We’re thrilled to introduce you to the Open Internet Metaverse (OIM), an app enabling users to create, edit and host their unique virtual spaces on the Internet Computer, just like Websites but in 3D
With OIM, you can build your presence on the 3D-Web, embedding 3D-objects and -environments, images, videos, and more. By linking to other spaces, you can even form your personal “virtual neighborhood”.
The virtual spaces are rendered as A-Frame scenes and thus are pretty Web-native. Each space is an NFT for users to benefit from ownership and control. The idea is that you’re not just a visitor in this “Metaverse” but especially also a creator and stakeholder (kind of like the Internet in general, hence the name ).
We just released this video showcasing some of OIM’s capabilities to build a fully on-chain metaverse together: https://youtu.be/JU_8hd3lrvo If you like, come check it out
Hey @patnorris, this looks pretty cool! Couple quick questions. What NFT standard did you go with, or is it custom? If I create a world, can I send/sell the world NFT to someone else and when they log in, it will show up?
Hi @jwarner , thank you! We’ve currently got the DIP721 and EXT standards implemented. Yes, the different worlds/spaces you create can be transferred and would then show up in the account of whomever you sent it to. Admittedly, that functionality is not well exposed so far, so we’ll have to do more work on that to make it friendly to use. If you like, I’d be happy to hear more; how would you envision to use this? How would the process look like to make it a great experience for you?
@patnorris I have not had a chance to play with this yet, but I definitely plan to do so. Off the top of my head, I envision using this as an NFT gallery with direct links to those NFTs on a marketplace. Unfortunately, that would require there to be a tool, or for me to create a tool, to mint 1 of 1 NFT’s. As far as I know, that tool does not exist right now on the IC. But, I’m looking forward to seeing what I can do with this in the meantime!
@jwarner an NFT gallery would be awesome! You could currently achieve something like this in your OIM space by doing one of the following:
for each NFT you’d like to display, upload the underlying artwork (e.g. image or video file) to your space. As the owner log in, click the burger menu in the top right corner and then on Edit. The Edit mode will open where you have options to add items to your space with one being to upload media. Once you’ve got it uploaded, you can click the new item and in the top bar you can add a link to the item (when someone clicks on it, they will be taken to the link in a new tab, so you could redirect them to where they can buy the NFT here). Make sure to save your changes (top left button in the Edit mode)
Link to the page where someone can buy your NFT as a “Neighbor” in your space. Log in as the owner, click the burger menu in the top right corner and then on Discover Neighbors. You can paste the URL to the marketplace page and add it. Anyone who views your space’s Neighbors can now see the link to the marketplace.
You’re right that you first need a tool to mint these NFTs. I thought I had seen a 1 of 1 minting tool at some point somewhere but wasn’t able to find it just now (will update you if I do though). Otherwise, Entrepot and Yumi could be options to mint a collection of them.
I’m looking forward to see what you will build and display and please let me know if any feedback or questions come to mind
Thanks for the detailed process on how to do this! Unfortunately, Yumi required heavy KYC which I wouldn’t want customers to have to go through, and Entrepot/Toniq are only doing collections (I believe). NFTAnvil has the option to mint 1 of 1 but when I browsed their Discord, it still seems to be under heavy development and I don’t think they use the EXT or DIP721 standard. I downloaded the extv2 code from the Toniq Github, but ran into some issues when deploying the canisters locally. I don’t have the technical knowledge to get it to work right now though. If you do find a 1 of 1 minting tool that uses either of those standards, please let me know. Thanks again!
I gave it a shot today and was successfully able to import a museum interior through a glb exported from blender. The 2 megabyte was a little tough to get down to, but I managed. About how long will it take for the NFT to show up under the NFT tab of my Plug wallet, or has that not been implemented yet? Thanks!
Fantastic, thanks! Would you mind sharing the link to your space? I’d love to take a look (if that’s cool with you)
I will look into the Plug wallet integration to see what needs to be done for the NFT to show up in your wallet. I’ll also put streaming files on the roadmap such that we can lift the 2MB restriction for uploads. And actually, we’ll check if we could provide a form of NFT minting tool (so whenever you upload something to your space, you could also mint it as an NFT). I though about it a bit and I’m confident we could have at least a “simple” version of it. Not sure yet though about the development effort and if that version were to fit your needs, so if you’re open to it, we could then talk a bit more about what’s important for you concerning the minting tool.
Don’t put too much effort based on just my needs. Ha ha! I’m just one person using/exploring the space for fun right now. For me personally, it would just be nice to have the option to mint a 1 of 1 piece easily. I understand that opens up the floodgates for people to copy other peoples work, etc., but it’s a nice tool to have. Also, I don’t think there’s a huge market for 1 of 1 NFTs unless you’re already an established artist so it doesn’t make financial sense for developers to spend their time creating a tool for that when the income from it will be essentially zero. BUT, if you do happen to implement it, let me know, I’ll give it a try!
Hi @jwarner , I hope you’re doing well. I wanted to ask you; would it be alright for you if I use your space as an example when I talk about the Open Internet Metaverse app?
Hey @patnorris, I was uploading an image to my space tonight and just wanted to give some feedback.
When navigating through my space, the “open menu” button on the bottom left of my screen kept getting cut off by my floor. I’m assuming this is because the world coordinates in the Blender export didn’t entirely line up with the world coordinates of the space when I imported it? If I rotate far enough, it is totally blocked by the floor. Here’s a screenshot to show you what I’m talking about.
I was able to import a piece of my art, but the aspect ratio is off. It’s hard to tell by how much because of the camera parallax, but it definitely doesn’t look right. Ha ha! Here’s a screenshot of the illustration in the space, and the actual illustration I uploaded.
One other issue I ran into is, if I enter into the edit UI for the space the first time, I have a “save and exit” button. But if I save and exit, then enter back into the edit UI a second time, the “save and exit” is no longer there. I have to re-load the space and re-login with my wallet, then enter the edit UI again to get it back.
My last thing is, I’m sure there’s a reason for this, but I have to log in using my wallet on the main menu, then once I enter my space, I have to login again in order to edit it? I don’t know why I have to login twice, but it’s a bit odd from a user perspective. Again, I’m sure there’s a reason, it’s just odd to me.
Hopefully this feedback helps you progress in your project! I’ll let you know if I run across anything else.
Hi @jwarner , thank you for your feedback, that’s great!
We added the “Open Menu” button as a VR element so that it stays visible and usable in VR/fullscreen mode as well. While it’s attached to the camera to stay in sight, it can get hidden behind other objects in the scene, so this is definitely something for us to look at how we can keep it visualized in the space and not be obstructed.
Your art looks great and I’m looking forward to seeing more especially if we manage to keep it in its original ratio. I will look into how we can fix this and push the change to the app, so that you won’t have this issue anymore. I will let you know once this is live. Same for the bug with the Edit mode not displaying correctly when opened a second time.
We’ve been looking into improving the login experience as the current behavior with having to log in again can be annoying. So I’m happy that you mentioned it and we can thus prioritize this.
Thank you for using OIM and providing us this feedback! I’m looking forward to improving the app further with it
