New World Notes

How to Create Avatars for Virtual Worlds -- An Oculus/Linden Lab Vet's Advice

Avatar pic by Ella Pinellapin

Continuing his blog series on what he's learned as a lead developer/consultant at Oculus, Eve Online, and of course Linden Lab, Jim "Babbage" Purbrick has a new post on the importance of avatar customization tools in open-ended virtual worlds:

If you are building a Metaverse which connects every possible virtual world how do you start? How do you please the person who wants to have the perfect tall dark stranger avatar rendered in 3D as well as everyone else? This was the challenge facing Linden Lab when building the avatars for Second Life at the turn of the millennium. While the default avatars could be manipulated into a huge variety of shapes and sizes using the available parameters, the results were often crude and the available wardrobe never strayed far from geeky teen hangout chic. Luckily for Linden Lab the inability of the avatar system to satisfy every whim was a huge opportunity for the entrepreneurs of Second Life.

Builders quickly realized that they could fashion shoes, hair, clothes and accessories from primitive 3D objects which could be attached to avatars to dramatically increase the gamut of styles that could be realised. Linden Lab enabled another wave of innovation by allowing animations to be uploaded which as well as allowing every conceivable dance move to fill the nightclubs of Second Life also enabled tiny avatars which either folded up the default avatar geometry inside cutely sculpted animal models or moved the default avatar under the floor so it was completely hidden and just served as a platform for a tiny replacement avatar standing on its head. Many years later Linden Lab finally allowed people to entirely replace the default geometry and textures so now it is common for not a single triangle or texel in a Second Life avatar to have been defined by Linden Lab.

But If a new virtual world is just launching, what avatar options should be available for early adopters? Jim's advice:

"In my opinion developers should make sure they provide realistic body shapes (not 2 meter tall avatars with impossibly large breasts) and diverse skin tones and facial features so that every potential user can easily build an avatar that looks like them if they choose. Some basic clothes should be provided, but these can be largely left to the community to develop."

Adding non-human avatar options open up some additional, interesting concerns. As Jim puts it:

The Promise and Perils of Adding Social Networks to Virtual Worlds

Good comment from Alicia, responding to Jim "Babbage" Purbrick's thoughts on the importance of bringing social networks in to virtual worlds and vice versa:

Honestly, keep social networks and virtual worlds separate. People want to keep their social networking/RL private for personal reasons while losing themselves in virtual worlds for a few hours a day/night depending on where one lives. Remember that there are people who have been stalked online by naively giving out personal info about themselves; or have been doxxed by a vengeful person seeking to create trouble for their victim(s) wherever they are.

I can attest to that last point, having interacted with several people (all women, actually) who've been stalked in virtual worlds by men who figure out their account name. Always important to remember.

However, a social network doesn't necessarily have to be a real name-driven one like Facebook -- in many case, it's better that the social network just be avatar name-driven, a great way to drive and maintain user activity.

When he was still at Linden Lab, as Jim told me recently, "The friends online page on SecondLife.com was the most visited by orders of magnitude." That is probably one of the reasons, by the way, that Facebook is integrating Oculus with its social network -- so people can tell when their friends are online in VR. (I.E. it's not just about personal data mining.)

In any case, Alicia agrees with Babbage's point that virtual world companies need to focus on player-to-player communication, if only because players tend to consume the game content incredibly quickly:

The Metaverse is Here: Now in Open Beta After 6 Years of Development, Dual Universe's Lead Creator Speaks

Just in time for the long weekend, the Metaverse is here: Dual Universe is now available in open beta. A single shard, fully persistent world with user-generated content and an internal economy, many believe Dual Universe is the closest thing we have to a metaverse worth the name, and now it’s open to all. 

Reached just a couple hours ago at NovaQuark's studio in Montreal, lead creator J.C. Baillie confirms that the Dual Universe that’s playable now is the Dual Universe that will permanently remain -- the key features are activated, the gameplay is locked down, and there are no plans to reset its reality. 

