Hey Hive Peeps
I hope you are all well.
What is the Metaverse?
This is already an enormous topic and one that has so many parts to it I am breaking the explanations on each part into separate posts. The 1st part I covered was on digital fashion which can be found here.
At this point, I don’t honestly think anyone can answer accurately as to what the metaverse is because I don't think anyone really knows yet. As far as I am aware the term Metaverse was originally coined by the author Neil Stephenson in his book Snowcrash which I think is well worth reading if you are interested in Sci-Fi, Cyberpunk and The Matrix.
I think that the best way to describe what is being referred to as the metaverse is actually just a foundation of systems and technology that the metaverse will one day eventually be built on. This is something that is not just being developed by billion-dollar media companies but by an enormously diverse range of people, which means that anyone who is motivated enough to take the time to learn how to use the various software applications like Unreal Engine and Unity can play a part in this process. As I have mentioned in a previous post I am actually one of those people. I have made it one of my missions in life to see if I can figure some of this out for myself and I would also like to strongly encourage anyone else that's interested in learning about this tech to have a crack at it because it really is a lot of fun and incredibly satisfying. There is also a massive amount of free training available via The Unreal and Unity websites if you are up for the challenge. Who knows? Maybe one day you will become one of the architects of the metaverse.
Most of the current VR platforms that are currently available consist of many digital worlds and experiences that in some cases have been built by a single person or a very small group of like-minded individuals. There are also a number of game betas starting to appear on Steam that you would have thought were built by a AAA game studio but were also built by either a single person or a small team using apps like Unreal Engine. The progression of the software has opened many doors and made many things possible for many people.
Virtual Reality
At this point, I think it's probably worth talking a bit about VR headsets and the various aspects that go along with using them because there are many things that most people, myself included don’t expect when starting out.
My first experience with VR is probably one of the coolest 1st experiences I have had with technology so far. One thing that I would like to be clear about is that VR is not for everyone. Some people do suffer from really bad motion sickness when they first use VR as there is quite a lot of brain trickery going on that your senses need to overcome before you can really get into the tech and start enjoying it. There are some people that are not able to get past this issue at all but there are some things that you can do to mitigate the symptoms until your brain is able to adjust. For this reason, I would recommend not going out and buying the best and most expensive tech on the market as you will be a really unhappy camper if you turn out to be one of the unlucky ones that just are not able to get past it. I chose to start with the Oculus Quest 2 as it was really affordable and is able to operate standalone without being connected to a PC. It is also able to be connected to a PC both wirelessly and with a cable which does help to avoid tripping over the cable and wrecking everything but it does depend on how you plan to use the headset.
The main issue that most people are concerned about with the Oculus headsets is the compulsory connection to a Facebook account which I understand is not for everyone, other than that I have found it to be a great place to get started with VR. They are built to a fairly high standard and the resolution is great for the price compared to a lot of other headsets on the market. The setup is extremely user friendly and you don't need to be a computer wiz to figure it out.
For those of you who don't do Facebook the next best option that I have seen so far is the HP Reverb G2, which is a little bit more expensive but overall is a better headset in terms of quality but the downside is that it does require being connected to a PC in order to function. This is usually not an issue for most and is a worthwhile trade for the extra resolution and quality.
Another important thing to consider when it comes to VR is that the PC you intend to use your headset with is up to the task in terms of the hardware. If your FPS is too low you will have to deal with issues like the screen door effect which can also bring on that dreaded motion sickness. I would suggest using a graphics card like an RTX 2060 or AMD equivalent as a bare minimum if you are planning to use the VR for sims or gaming.
What is the Current State of the Metaverse?
The majority of things that are being marketed as being metaverse platforms are really just online multiplayer gaming platforms where you can create an avatar, buy clothes for them and then use them to share digital experiences in a social setting with your friends. The main difference with the majority of these platforms is that the community co-creates most of the mini-worlds/experiences so the quality can vary quite a lot. From what I understand, this is not the case with some of the newer platforms that are currently being developed.
