technique called Gaussian Splatting. The result is better than anything I have seen in this area.
The standalone version of the app features three dynamic scenes that can be downloaded individually: You see a chef cutting a piece of salmon, a boxer warming up while sparring, and a ballet dancer showing off her dancing skills.
They can be viewed in VR or brought into your own living room with passthrough enabled. You can walk freely around the subjects and view them up close. The scenes can also be rotated, zoomed in and out, and slowed down. You can see how it all looks in the video above.
Impressive technology that is still in its infancy
The examples show a clear advancement over previous techniques and the potential of Gaussian splats for volumetric capture. The dynamic scenes have been available for the PC VR version of Gracia for some time, but the fact that they run in real time on Meta Quest 3 is impressive to say the least.
Nevertheless, the technology is far from being perfected. There is a lot of room for improvement in terms of resolution, detail, and frame rate, which seems to be low on Quest 3. Another issue is compression. All three videos are only 10 seconds long, but two of them have a volume of 2 gigabytes each.
And don't expect to be able to do this kind of capture with your smartphone anytime soon. Specialized studios will be needed for a long time to come.
You can download Gracia for free from the Horizon Store. The VR app supports Quest 3S and Quest 3. For PC VR users, Gracia is available on Steam.
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