“It’s been 6 years since we’ve been working non-stop to get this baby out,” Baillie tells me, somehow sounding both haggard and enthused. “It’s very rewarding.”

Even shortly after launch, gamers are already plowing deeply into it, especially on Twitch, where one player even streamed his Dual Universe experience for 13 hours straight. (While he declines to report total user numbers, J.C. Baille tells me that “thousands [are] connected at any given time.”)

The fact that it’s persistent has actually created interesting interactions between Dual Universe streamers and players. 

Unlike a traditional MMO like World of Warcraft, as J.C. points out, “where there’s sort of an invisible wall” of many different shards, someone watching a live Dual Universe stream can log in, travel to the streamer’s in-world destination, and join them on camera. (A feature Second Life users are already quite familiar with, but pretty unique to MMO fans used to sharded worlds.)

Baillie likens that to watching Game of Thrones and then somehow being able to teleport into the show and become a player in it while it’s still being broadcast. “This is a very powerful thing that’s not been explored.”

But is this metaverse for you? Here’s some assorted notes -- on avatars, system requirements its similarities to Second Life, and tips for getting started from the lead creator himself:

Are You Interested in Exploring Facebook Horizons, Despite Facebook?

Released last week in invite-only, I should be covering Facebook Horizons, because it's the kind of world that New World Notes was launched to cover -- a would-be metaverse with a heavy emphasis on user-generated content and virtual community, user-friendly avatars/UI, and games that should help it attract a crossover audience. Just look at the feature set:

How To Create a Reddit-Style Upvote/Downvote Karma System for Virtual Worlds That Can't Be Abused (Too Much)

Writing about Second Life-based drama last week, many readers didn't like my suggestion that a Reddit-like upvote/downvote-driven Karma system would work relatively well to improve the user community. Sample:

The karma system would literally be used as a tool to create an even more toxic locale on any type of forums, Reddit or non-Reddit and would be akin to the old IGN Vault Boards as there would be Nazi Moderators and their favorites; as well as those who would get banned from there just because they said one thing wrong or didn't kiss anyone's ass...

The hive-mind would dominate a Reddit-like karma system, as far as governance goes... Imagine, how banal events such as "crappy lil club drama" would play out if there were a Reddit-like karma system. You would see everyday disputes devolve into disciplinary action.

And maybe that's all true, but let's start with a salient point:

Reddit's karma system works. Yes it's often abused (as is any social system), but it remains utterly instrumental to making Reddit one of the most popular sites on the Internet.

The other point: There are relatively simple ways to minimize abuse of a karma system while rewarding great content and users and encouraging them to keep coming back to the world.

Here's how:

Tech Worker Quarantined at Home Builds Co-Working Space in Second Life

"I built an office for those of us working from home during the pandemic," Annabelle Chimpton recently announced on Reddit, "complete with music, coffee, and a TV for breaks." Replete with a fire pit, garden, and koi pond, it's very much the kind of cool and casual co-working space that tech workers in Santa Monica and other hubs are missing nowadays -- except that this one only exists in Second Life: CliChimptonck here to teleport.

Working from home herself, Annabelle  wanted a place that recaptured her pre-pandemic office environment. "I think the big thing I've missed is the random moments of 'watercooler' talk throughout the day so hopefully this can help replicate that," as she explains.

Unveiled just a few days ago, people also working from home have been showing up to work in her virtual space from all over, she tells me:

Apple Gets Deeper Into Metaverse Business With Acquisition of Spaces

Another recent move by Apple in its steadily emerging XR strategy:

Spaces, a VR startup that got its start as a DreamWorks Animation project, has been acquired by Apple, Protocol has learned. Apple confirmed the acquisition after this story was first published. "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans," a company spokesperson told Protocol via email, using the company's usual boilerplate statement to confirm startup acquisitions.

Spaces spun out of DreamWorks Animation in early 2016, and developed a range of location-based VR experiences... [During the pandemic] Spaces then pivoted to build a VR add-on to traditional video conferencing solutions like Zoom, allowing Zoom users to take part in meetings with an animated avatar. 

