# Challenges of Interoperability

###### tags: `m3`

> Special thanks to mich and alexkim for taking notes

The Spaces was a focus on interoperability between community members in the VR/AR/metaverse space. The goal is to build relationships with devs in particular because a lot work in siloed environments when collaboration is important.

One of the issues with various platforms in the crypto space is every platform has their own standards and currencies. This fractured environment also exists among different communities and Discord groups that are all working towards the same future. There is a need for a constellation to connect all nodes. Need open standards. Need better incentive structure.

---

Jin @dankvr
First Step to Interoperability is Communication
Why it matters- what is the metaverse essay Matthew Ball
Currently Digital World is a Mall where each store uses its own currency

Economic Incentives
Silk road analogy- currently no roads between the big cities
A whole bunch of nodes but no constellations
Open standards and file formats are the glue to weave that web

Challenges of Interoperability Request to speak

Two challenges: Incentives/Information Sharing for Metaverse Interoperability
Call to discuss perspectives/ initiatives people are building.

Lchlannford.eth @fordacious
WEBXR / OpenXR

@AMORATION
Khronos WEBXR
Discussing a public map of the metaverse

@open_metaverse - seeking to bridge virtual worlds through identity, social graphs, inventory and more (from their Twitter)

Jin @dankvr
Map initiative is great: https://github.com/omigroup/omigroup/issues/109
Infographic about industries: https://github.com/madjin/ipfs-ecosystem

@amoration
Exciting to see discussions about discovery
A separate twitter convo on twitter next week

@_limbofeather
https://zesty.market
On chain monetization mechanisms
Banners that can be played on oculus quest
Open source protocol
Web3xr

Jin @dankvr
Hackothon initiatives (happening in WebXR discord)
XR and web3 cross pollination
Open source ingredients
@_limbofeather
Audience very technical
Xr pilled lol

@griffisaurus
Working with two cofounders to build a content management system for the open metaverse
Janus community
Making something easier to make virtual spaces without expertise in java
Will be a DAO
Open source fork of janus
Question to Jin- Is OMI looking to be a place where devs can coordinate on bounties - how do you all see that working? Overlap between technical development across projects. Where is the place for coordination

Jin @dankvr
Hackothons can be a good place for coordination (note:but maybe create a permanent HUB?)
Community discussions hackathon incentives happening in WebXR discord: http://discord.gg/Jt5tfaM

@griffisaurus
Quick comment/ praise for metaverse maps
Metaverse maps: https://hackmd.io/@xr/maps

Jin @dankvr
Give each company a booth in an open metaverse expo
Mapping initiatives meeting next wednesday
Call for stories about challenges to interoperability

@killamikemilla
Problems about building
Building a twitch/youtube for live performances
Doesn’t want to build out the avatar pieces- thats not the focus of the project (people will drop in and out)
Need from the community- to fit with the product- if there was a way to implement a facebook style sign in (metamask?) Pulling avatar info/ model files/ updated in game. “Persistent Avatars”
Thanked jin about providing these resources

@meta_dreamer
Sign in with ethereum wallet (universal account)
Just like people have a .ETH name you can attach more things
Working with webaverse to attach a VRM avatar to ethereum address- instant render ov avatar at first time sign in
Good example of the needs for metaverse/ web3 to succeed
Active research and development initiative
First roadblock to that- a live configurator for avatar and wearables to bake in the avatar into
Lobbying platforms for standard integration
Find lowest firction paths towards adoption
This avatar VRM file is a low hanging fruit for interoperability (simple address lookup)
Home world linking to profile possible too
Files can be stored on arweave or IPFS
Jin asked- “is this tied to ENS?”
Answer -= Yes and tied to Ceramic Network (a complement to blockchain)
Register schemas on ceramic - composable data streams
soft.id - universal ID
D.I.D decentralized identity
Web3 currently focused on financials and money, buy data use cases will become more important and useful

Jin @ dankvr
Hat/wearbles are traits
Mutable data- should that be a token
Dedicate an episode to avatar interop
Once we have interoperable avatar formats we can create specialized cinematics
Virtual productions can drive interop (see https://hackmd.io/@xr/nftavatars)
Creates a vision
Current schelling point is like ready player one, but a lot of the IP is owned by big studios. What if we see our characters in cinematics and games (Personal IP moving to large scale media production (ground up rather than top down))
NEOS VR and VR CHAT- platforms that allow custom avatar
Somnium space and webaverse have custom avatar function- but not other crypto metaverse realms (Decentraland / Cryptovoxels)

@thegeoweb
Thanks jin
Needs a catalyst to push the hard work of collaborating
Meta FB news is a catalyst
WEB3 side- trying to build sustainable incentives for open/public goods
Partial ownership to mirror real world land ownership AR
Money to support webxr
Money goes to the public to distribute to open source devs

@mutani_io
Found Jin through @boomboxheads
Mutani - digital fashion initiative
Radical fashion designers suited to game spaces- not large brand space
Digital fashion assets for autonomy of self expression in virtual spaces
From a trad fashion bg
How can she best build for that future- difficult between all the different world, DCL and somnium Cryptoavatars
How to best start preparing digital assets for interop

