Mesh Avatar #1: Creating an own Microsoft teams avatar

The commercial era of Microsoft Mesh nimmt nun endlich Fahrt auf! The new app “Mesh avatars” is being rolled out in more and more customer tenants, heralding the start of Microsoft’s own “Metaverse“.
The avatars are designed to give users an easy and user-friendly introduction to upcoming features within the mixed reality (XR) of Microsoft Mesh.
How to create this Mesh avatar is shown in the following instructions

Create your own Avatar

The avatars are created using Microsoft’s own app “Mesh avatars“. This is located (if already rolled out in the tenant or approved by the administrators) under the “Apps” on the left bar of the Microsoft Teams client.

To create an avatar, the “Mesh avatars” app must be installed and opened.
The first time you start the app, you will be prompted to “Get started” to jump into the editing functions.

On the first pages there are various avatar suggestions, from which you have to choose one. If you already like one, you can click on “Use Avatar” and on the next page on “Save/Done” to finish the avatar creation.
For those who want to completely customize their own avatar, choose any avatar from the list and continue with “Use Avatar“.

Now you are in the “Body” view. Here you can make all the settings for the physique. Here you have various options in the categories of body shape, prostheses and skin tone.
If you are satisfied with the settings, click on the next category in the upper bar. In our case, “Face“.

In the “Face” view, the avatar can be changed completely around the face. Also, many of the categories have a “slider” button that can be used to make even more detailed adjustments (see next screenshot).
The “Face” category contains the subcategories Face Shape, Eyes, Nose, Mouth and Ears.

The “slider” function leaves little to be desired in terms of customization. Shapes/height of facial features can be changed here. Those who grew up with the Sims games from EA will feel very comfortable here 😀

Let’s continue with the hair under “Hair“. Here we have the subcategories hairstyle, facial hair and eyebrows. In this category, a color wheel also appears for the first time. With this, hairstyles can be completely adapted to one’s own ideas in terms of color.

To refine the face even further, the category “Apppearence” serves. Here you can find the categories lipstick, blush, eyeshadow, eyeliner and wrinkles (not my favorite :D).

Of course, the right clothes are still missing for a good appearance. These are located under the “Wardrobe” slider. Here you can find different styles of underlayer, outerwear, hats and glasses for business, casual, sporty and freaky. If you’ve always wanted to wear a shark hat to your next meeting with the boss, you’ll definitely find what you’re looking for 🙂

In my case, at this point I’m through all the categories and happy with my avatar. The Avatar Creator ends with “Done“.

Finally, you get to the overview page of the “Mesh avatars” app. Here you have the possibility to change the avatar you just created at any time. Or you can click on the “+” on the right side and create two more avatars to switch between meetings.

Activate your Avatars in Teams meetings

Start your teams meeting as usual. In the camera field, next to the slider for activating and deactivating the camera, you will now find the button “Effects and avatars“. Click on this button.

Now the selection of your already created avatars appears in a bar. As soon as you click on one, it appears in the camera field. With “None” you deactivate the avatars. As soon as you have selected your suitable avatar, you can start your meeting as usual with “Join now“.

Have fun 🙂