I haven't tried Spaces before this, but to judge by demo videos (as below), the avatars and interaction with VR controls seems surprisingly rudimentary. (Compare them, for example, with the functionality and fluidity of NeosVR.) But I suspect Apple cares less about Spaces' VR features,  and more about how it integrated with Zoom etc.

The next question, of course, is what Apple plans to do with Spaces in relation to its XR-based smartglasses. (Expected in 2022, the inside whisper goes.) In any case, it's a strong and deeper move toward the metaverse -- and yet another reason to take Tim Sweeney's concerns about the metaverse's future yet more seriously.

Why Epic's Fight With Apple Matters for the Future of the Metaverse

In Apple’s view, only the Apple metaverse would be allowed. And that’s what I fear the most here: that Apple is looking ahead to AR and thinking of the absolute power it can wield over the world if they can get away with repeating the App Store payments fiasco in the real world.

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) August 8, 2020

With news that Apple is not only banning Epic's Fortnite from its App Store, but also planning to cut Epic off from iOS and Mac development tools (which would effectively hurt every developer using Epic's Unreal engine), it's worth reading this analogy from reader "Seph":

If Microsoft only allowed programs to be downloaded via Windows Store, took 30% cut of any program sales and another 30% cut of all in-app transactions as well, what would Second Life's viability be like? How healthy would Second Life's economy be if either Linden Lab absorbed a 30% hit every time L$ was purchased, or L$ was made 30% more expensive for the customer to cover Apple's cut?

The IAP cut aside, would Second Life even be allowed given it has a marketplace? Tons of user-created content that Apple doesn't get to review individually? At what level would Apple want to review; entire regions or individual products?

All 10 counts in Epic's legal documents are very relevant to products like Second Life and show how stifling Apple's ecosystem is vs. Windows.

Sweeney is very correct. That he stands to gain personally from the lawsuit doesn't make him any less correct. That this was obvious pre-planned baiting doesn't make him any less correct. Right now it's impossible to have a fully functioning Second Life on iOS, and Second Life is still the best example of a metaverse.

I think that last point is debatable but it is definitely the case that metaverse-like platforms in mobile app stores with user-generated content -- ROBLOX and IMVU come to mind -- have to contend with paying a 30% cut that both Apple and Google Play both charge. I'm curious how both companies contend with Apple's review process for user-made content, but I'm definitely sure it would be way more taxing for a much more open platform like Second Life. (And is probably a key reason why Linden Lab has been so reluctant to create a mobile app for SL.)

But why the focus on just mobile apps, when platforms like Steam and Xbox also take 30%? Seph answers:

As Apple Bans Fortnite, Tim Sweeney's Recent Words "Apple has outlawed the metaverse" Seem Prophetic -- And a Call to Action

Update, 8/16: Bumped up for weekend conversation!

Epic posted this Fortnite-made machinima inspired by Apple's 1984 ad very soon after Apple banned Fortnite from the App Store

This may be surprising news to some except it was definitely not a surprise to Epic Games' Tim Sweeney:

In an announcement this morning, Epic Games implemented permanent discounts on Fortnite's in-game V-Bucks currency across all platforms -- if users paid using direct payment...

"Apple has gone crazy," wrote Epic CEO Tim Sweeney in a tweet in late July. "If colleges hold virtual classes through an iPhone app, Apple could demand 30% of the tuition. Truly, Apple has no right to take any percent of any company's revenue just because they made the phone people use to access the stuff.

Speaking of Tweets From Tim, he made these just last week, in response to the news that Apple had also banned cloud streaming apps:

The Metaverse Needs a Unique User Identifier (Comment of the Week)

Pictured: Jeff "AM Radio" Berg's famed Second Life art recreated by his son in Fortnite

Good conversation responding to Tim Sweeney's belief that there should be many competing metaverses rather than just one world that's The Metaverse. My response to that was calling for shared standards for 3D content that enable virtual goods and other creations to freely move from one metaverse to another.

Reader "irihapeti" argues otherwise, calling for a unique identifier across metaverses as the more important first step: