GOLF+ now uses the new Meta Avatars with legs, and implemented a custom IK system to make them work for swings.
The new Meta Avatars SDK released in October. While the previous Meta Avatars had legs in Meta’s own apps for around a year before that, the SDK for third-party apps remained legless. For apps using it, such as GOLF+, legs only became available with the new avatars. In fact, the new avatars take the opposite approach, not letting developers disable legs even if they wanted to.
When launching the new avatars, Meta originally said that it would switch off the old avatars at the end of March, leaving them as grey featureless humanoids. But as developers like GOLF+ struggled with integration issues, Meta extended this deadline to the end of April and released an SDK update solving key issues holding back developers from upgrading.
With less than one week until the switch-off, GOLF+ has now migrated to Meta’s new avatars. But even with those last-minute fixes from Meta, GOLF+ has had to undertake “months” of significant work to make full-body avatars suitable for golf swings in VR.
The developer engineered their own custom IK (inverse kinematics) system, with feet-locking to avoid “moonwalking” and hip rotation that aims to reflect your real-world stance throughout a swing.
The first iteration of this “isn’t perfect”, the developer admits, but they’re proud of what they’ve pulled off with relatively short notice, and believe it “strikes a great balance across different swing styles”.
GOLF+ Upgraded The Graphics Of Its Original Full Course
GOLF+ just upgraded the graphics of its first full-swing course, Cliffs, originally released in late 2021.
GOLF+ is $30 on the Meta Horizon Store for Quest headsets. The game comes with three selectable courses, while 34 paid DLC courses are also offered, or you can access them all for $10/month with GOLF+ Pass.
Speaking to UploadVR in February, GOLF+ CEO and co-founder Ryan Engle confirmed selling over 1.5 million copies to date. Meta recently revealed the 50 best-selling paid Quest games of all time, and GOLF+ was listed as #17 – making it one of the most successful independent VR games of all time.