The corporate world tends to market many of these types of platforms as the metaverse as they need us to believe that the metaverse is already here so that they can start selling us their products which they can then use to deliver a new level of advertising to us now. In my opinion, the metaverse won't really start to get going until the technology catches up a bit more, for example when AR(Augmented Reality) glasses start to become available at affordable prices we will start to see a lot of the apps and tech that are currently being developed actually come into their element. At that point, we will probably be able to put on a pair of AR glasses and be able to see an entirely digital world around us that will be overlayed over the existing one. You will be able to see people walking down the street wearing digital outfits and accessories and I hate to say it but probably also a lot of digital billboards infecting our spaces with advertising for products that we don't want or need, especially if current social media trends are anything to go by. I think it's fair to say that what we are seeing now is really just a foundation that is being built so when the tech does catch up everything will be in place to deliver the level of content that will be required to offer an optimal experience.
I think the best comparison I can make is to when the early social media and video sharing platforms got started around 2005-2007 back when smartphone technology was still in its infancy so it couldn't really deliver the experience at a level that was really useful to people, the internet bandwidth was also lacking so even streaming a video in decent quality on a mobile device was expensive and challenging for the majority of us. Unlimited data packages were pretty much unheard of and the data offerings that were available were really not that great and offered terrible value compared to today's world.
What Platforms are Available Now?
There are a few platforms available to go and check out but as previously mentioned they are more of a gaming experience than anything to do with what the metaverse will one day be. The first platform that I decided to check out was Altspace VR which as I came to discover was recently purchased by Microsoft with a view to it being a competitor platform to META’s Horizon Worlds which at the time of writing this was not really ready to be reviewed as it's still very basic and doesn't really have that much to offer yet. I will be covering this more when it's able to be experienced in a more finished state.
ALT Space VR
Altspace VR is basically a platform with a directory of different worlds/experiences that have been built by its users. The quality of each experience does tend to vary greatly but there are quite a few different places to visit.
The first major thing that I noticed was that it was extremely underpopulated. If you want a place to go where you can be alone for a while then this is the place for you. I literally didn’t see a single person the whole time that I was in there no matter which experience I selected. I have been back a few times since and still have not seen anyone. I have done some research since then and it seems to be more useful as a platform to hold a private event on as you can create a private instance of any experience and issue an access key to anyone that you choose to invite to share the experience with you.
For this reason, I can see why companies and organisations have chosen to hold VR-based meetups in the past. The technology did seem to function fairly flawlessly which was more than I expected but the downside of these platforms is that you are generally limited to around 50 people per instance. If there are more than 50 people the system will create a new identical instance for the next 50 people but you can not see or communicate with these people if you are in a separate instance to them. This aspect I found to be a real disappointment given that there are many reasons why it's a terrible limitation.
It turns out that all these types of platforms that are built using this type of infrastructure do also have the same types of limitations. I am sure it is possible to overcome these issues with a big enough budget which is also something that would probably need to be scaled along with the demand, but as far as I know, even the biggest multiplayer AAA gaming titles have their limitations in this respect.
That being said I did enjoy experiencing some of the cool things that people have created on this platform and they do deserve a lot of credit for taking the time to be some of the bleeding edge pioneers of this new frontier.
Here are some of the things that I did come across on ALT Space VR that I did think were quite cool.
So the question is. Have your visions of the all-powerful mighty metaverse begun to crumble and fall apart yet? To be honest, this is where it started to crumble for me. Between the motion sickness, the limited time I was able to spend in VR and the limitations of the platforms, the metaverse quickly became a lot more complicated than I thought it would be.
Even in spite of this, I have every confidence that these issues will be overcome by the new technology that is currently being worked on, especially with the advent of AR(Augmented Reality.) We just aren't quite there yet. There are companies like HTC that have already developed lightweight versions of VR glasses like the HTC Vive Flow.
