Creating the Metaverse with Motion Capture

The Metaverse has taken the internet by storm, you cannot scroll through any feed without the Metaverse being named. And since Mark Zuckerburg changed his company into Meta and Epic CEO, Tim Sweeney, said the Metaverse is a multitrillion-dollar opportunity it exploded even more.

But what is the Metaverse? According to Wikipedia:

The metaverse is a hypothesized iteration of the internet, supporting persistent online 3-D virtual environments through conventional personal computing, as well as virtual and augmented reality headsets.

So, the Metaverse does not exist yet, but there are platforms that could be considered Metaverses, in a somewhat limited form, like Roblox, Fortnite, VRChat or Second Life.

So, the Metaverse is about online 3-D virtual environments, where you play, shop, chat or do other things with your digital avatar. It's a digital representation of your world. The movie Ready Player One gives a nice glimpse into the Metaverse future.

In this regard, you can already talk about how XSENS | Movella will play a role in the Metaverse, how we will enable the future of the Metaverse.

Metaverse moments powered by Xsens

There are already a vast amount of great examples powered by Xsens technology that might be considered Metaverse moments.

In June 2020 soul singer John Legend gave an interactive virtual concert on the platform of Wave. This is a Metaverse moment, where people from all over the world could join this virtual concert and interact in different ways during the concert. The concert was powered by Xsens technology as John Legend was driving his digital avatar in an Xsens mocap suit.

The Wave platform is built to create the most interactive live performance experiences in the world, a true Metaverse vision. Artists such as Lindsy Stirling, The Weekend and Alison Wonderland did similar virtual concerts at Wave.

In October 2021 there was another Metaverse moment when the band Twenty One Pilots did a concert on the gaming platform Roblox. Roblox is an online game platform and game creation system and has over 167 million active users per day. In this sense, Roblox is a true Metaverse platform.

The concert was a huge success. The pre-show activities in Roblox already had over 12.5 million views and Roblox heavily invested in quests, coins, rewards, and virtual merch ("Verch") for this concert.

The concert experience was an experience that mixed concert moments with gaming and social activities like sliding on a string chord highway around the band. 

Also check out the behind-the-scenes, where you can see how the band wears Xsens motion capture suits to record the movements for the concert and experiences.

Then there was this mesh of digital and physical fashion when Pokémon was celebrating its 25 year anniversary. Together with fashion brand Charli Cohen and fashion shop Selfrigdes they built their own Fashion Metaverse called Electric/City.

In Electric/City, you can explore digital shops and buy exclusive Charli Cohen x Pokémon physical clothes, and you can buy digital garments for an AR Snapchat lens or you can wear it digitally across 300 other virtual platforms. This is what the Metavere is all about, going from one platform to the other, but you are still the same avatar, with the same outfit.

A nice mix of art and Metaverse is how Veronica Lynn Harper is approaching the Metaverse. She creates art using her body movements and Xsens technology. She was part of the Art in Motion collection displayed over 200 placements throughout the iconic Penn Station in Manhattan, New York. Now she is releasing upcoming NFT and practical collections with the prestigious Patrick Jones Gallery.

In the future you might have a piece of art like this in your virtual Metaverse home:

Then there is the Sombra Network, a multichain NFT metaverse content studio on the blockchain. They also have a NFT marketplace where you will find art by the VFX community. Sombra is also creating NFTs and producing an upcoming avatar series called SINS where the storyline and avatar characters will be powered by NFTs. An interesting concept that might change the way we think about story development.

Metaverse companies using Xsens technology

On other aspects of the Metaverse, you also see the technology popping up. For instance, Dutch start-up Beemup is building an open, ethical and decentralized metaverse ecosystem. They create branded metaspace using Unreal Engine. Visitors can access these metaspaces via phone, laptop or VR headset. When Beemup hosts virtual gigs they use Xsens motion capture technology so artists, activists and public speakers can perform as their lifelike avatars in these metaspaces, in real-time.

And when you think about the movie Ready Player One, you can have a similar experience with Active Esport Arena. Using Xsens technology you can jump into a virtual world and play games using your own body movements. This seems very much in line with how you will interact with others in the Metaverse.

Even though there is no Metaverse yet, there are many platforms around that could be part of this Metaverse, because, in the end, it's about interoperability. Now, your avatar in Fortnite, you are not able to use it in Roblox. But many platforms are now built with Unity 3D, Unreal Engine or for instance Nvidia’s Omniverse.

All these platforms can work with Xsens technology directly, all the workflows are there and we provide no barriers to building the Metaverse.

Making your Metaverse avatar move

The Metaverse will be filled with avatars, the digital representation of ourselves. We will play games, socialize, shop and probably do many other things with our avatars. And those avatars first need to be designed and made, but they also need to move.

Not everyone has access to a full-body motion capture suit, this is where HEATDAO comes in, they have an NFT platform for buying and selling (dance) moves NFTs. They empower dancers to capture, create and monetize their movement data through the use of NFTs. It's the next level of the famous Fortnite dance moves you can collect and buy. Potentially you can buy and sell all kinds of movement there to make your digital self even more unique.

We have already quite some examples of avatars that could be living in the Metaverse, and it makes it even more interesting if the avatar moves just like us. Nowadays you could check out Vtubers like CodeMiko and Xanadu who are pioneering this space using Xsens technology.

CodeMiko is a Vtuber mostly active on Twitch, and she has shared many videos showing her full tech setup. She also adds special actions to her streams where her audience can influence her stream, like dropping digital dead bodies.

Recently Blu is making a name for himself and even says he is building the Metaverse by himself. Blu is a digital alter ego of Cory Strassburger who is a one-man-army using his technical and creative skills to work with Xsens mocap and Unreal Engine to produce a series of videos about the adventures of Blu in the Metaverse. The natural movements (powered by Xsens) make it much more life-like and making avatars move just like humans could be an essential part of the Metaverse.

Your digital motion-print

The intrinsic wish of every person to be unique will also be applicable in the Metaverse, and you can be unique by what you wear or how you look, but with the power of Xsens | Movella we can make you unique by the way you move, not some generic computer-generated walk, but really like YOU. We can give you a truly digital motion-print.

Special thanks to Nick Romick from RetroPixel Digital for providing the image from his upcoming Project Sirius.

If you are interested in how Xsens | Movella can enable the Metaverse?

Xsens MVN Animate

Xsens MVN enables you to mocap anywhere, at any time.