Jin
Metafactory: https://twitter.com/themetafactory good place to discuss wearable interop

@thisismein360vr zen futurist
More on the immersive viewing/ navigating/ storage environment

Jin dankvr
Need for a live tweeter
Note taker/scribe needed
Information sharing for those who can’t make it

@technobaboo Nova King
User experience design
Good experiences for XR
Low level understanding (“street level”)
How to help people understand lower layers
How do we standardize things in linux
XR dev
Dbus interoperability

@yangwao Matej
NFT marketplace on Kusama
Emphasis on community ownership
Metaprime infrastructure public good
Everything they write they give away under different license
Testnet- like ceramic
Running research to build the infrastructure

@bradleyc
Metalist
Simple NFT that can be pushed to different platforms across the metaverse
Simple IP- When people first enter metaverse it should be decentralized and not corpo controlled mechanism controlled mechanisms
Avatar jpg obj gltf package- easy to materialize everywhere

Jin
Cataloguing all NFT avatar projects: https://hackmd.io/@xr/nftavatars
Guidelines for optimal interp
File format and performance specs

@lancelumix virgils.io
Intro VR to healthcare
People are meeting inside virtual spaces to do therapy
Focus on neurodivergent children
Healthcare is a beast nad has a lot of pushback to do things the old way
introducing VR is a challenge but the market could be good
Close eyes on web3 stuff- not focusing on dev in web3 yet, because healthcare is conservative market future plan to become a DAO

Jin
Who uses blender?
Blender is in everybodies tool chest
Some people calling it the next industry standard
Small team/ community owned project
Nexus of 3D artist workflows, swiss army tool for interop

@anarchyarcade “sithlord”
Interop of avatars and incentivising/ mainstream reach
Mainstream needs to be convinced they want an interop avatar
Mainstream gamers aren’t convinced yet- why do they want this interop?
Jin asks about modding-
Modding culture is awesome, anyone who uses blender is closer to dev than user
A lot to learn from modding scene- a lot of technical implementation problems they have run into
Mod.io unifying user generated content, blockchain can learn from them

Jin
Motivation for DCL DAO funding blender sponsorship
Opensource takes coordination
Tech used to be as closed as gaming industry today: https://a16z.com/2016/06/01/open-source-gaming-vr/
Loot NFT drop - pure metadata
Anarchy Arcade can drop in metadata and transmogrify it into a number of different forms

Jin
global/ shared/ local
Different levels of expectations and privacy
Desktop envirnment should not be ignore
Previous field trip needed coordinating through discord
Discord deserves a lot of credit to world connecting interop
Open metaverse movement spread out across servers

Nova king
We’re not going to be in virtual worlds all the time
“Going home” familiar space
Important to figure out what people are doing when they’re not in virtual worlds

Limbofeather
Other spaces outside of virtual worlds
What worlds are you guys in?

Zen
Horizon workrooms
Pr vr system dreams v-time
Depends on what they are trying to accomplish

Limbofeather
Any concerns about horizons

Zen
Even twitter spaces stores text to speech
Weighing risks vs benefits

Nova King
Whenever you have a particular home space that you expect to flow in and out of, you blur the line between private and public
Linux- all the data is truly my own
Home space- 100% private- you know who has access

AnarchyArcade
“Local first” all saves are local on computer
A clone/mirror is in cloud but original is always owned locally

Nova King
Permissions systems do not abide by your rule- a set of rules someone else came up with that you can make some adjustments too
Easy to exploit/socially engineer
Mentality is to have my personal space on my device
Everything going in and out is technologically enforced

Anarchy
There’s magic in collaboration
Nova King
Needs to know what is private space and what is public space
Horizons- limits are blurry
Need to understand what the constraints are so private things are not unknowingly in public
Jin
Having the physical hardcopy of something
When you have a copy of the file it helps when bringing it into other places
Cautious of anything that doesn’t let me download my data
Downloading data is owning data
Right click savers have a point there
If you don’t own the hardcopy someone else is in control of your access- so what does that mean for ownership?

Nova King-
Demo night (https://youtu.be/e26UJRCGfGk?t=3593), I was literally able to grab a minecraft avatar and map the skin onto a player model and gain a gltf- through debus/.directly the avatar could be dropped into VR chat or neos
Advatnatges of file storage being local- less latency more control over assets
We need to reclaim file storage versus cloud storage
throttling/ browser compatibility risks
If you can feel whats happening people can understand what happening

Jin
We should dedicate an episode to ownership

Mutani
Appreciated novas fierce advocacy for ownership
January 2022 speakers about actions on privacy https://twitter.com/Privacy_Salon

Jin
We can’t have an open metaverse without privacy
Vtuber culture driving privacy https://hackmd.io/@xr/privacy

Nova King
Whenever you look at someone who understands privacy- true privacy a collect least data possible, give control in simplest method possible, needs to be reliable

@Eibrielbot
MPC
Decentraland dao community

Jin-
Eibrielbot is an ally in communications with DAO and proposal
Communication and coordination
Users are stakeholders
A lot of motivation needs relationships between communities platforms and devs before the technical interop
Hackathons next year and vr world meetups/ field trips and workshops next year will help build out the infrastructure
Mentioned the mapping initiative again “Open metaverse conference”
Jin has been working on multiple platform interop- one challenge is convincing people that its cool and people will want it
Virtual production and creating content out of that
Virtual green screen lets you appear in a set- a show with tech vibes
Living the medium

Anarchy arcade
Video avatars allow
Source engine show set
Don’t need to change file format

Nova King
Depth value to properly composite
Ton of people use live to be vtuber avatar into beatsaber- but iitsots not general solution
Fake 3d depth affect

Jin-
8 camera positions for vtubing?

Anarchyarcade
A light field- depth map streamed underneath the pixels VR chat

Nova Kings-
Depth is a 1/3rd bigger file so its not completely prohibitive

Jin-
A couple of avatars in VR chat that project s a shader that can create a side by side 360 or 180 that can capture panels with side by side

Limbofeather
Trying to put a piece of geometry in different 3d frameworks and allow that plane pull data from ipfs to show a specific image
Challenges- pulling onchain data in 3d environment
Trying to create a small piece of code that can work across a number of different 3d frameworks, that can pull from an on chain location

Novaking
-0 problem with that is so many steps- each step varies deopnding on framework

Limbofeather
There are some common APIs
Having a universal location through Arweave/IPFS is a new idea worth experimenting
Will have a presentation in the future

@amoration EVO
Exciting things happening in terms of compression to make some solutions viable
A live volumetric experience have a data problem- will continue to be a challenge for interop and compression and accessibility “facsimile of facsimil” interesting experiments coming in the next few months
Has a special effects company in LA \
Data problem for the next 6 months to a year

Jin
interop assets github repo
Checklist and example files
Table of interop

Craftrealities.eth @craftrealities
Lightform labs /lightfield labs?
Light fields and wall panels that creates telepresence utility

EVO
Other groups- “arturus?” “hollow edit” for building lightfield experience
Working on mobile phones
Opportunities for short experience
Theme park show this week
EVOs team engineers inside the park

@mp_design8 Michael P
Having to switch between different version of Unity
Using unity Hubs
VR CHAT and Somnium use different SDKs for different unity versions- eye tracking needs to be edited for each platform

Novaking
This is why local is so important- solutions
Advocating for Platforms to allow for upload of consistent standard

Craftrealities
Finding recent common standard
Jin
Without open file standards friction gets placed on user

Webnardo @gravity200
Interested in gallery metaverse stuff
In college
Project to create a visual gallery
Build on unity- problem- how to display gallery to viewer? Offered it through VR chat through SDK
Modelling in Blender
Topology was messed up and it was difficult to make it work
Question- as someone as someone whos outside of the tech but in design
Professor was pushing back because they did understand the purpose

Jin
Blender is the nexus of 3d workflows
Like creating your own website- building virtual worlds is addictive
Reducing friction from 3d creation tool to sharing platform
Interop- blender has great gltf support

AnarchyArcade
Not just engine problem
Still needs a standard avatar set
Don’t need to focus on distributing files without standard interop

Novaking
NEOS VR uses unity but has a different back end system for how avatars are loaded
Only able to do cool stuff by limiting how many platforms they are on

Kasper Tontti @kaspertontti
Question how should the metadata look like? What could standards be- has not seen standards yet.
Image showcase rooms that showcase NFTs but metadata stills fails- bad dev experience
How should we start building metadata standards
3d NFT showcasing is increasing
What is the correct way to store this data

Jin
.glb file and opensea metadata standards
People are convening on opensea metadata as a standard
Avatars vrm

Novaking
Vrm can be plugged into a gltf
Has to have the same bone layout but lengths and proportions can be different

Wisebeyonddefi @Wisecri3
Interop among chains
Scotty beam

Jin
Webaverse is also working on cross chain interop mainly on ethereum based chains
Wrapping contracts with counterparty and tezos for opensea
Who created it? Who owns it? All this other metadata? So I think you know that's kind of maybe a missing piece. Is the Wikipedia vision slash pokedex.
Being able to verify these digital assets across worlds.

Craftrealtiies
A common overlay that standardize metadata
Like right clicking and going to properties

Jin
Metachromium
Overlay concept- webxr apps on top of native steam apps
Episode on voices of vr with plutovr worth checking out
Metachromium Pluto aardvark and live

Novaking
Issues of objects sharing similar spaces
Drag and Drop works well in XR - physical metaphor
Discussed specifics of Dev challenges when working across multiple layers of platforms
“Items”” objects”

@kevinrussell spacesimphony
In music space midi- it is doable, we can get there
Working on 3d spatial audio
Xxx network elixir framework quantum secure network
What does that mean for transactions and overhead

Jin
Recommends discords
Hackathon planning- XR experiences Webxr discord discord.gg/Jt5tfaM
Mapping ecosystem- twitter.com/open_metaverse
Virtual productions/ content - virtual show M3 discord discord.gg/m3-org
Gather the builders and makers to get into the technicals
Ownership/privacy can get dedicated spaces
Wrap up