Beatboxes

tags: devlog janus

Website: https://zeblocks.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ze_blocks?lang=en
Art blocks: https://www.artblocks.io/project/145

Beatboxes consist of 841 generated unique rooms where you can fully immerse yourself with any virtual reality device.

Beatboxes by Zeblocks from Zeblocks on Vimeo.

You can open your eyes inside your unique art piece and explore by looking around and listening as you enjoy something you own.

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Web3XR Movement

We want the metaverse to be open and decentralized. To me Beatboxes is a story about making fun open metaverse content using new business models that don't involve any ads or selling of data. It also made me think of composability, like beatboxes worlds are a canvas to paint in like how music beats are composable with lyrics.

One of the toughest obstacles for those building with open tools and standards like webxr is that its been tough to monetize. Beatboxes is the most successful webxr art project in terms of sales. Its done better than most games in the Oculus Quest store (six titles amassed more than $10 million in revenue each at beginning of 2021).

I feel a kinship with others experimenting with web3 and webxr so I'm usually curious to know more about the creators in this niche. Me and Arsonic had some good chats about these two ecosystems while I gave a tour around Cryptovoxels. One of the places we spent most time in is a district called Makers where many talented OG builders in web3 and XR have a home. He is exactly the type of person we'd want in the neighborhood. I later hooked him up with one of the biggest parcels I had which was coincidentally next to SnowFro, the creator of ArtBlocks platform.

Web3 and WebXR are made for each other like peanut butter n' jelly or mac n' cheese. For the past few months I've been reaching out to passionate people building at the intersection of these two ecosystems and discussing how we can grow this movement. There are a several initiatives that we have boiled it down to:

• Education
• Hackathons
• Great content

All of our ideas can be layered into the hackathons being planned (happening in the webxr discord if interested). There can be educational workshops, incentives to build, and great content produced from them.

I've been to many hacker conferences and hackathons and one of my favorite parts of the event venues are the chillout lounges where you can grab a beanbag and chillax in a cool environment with dope beats playing in the background. That is where I see Beatboxes.

There's never been more support to build the most open and extensible foundation for the metaverse. Web3 and WebXR are still niche in the public eye, we are the catalysts that will soon change that.

‘Perhaps WebXR community too focused on ideals / purity and less so on building compelling content. Perf good enough with right tradeoffs’ - Carmack

WebXR has gotten gud enuf, web3 provides monetization, lets make some dank content.

- jin

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Internet Dance Party

Imagine bringing together internet memes, NFT avatars, DJs, and throwing a giant party on the internet that never ends. Lets sprinkle in some dankness and shake things up.

https://prostheticknowledge.tumblr.com/post/61216917084/gif-dance-party

HEATDAO

Twitter: https://twitter.com/heatdao
Blog: https://heat.mirror.xyz/

HEATDAO is building a marketplace for composable avatar animation data. We can collaborate with the community on creating cool looping dances for NPCs in the virtual world.

DJs

In the future we can get some DJs and do the green screen effect or live twitch stream.

Beatboxes Aframe

Link: https://zeblocks.com/beatboxes.html
Demo: https://generator.artblocks.io/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/145000003 (hit space to start)

Cryptovoxels Parcel

Link: https://www.cryptovoxels.com/parcels/771

The ZeBlocks HQ in Cryptovoxels is located in Makers district, right next to SnowFro, the creator of the ArtBlocks platform.

Upstairs from the lobby is a gallery with various pieces of generative art on display, soft music eminating from the displays. There are two buttons next to each piece, a VR button that takes you into the experience and Opensea to see more info.

You can jump into the Beatboxes experience from Cryptovoxels, it hasn't been tested if this works seamlessly in VR yet.

Beatboxes Janus

• multiplayer
• custom avatars
• text/voice chat
• dance moves
• animated lights
• animated speakers
• dancing meme ghosts

Past examples:

• https://hackmd.io/@XR/dna
• https://www.youtube.com/user/bai00000/videos

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Timeline

Launch party -> L2 World -> Live AV -> Ghost club

Milestone 1

Gather the community in a virtual world for the first time, see the project in a new light, and learn about the roadmap vision during a live presentation.

• Throw launch party of the Cryptovoxels HQ
• Decorate the roof top with panels displaying roadmap
• Have a Twitch livestream on the roof with live music
  • Give a presentation to the audience that's attending
    • Background on Beatboxes
    • Belief in Web3 + WebXR (hackathons coming)
    • Overview of Beatboxes roadmap
    • Record the presentation for upload later
• POAPs for those who attended the launch party

Milestone 2

The beatboxes experience becomes social with multiplayer avatars and text chat. Things in the world visibly shake to the beat and you can make your avatar move using animation NFTs made by real dancers.

• Create beatboxes with JanusWeb framework
  • Audio reactive lights
  • Audio reactive mesh morphing (speaker thumps)
  • See example: https://vimeo.com/324366896
• Multiplayer avatar support
• Text chat
• Dance picker
  • Integrate HeatDAO animations into engine
    • Note: It's based on mixamo rig

Note: During this phase we are also aiming to clean up the code, documentation, and examples repos for teaching educational workshops when web3xr hackathons begin (early 2022).

Milestone 3

During this phase the immersive virtual world becomes a programmable music visualizer for real-time audio. We can also scope out having a 24/7 live stream with occasional DJs performing in the VR world. This can be a collaboration with audius or various music NFT artists.

• DJ booth (with live panel)
• Control music in the world
• Animated camera path
• Video capture tests
  • 24/7 Twitch stream

Milestone 4

Avatar NPCs get sprinkled into the virtual world, opening up a wide opportunity to integrate other NFT projects into the mix. Some beatboxes turn into the ultimate internet dance party happening 24/7. Can have epic drop parties or chill beats to relax/study to. It's whatever your vibe wants to be, we provide the tools and assets to make it happen.

• Dancing NPC ghosts
  • Original creations
  • HeatDAO animations
  • 2D memes
  • NFT avatars (https://hackmd.io/@xr/nftavatars)
    • Meebits
    • CloneX
    • Cryptoavatars
    • Wassies
    • Axolittles
    • Etc..
• Experiment with particles
  • Fireworks