Quest 3 brings mixed reality trainers to your home this year
The mixed reality app Alo Moves is bringing yoga, pilates, and meditation instructors into your home this year, but you'll need a Quest 3.
Meta and Magnopus today announced Alo Moves, a mixed reality app developed exclusively for Meta Quest 3 and based on the movement and mindfulness platform of the same name.
Magnopus has volumetrically captured renowned instructors so they can appear life-size and 3D in your living room, guiding you through every move and moment in a series of yoga, pilates, and mindfulness classes.
In addition to the virtual instructor in front of you, there will be a mini version of the instructor that can be placed anywhere in the room to view the poses from different angles. Classes take place in front of a portal anchored in the physical space, offering views of mountain and coastal landscapes.
The classes last between five and 24 minutes. App users also get access to the existing collection of Alo Moves classes in 2D.
In addition to passthrough, the app will also use room mapping and object recognition to ensure a safe experience.
Alo Moves for Quest 3 will be released later this year.
The advantages of volumetric capture
Magnopus previously developed Mission I.S.S. and Cryptic Cabinet and has experience in volumetric capture.
For Alo Moves, well-known Alo Moves instructors Ashley Galvin and Annie Landa (both yoga), Bianca Wise (pilates), Kirat Randhawa and Susy Markoe Schieffelin (both meditation) were captured in 3D.
"Developing Alo Moves MR app was a truly inspiring project because it allowed us to push the boundaries of what’s possible in the VR fitness space," says Magnopus Director of Virtual Production AJ Sciutto on the Quest blog. "Volumetric capture was the clear choice for the instructors. It allows us to create life-sized, 3D figures with incredible detail. This level of immersion fosters a deeper connection and provides a much clearer understanding of movement, especially for beginners."
Mixed reality is the next step for headset-based fitness apps and something I'm really excited about as a mixed reality enthusiast.
I'm curious to see what the technical implementation looks like, because so far there are no videos showing the app in action and the images look computer generated.
Volumetric capture technology is still in its infancy. A recent example of the use of this technology is the VR game The 7th Guest VR, which features volumetric actors (see trailer below). They look great in VR and fit perfectly into the game experience, but they disappear when you get close to them, hiding the lack of detail that comes with the current state of the technology.
Animations and controlled eye contact are also not possible with volumetric capture, as it is essentially pre-recorded (3D) video.
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