NFT 3D Avatars

tags: devlog

• Back to xrdevlog home
• Part 1: Avatars
• Part 2: Avatar LODs

The 2021 NFT summer of jpegs will go down in the history books for the records it broke, culture shock it caused, memes that were born, and so much more. Crypto culture has ascended like a rocketship into the mainstream consciousness.

Crypto twitter literally transformed into a sea of cartoon characters and pseudonymous identities with NFT pfps (profile pics). These projects are always looking for ways to add value to their community with methods like airdrops, events, etc.

Many are making 3D collections as a result of natural incentives. I want to help guide this trend because it can push interoperable open file formats while simultaneously red pilling a ton of people on what the open metaverse created and owned by users looks like.

Guidelines and Best Practices

Putting this near the top so people referencing this doc don't have to dig far.

VRChat has the best system for handling UGC avatar performance currently with their ranking system. Read this: https://docs.vrchat.com/docs/avatar-performance-ranking-system

PC avatars

Web / Mobile avatars

My recommendation

Better performance means better experience for everyone. Things load faster and smoother, you can fit more users and details into the scene, etc. Here's some modest guidelines to aim for:

• max 10k triangles
• max 2 materials
• max 2k texture resolution
• 5-10mb file size

If you're looking for some awesome inspiration, look up #256fes on Twitter: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23256fes&src=typed_query

The best file format for avatars is VRM, more info here: https://hackmd.io/@xr/avatars

Schelling Points

wtf is a schelling point?

TL;DR its a way of cooperating without communicating:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_point_(game_theory)
• https://nav.al/schelling-point (fast read / listen)

It was early 2018 during the VR winter when the Ready Player One movie came out and became an instant hit. Even though the book was a best seller, normies and suits now had a fresh new pop culture piece of media they used as a reference for describing the metaverse.

According to the writer and Hollywood producers, the future of the Internet looked like an immersive video game with a crazy amount of character cross-overs. Giant battles with nostolgic characters from various movies and video games occupied the same scenes.

Fortnite is well known for cross-over characters, events, and skins that users can purchase. Every season is an opportunity for a new batch of cross-overs from big studios and brands to enter in the Fortnite universe.

What both these examples have in common is that the IP all belongs to big corporations. There's practically no UGC being represented. Even then, what do the users really own when they buy a skin from the store? Users don't have any rights to these digital assets, can't resell it, nor take it out of the game.

Movies like Ready Player One have become a schelling point for Big Metaverse executives and partners, infact it used to be required reading during the early days of joining Oculus (not sure if it still is). It's a good book and movie, don't get me wrong, but I believe we need a new vision for how the open metaverse that's built and owned by users will look like. We can create that vision together through interoperable 3D avatars and virtual production.

Digital Ownership and Identity

By now any internet savvy person has atleast heard of NFTs. What was a very niche tech subject only a year ago has taken the digital world stage. Crypto twitter rapidly changed at incredible speed, suddenly everyone had cartoon avatars - including many famous people and startup founders.

NFTs created a schelling point for digital culture and property rights. They are a combination of identity and social organization, with zero membership criteria, fully global, and composable.

The NFT projects that transfer commercial rights to the owner of the token and/or have cc0 art for the entire collection have an advantage in aligning with the Internet's native remix culture. They fit closely to what can be considered an open-source brand, a fairly new phenomenon.

When you purchase one of those 10k avatar PFP projects like Bored Apes, Cool Cats, or Cryptoadz, you aren't just buying art, you're now a card carrying member of the brand. Open-source brands have the strongest properties to balance the equation with Big Metaverse and the legion of IP it owns.

To really understand the cultural significance of NFTs and how this all relates to building the open metaverse I highly recommend following punk6529 on Twitter.

In the context of this dev log, I highly recommend checking out these particular threads:

• https://twitter.com/punk6529/status/1424127515476598796 -
• JPGs and myths
• https://twitter.com/punk6529/status/1429514317108502536 - Metaverse
• https://twitter.com/punk6529/status/1443921334837338114 - NFTs 2030

No seriously, take your time and read through them. The open metaverse is going to take a long time to build, NFTs will play a big part in it, and punk6529 eloquently describes the metagame for anybody to understand.

Internet Cinematic Universe

See original thread on Twitter

Story telling is evolving into transmedia universes. The most famous example is the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

These universes are now expanding into gaming, the fastest growing and "always on" medium.

Now picture the Internet as a game we're all playing. There is a great post from Not Boring called The Great Online Game you should read if curious. Here's an excerpt:

The Great Online Game is an infinite video game that plays out constantly across the internet. It uses many of the mechanics of a video game, but removes the boundaries. You’re no longer playing as an avatar in Fortnite or Roblox; you’re playing as yourself across Twitter, YouTube, Discords, work, projects, and investments. People who play the Great Online Game rack up points, skills, and attributes that they can apply across their digital and physical lives. Some people even start pseudonymous and parlay their faceless brilliance into jobs and money.

The big difference between this and other cinematic universes is that we all have presence / digital real estate here. It is our shared universe we live, work, play in.

Throughout history we have told stories and myths to help us understand the increasing complexity (intersubjective) of the world. We're now immortalizing our myths (art + memes) onto an immutable public ledger via NFTs.

In the next few years these ingredients will come together in film and games while sharing a common history that we the people have collective ownership of. Web3 will forever transform the film and game industry.

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2.5D avatars

This category is for the honorable mentions that aren't going full 3D but have assets that to a certain degree can be usable in 3D environments. This is due to the fact that they have available sprites or transparent background assets.

Typically these require extra work on the developer in order to integrate such, so its usually a unique implementation each time.

