VR Conferences

tags: devlog

The pandemic has caused the workforce and physical events to go completely remote. Since March there's been a number of sponsored "virtual conferences", many being conference calls stuck in Flatland. These events miss the serendipity

We have spent the 2010s building the tools and infrastructure useful for producing highly scalable and accessible virtual conferences. Our team specializes in using the latest webgl / webxr technology but we target robust native VR platforms as well.

If the target changes to a different platform our project files are made to be extremely portable, saving time and expanding options on where we can choose to deploy.

Contact

Interested in a VR conference? The fastest way to contact me is either jin#6455 in discord or @dankvr on twitter.

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Mixers

We have powered 2 virtual mixers in the past month, with another one planned for 4/18/20. Each mixer has the speaker track in Hubs, a browser based platform, and breakout sessions in custom branded and Oculus Quest compatible VRChat worlds.

Image album: https://imgur.com/a/8cUm21N
Videos: https://github.com/M3-org/schedule/tree/master/2020-03-21

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April 4th, 2020

Image album: https://imgur.com/a/6O4B3MD
Videos: https://github.com/M3-org/schedule/tree/master/2020-04-04

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April 25th, 2020

Image album: https://imgur.com/a/jkBmyW8
Videos: https://github.com/M3-org/schedule/blob/master/2020-04-25

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Expo Hall

1. Congress Center Hall

https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/interior/hall/congress-center-hall-3d-model

2. Expo Hall 6

https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/interior/hall/exhibition-hall-model-6

3. Expo Pack

https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/interior/other/fast-render-event-and-exhibition-3d-model-pack-2018

This features a case study of using an AEC (architecture, engineering, construction) sample 3D scan as the virtual venue. With VR we can use any environment so think outside the box also.

We've been using 3D cameras such as Matterport to capture spaces, get measurements, models, floorplans, and to build virtual worlds with for 5 years.

After we have the 3D project files we can browse the space together through a website. This location is an AEC sample from Matterport of a conference center in Munich, Germany.

Update: Visit this at the Decentraland Conference District! Type /goto 23,112

Pre-Production and Tooling

At this point, most other workflows and development environments will be single player. With our workflow we can work together and meetup inside the scan with avatars, voice, and text chat, then edit the world like it's a collaborative google doc.

The editing tools are drag and drop simple and require no code. Changes are synced automatically between everyone, while text and voice help teams coordinate in real-time.

Our production workflow integrates with many other 3D engine and game development environments. This sets us apart from the market competition which has great support for importing files but less-so in exports. From the digital twin we can optimize, decorate, and export to social VR platforms and WebVR easily.

At any point also the project can be easily ported into another game engine to target a different platform such as VRChat, the world's most popular social VR platform.

We can also drag and drop models locally or hosted online to live edit the world.

Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-D4elpwniY

Can fly through the space with placeholder booths to get an idea of space and traffic flowing through the hallways.

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The Speaker Track

Idea: put out a call to all remote speakers certain guidelines like talking in front of a solid color background with even lighting so that the recordings can be spatialized into a 3D world.

Green background provides the best results but comes at a cost, worth it IMO

Black background, hardly recommend it because black hair hair or clothes is common.

White background, important for speaker to not wear a white shirt or hoodie!

No green-screen required with this camera, it has a depth sensor built in.

New test: more information coming soon

No webcam or VR equipment is required!! Can use vTuber software to have a digital avatar + green screen.

Have 1 hotkey to record 2 videos, presentation and avatar, simultaneously. Afterwords, this can be played back together in a various 3D platforms or composited into a video in post.

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Virtual Panels

Interviews and panels

Consensus Distributed

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The Stage

The stage is custom modeled. On each day of the event we can change the stage for speakers, panels, auctions, and concerts, then reupload the world.

The Man

Chained and pulled apart in different directions, the fire will set him free.

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Branding Ideas

The name is to be determined and the art isn't final yet but we are going for a Dali + burning man vibe.

Plain background: https://i.imgur.com/hvPJg7B.jpg

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Booths

We want to use these ecosystem maps as a guide for exhibitor floorplans. Each logo becomes a 3D model and the sectors are camp areas designated for booths to be.

We've modeled about 40 logos so far. We are also making, buying, and commissioning template booths for people to remix their exhibition space with.

https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/architectural/decoration/a-collection-of-25-simple-shell-scheme-exhibition-stands

Shell scheme is a term commonly used in the exhibition industry. It's the most common type of stand or booth that exhibitors are assigned when you book a space at an exhibition. To put it simply, a shell scheme consists of a box-style design supported by vertical aluminum poles, held together by aluminum cross poles at the top and bottom.

Prototype Batch 1

Mockup art, used as reference only!

Mockup art, used as reference only!

This work is greatly inspired by Vket, a virtual festival event that is produced about every 6 months by the Japanese XR community. You can visit by searching virtual market in the vrchat world menu.

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Tickets

We are collaborating with various NFT ticket partners to design and integrate a unique way to access virtual events and collect digital swag.

You can buy NFT tickets from the 3D world using Ethereum, USDC, and DAI as long as you’re signed in metamask from your browser. The operator can use the Opensea API with the machine to get a percentage from sales and secondary sales.

• Opensea
• Mintbase
• Kickback

We also have a working virtual vending machine that sells NFT tickets in 3D worlds using the opensea web interface. It's a really cool concept that inspires a vision of interoperability for NFTs and virtual gaming economies to blend together.

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Swag

How can we distribute swag during a conference? Many virtual platforms do not have a streamlined method for people to claim digital swag. However, in this video from NeosVR we can see how it might work.

Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xX8KCzJmcs

All NeosVR users have a cloud based inventory system that you can drag items into and spawn anywhere else. In this video I drag a folder from the booth table into my inventory then spawn one of the goods from inside.

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VR Meetups

M3-org is a working group for builders and makers of the open Metaverse. We meet remotely in Hubs and have presentations, discuss open standards, virtual world interoperability, and organize research field trips in VR.

In 2019 we organized over 17 virtual meetups with an average attendance of 20 people and a total of 32 talks.

All of the vods are archived on youtube, the checkmarks signal whether or not the event has a write-up yet.

• 2019-05-02 - How to Not Build a Metaverse / Cross-linking Worlds / What is a Shortcut?
• 2019-05-16 - Past Metaverse Attempts / Permissionless Innovation for VR / Teaching by Metaversing
• 2019-06-02 - Local-first Cyberspace / Incentives / World Traversal Recap
• 2019-06-16 - Mozilla Hubs / Editing XR in XR / Cryptovoxels
• 2019-06-30 - Long Discussion on Monetization
• 2019-07-14 - Grid City Collab / Linking Spatial Websites / Monetization Landscape of VR/AR Metaverse
• 2019-07-28 - Exokit Frontend
• 2019-08-11 - Discussion of Metaverse Talk by Tim Sweeney at Siggraph
• 2019-08-25 - Digital Identity / WebVR History / X Webpages in VR / Browser Inception
• 2019-09-08 - Create and Sell NFTs / Metaverse Browser Tech / Virtual Panel Recap
• 2019-09-22 - Construct Arcade / UX Principles / Virtual Market Recap
• 2019-10-06 - Charter / State of Exokit / Story of AArcade / Future of M3
• 2019-10-20 - Designing VR apps to target a wide range of input devices / WebXR Avatars
• 2020-01-28 - AR in VR tech and retrospective
• 2020-03-21 - VR conferences / Free association in the Metaverse / Metachromium demo
• 2020-04-04 - Blockchain = true Metaverse / Universal Cyberspace Hardware / Makepad / Workflow for Interdimensional trade
• 2020-04-25 - Metaverse News / Reality Bending / Virtual Events / Vket (Virtual Market)

Our working group has a charter that explains who we are, what the Metaverse is, our activities and participation guidelines. We're not married to the M3-org brand, our skills and experience can be applied to a larger body as long as the vehicle driving us gets more people motivated to collaborate on building an open Metaverse.

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Additional Links

• https://hackmd.io/@xr/conf - Oakland 3D scan -> Virtual Expo
• https://hackmd.io/@xr/conf2 - Munich Conference center -> Multiplatform Expo
• https://hackmd.io/@xr/gathervr - First virtual reality expo, May 2015
• https://github.com/M3-org/research#virtual-market-3-field-trip - Gold standard
• https://livierickson.com/blog/thoughts-on-gdc-in-vr/ - Good ideas

Do it for the climate. Do it for the convenience. Do it for additional conference revenue. Do it to save travel time & exhaustion. Do it for researchers and students who won’t be granted visas/have $$$ or resources. Do it for any of these & many more perfectly good reasons.

https://twitter.com/sonyasupposedly/status/1236748367398494208

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Notes

Sonya from Zcash Foundation describes a missing piece: the hallway track.

https://blog.lopp.net/virtual-reality-social-challenges/ - Recent blog post by lopp on VR!

https://livierickson.com/blog/thoughts-on-gdc-in-vr/

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For the event itself, I think we can look at the types of things they have going on at real conferences…you’ve got keynote-style talks where it’s a big auditorium with a few hundred people and you can barely see the stage, but you can socialize with people in your local vicinity, kind of like Venues or the whole “box seats” idea.

Then you’ve got panels and workshops.

And then you’ve got the expo floor, people standing around giving demos and asking questions.

Then there’s the hallway experience, impromptu talks and catching up with friends between talks, etc.

I think most people are only really thinking about the keynote scenario, but the smaller scale talks and workshops are where VR can work best I think.

When we talk about moving conferences into VR, another thing we should be looking at is how the assets (talks, slides, workshops, Q&A sessions, etc) can all end up forming parts of a learning package. Beyond just recreating the experience of attending a conference, this is an opportunity to improve upon how useful those conferences can be to those who couldn't attend at the time, even virtually. The status quo for conferences now is, maybe you'll get the keynotes livestreamed, occasionally some of the secondary talks get streamed, but at many events you're lucky if any of the talks are being recorded at all. Some conferences will release recorded versions of the talks several weeks later, some restrict those to a certain member tier. With a virtual-first approach, what we're really talking about is a system by which people can produce content - videos or volumetric captures of speakers giving their talks, and any assets they may want to use to accompany the talk - whether that's a traditional powerpoint slide, or some other 2d or 3d assets that the speaker wants to show off and arrange on their stage. All of this gets used for the real-time event at the scheduled date, and then becomes part of the "historical archive" of the event - so you could go back and re-explore previous events at any point in the future, and make use of them for learning purposes.

Other platforms require users to download a large native client which usually only works on powerful desktops, lack easy edit tools to build with, and have long iteration cycles to build and share which makes collaboration difficult.

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Makers

VR experts that have built game engines, VR browsers, no-code tools, and hundreds of worlds, all while working remotely together for half a decade.

Jin - Metaverse engineer with excellent rapid prototyping and documentation skills. Always looking for ways of connecting things and people together while reducing overall friction in the ecosystem of creating and consuming content.

Godfrey Meyer - Artist working in 3D / VR / AR / cryptoart. Has also been working in music production for a number of years, producing music for many TV networks, and tv shows. Some of those credits include MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, BET, Bravo, SyFy, Discovery Channel, Spike, NAT Geo, NBC, Nick, Oxegen TV, Sundance, TLC, Travel Channel, and many others! Currently Godfrey has been working in Virtual Production, software dev, C#, Unity3d, and creating Virtual Reality Studios, producing and filming music videos inside VR!

James Baicoianu - Lead developer and entrepreneur specializing in the intersection between game engine development, information architecture, distributed server infrastructure, and the web. Founder of a self-funded research company focused on Metaverse interoperability and participates in standards discussions for protocols and standards relating to the open metaverse.

Joseph "Spyduck" Trammell - Joseph went above and beyond for Janus, acting as the lead developer for Vesta as well as being one of the community's most prolific world builders. He built a huge number of interactive elements which pushed the limits of what even the engine developers intended, and was always eager to share what he'd built and learned with others. He also did a lot of cutting-edge work with automated agents, chatbots, and advertising drones in virtual worlds, as well as a number of experiments with spatialized user interfaces. To call him a full-stack developer wouldn't do justice to exactly how large of a stack Joseph has built. If you need a reliable, thoughtful, positive, and experienced developer, I couldn't recommend anyone more highly.

Hunter Fox - Hunter Fox built hundreds of amazingly detailed high-quality 3D environments for clients and businesses. Medieval villages, futuristic offices orbiting distant planets, Tron-inspired grid worlds, online casinos, space ships, architectural visualizations, western towns, movie theaters - too many to even scratch the surface! He was always eager to learn new graphics and modelling techniques that would let him take the realism and visual quality of his worlds to the next level, and was always pushing the envelope of VR native and web engines.

Allan "Aussie" Parker - Officially, Allan worked as Janus' business development and community relations manager for four years, but unofficially he was the heart of the community for much longer than that. In a company made up almost entirely of developers who were more than happy to hack away on interesting technical problems in isolation, Aussie was our lifeline to the community, and to each other. Always level headed, cheerful, and ready to help, he treated our community members like friends, and our team members like family. He spent countless hours engaging with the community, encouraging their creations and listening to their complaints, and communicating those back to the rest of us in actionable ways. When conflicts arose within the team, it was always Allan who helped mediate and bring us back together. If you're looking for that rare type of manager who understands the technology AND the people, look no further.

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This post comes from a small passionate tribe of developers from all around the world who met based on the shared interest of building the open Metaverse.