Image Source: HTC Website
Sansar
Sansar was the next stop on my quest in search of the metaverse. This platform is actually quite well known as it hosted a number of virtual music festivals during the pandemic, one of which was the renowned Glastonbury Festival in the UK.
On first entering this platform the superior level of quality that they offer on their platform jumped out at me straight away. My first experience here was with the avatar designer which was the best one I have used so far. You could see that this was a platform that was built for developers to work with. They allow you to import metahumans from Unreal Engines Metahuman Creator and clothing from the likes of digital fashion designers like The Fabricant, The De-Materialised and RTFKT etc. Even though my research had pointed out the limitations of the people per instance problem, I now was finally starting to feel a whole lot closer to what I had previously expected the metaverse to look like.
The first experience that decided to have a look at was a virtual nightclub called The Photon EDC NightClub.
I was the only real person in there but the club itself was pretty cool. Sansar also has a very colourful emotes system that has things like different dance moves etc so I can see it being a lot of fun later down the line. Sansar allows you to use their system in desktop mode or in VR mode so its accessible to anyone.
Here is a brief vid of my experience at the club.
VR Chat
This platform seems to be accessible via VR only. They have a partnership with Ready Player Me the avatar creator that I previously covered in my previous post about digital fashion. That can be found here if you haven’t had the chance to see that one yet. I was able to easily port across my avatar which made things much easier so I was pretty much ready to go.
I went for what seemed to be the most popular experience on VR Chat and that was the Movie & Chill experience. They offer the option to create a private instance as well as join an existing public instance. Their system is also restricted to the usual 50 people per instance. Straight away I can see that this platform is frequently populated as there are multiple public instances available with people already in them but given my noobness on the platform I went for the private option so I could figure stuff out.
Movies and chill turned out to be a 3d model of a very plush apartment with giant screens in all the rooms. It has a built-in media player that offers all the latest movies, tv shows and music. You can select anything that takes your fancy and it will begin playing on the screens etc.
Here is a brief vid of my experience there.
There are a number of other platforms like these but I think that these are the best-developed ones that I have experienced so far. I have only covered them in enough detail to demonstrate the current metaverse progress as I see it. It is entirely possible to go much deeper into the functionality of these platforms but given their complexity in some cases it would just be too much to cover in a single post. However, if you are interested in knowing more about them I do recommend taking the dive yourselves and see what experiences you can have with each of them. At the very least it's an interesting learning experience and there are many to be had.
So, as far as the current state of the metaverse is concerned I’m assuming that if you weren't already aware of all the above you will now have a much clearer idea of what's currently available on some of these platforms and the experience that is on offer on each of them.
There are other types of blockchain-based platforms available that are also considered to ba a valuable part of the metaverse like Decentraland, Sandbox and Cryptovoxels. They aren’t yet supporting VR but are still very substantial in terms of their offering and the amount of funds that have been invested in and on their platforms, that being said I just don't feel that any of them really offer what I would consider being a true metaverse experience as they just don't have the level of immersion that VR offers.
New Projects that are Coming Soon
There are a number of brand new projects that are currently in the works that look like they will be taking things to a much higher level than we have seen so far. One project is RFOX VALT which is planning to incorporate everything from virtual concerts and shopping experiences to gaming and land sales. They are currently in the process of creating an entire ecosystem of products and services using the Unity software that will eventually come together to offer what looks to be one of the most advanced platforms available to date. This is definitely a project that is worth keeping an eye on.
Unity was the tool of choice for this project.
Another interesting project that is being developed but is still in the early stages is Victoria VR. This is also a very high fidelity project that is made using Unreal Engine and incorporates a more gamified VR experience.
This concludes my explanation of what I think the metaverse is and where it is at and I hope my research in the area has been of at least some use to you. If you have managed to make it all the way to the end, thank you for taking the time to read my post which as always is much appreciated.
I will be following this post up with what I think will be one of the most exciting parts of the future metaverse so watch this space for more.