I built real-time photorealistic avatars running entirely on Quest 3 hardware. It uses feed-forward Gaussian Splatting to hit >60fps on mobile VR chipsets and runs through WebXR, so users can join calls directly from their browser without downloading apps.

The surprising part: users say it feels more "real" than video calls despite being rendered. Something about proper depth and eye contact tricks your brain into feeling present with the other person.

The main technical challenge was balancing visual fidelity with Quest's performance constraints while keeping it accessible via web standards. Most systems either need desktop hardware or fall into the uncanny valley.

It’s not publicly available yet, but curious what HN thinks about the approach and potential applications in and beyond social VR.