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Axie Infinity

Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/axie

• Commercial rights: unknown
• File format: png
• Status: Dropped

Current most popular blockchain game in the world. Not too many people use it as a profile pic avatar, they're more like the pokemon of crypto.

sprite animations: https://freakitties.github.io/axie/pixi/images.html

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Wassies

Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/loomlock

• Commercial rights: unknown
• File format: png
• Status: Dropped, animated in 2D, looking for 3D artist

https://twitter.com/webaverse/status/1441425347078025226

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Timeless

Opensea: https://twitter.com/TheTreeverse

• Commercial rights: (cc0)
• File format: png
• Status: Dropping soon

Most recent thread on The Treeverse and Timeless: https://twitter.com/Loopifyyy/status/1446891088367788035

Anime inspired pfps. These will only be claimable by treeverse NFT holders and will each get a playable sprite avatar in the Treeverse MMORPG.

It's perhaps worth mentioning that the founder also has a virtual production company: https://twitter.com/interleaveCC. Only speculation as far as how these rivers might cross.

Latest preview of the game itself: https://twitter.com/TheTreeverse/status/1445755441955229721

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Forgotten Runes Wizards Cult

Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/forgottenruneswizardscult

• Commercial rights: ?
• File format: many
• Status: Minted

All these on-chain wizards are coming with downloadable sprite sheets that contain walk animations.

https://twitter.com/forgottenrunes/status/1501596173081083904

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Dope Wars

Site: https://dopewars.gg/ or https://wiki.dopedao.org

Commercial rights: yes
File format: sprites
Status: Minted

Dope Wars is a GTA spin off of https://lootproject.com/.

After seeing Forgotten Runes Wizards Cult inside of Worldwide Web3 Dope DAO immediately set out to create walk animation sprite sheets for hustlers.

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Cryptoadz

Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/cryptoadz-by-gremplin

• Commercial rights: (cc0)
• File format: png / .vox (WIP)
• Status: WIP, converted to .vox

Not sure if all of them are going to be voxelized, there's no roadmap just vibes.

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Meebits

Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/meebits

• Commercial rights: ?
• File format: vox, png, VRM
• Status: Shipped, being rigged

Meebits were the first major NFT airdrop on NFT holders. Before the public sale, there was an exact number reserved for all previous holders of Larva Labs NFTs (cryptopunks, autoglyphs).

Larva Labs handles forward compatibility by having owners of the NFT token prove ownership in order to gain access to the file downloads. This way the LL team can upload new file types in the future. Proving ownership drops a session cookie so the same URL won't work even if it leaked.

I converted Meebits to VRM manually and wrote a guide on it: https://blog.webaverse.com/interoperable-meebits/. It took many steps and a few dependencies. However, the video was seen by the right people who wanted to help.

The first MeebitsDAO project was to streamline the process of converting Meebits into a usable avatar format which came together beautifully here: https://github.com/MeebitsDAO/meebits-blender-utils

The beauty of project's design is that it could perhaps be modded to auto-rig any t-pose model.

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PolygonLow

Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/polygon-low
Site: http://polygonlow.xyz/

• Commercial rights: ?
• File format: glb, vrm, vox
• Status: minted

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VOID

Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/visitors-of-imma-degen

• Commercial rights:
• File format: FBX, glb, VRM
• Status: Shipped

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Genies

https://genies.com/

• Commercial rights: unknown
• File format: unknown
• Status: Unknown

Genies partnered with Dapper Labs to release 3D NFT avatars on Flow blockchain. You will be able to download your avatar to bring it across different applications as well as potential direct import through API. They are working on a wearables marketplace as well.

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Cryptoavatars

Site: https://cryptoavatars.io/
Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/cryptoavatars

• Commercial rights: Depends
• File format: VRM
• Status: Live

The Superrare of avatars, works with artists to drop 1/1 VRM avatars. The NFT art is a trading card format with icons to describe terms of use for each avatar.

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MetaTravelers

Site: https://metatravelers.io
Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/metatravelers

• Commercial rights:
• File format: ??
• Status: WIP

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Bored Ape Yacht Club

BAYC: https://opensea.io/collection/boredapeyachtclub
MAYC: https://opensea.io/collection/mutant-ape-yacht-club

• Commercial rights:
• File format: VRM
• Status: WIP, modeling

The Cryptoavatars team is working on making every BAYC and MAYC (30,000 total) into usable 3D VRM avatars. It's a task of mostly modeling the traits then generating everything.

Sometime next year, a network of over 10,000 owners are going to be redpilled on VRM.

See tweet: https://twitter.com/polygonalmind/status/1432081620023001094

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Chibi Apes

Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/chibi-apes

• Commercial rights:
• File format: GLB, FBX
• Status: Released, performance issues

GLB files are released for Chibi Apes but they are unusable in majority of virtual world platforms due to performance.

Currently most avatars are 600k+ tri (mostly from fur) and 20+ material textures.

Edit* The team is working on updating the avatar files to be much more optimized (60-80k tri), a huge improvement.

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Super Yetis

https://opensea.io/collection/superyeti

• Commercial rights:
• File format: unknown
• Status: WIP, Q/A

The yeti's have rigged 3D avatars and traits being modeled, tested, and optimized. Soon they can be used in virtual worlds.

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Metaani

https://conata.world/metaani
https://opensea.io/collection/metaanikizunaai

• Commercial rights:
• File format: vrm
• Status: Minting

Metaani is cryptoart x avatars from Japan. The lead developer is very based and VRM-pilled and has created awesome virtual production music shows and 3D browser based worlds.

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0N1 Force

https://opensea.io/collection/0n1-force

• Commercial rights:
• File format: VRM
• Status: Proof of concept only

https://twitter.com/dankvr/status/1444671556429524995

We currently have a blend file, VRM, and unitypackage (for VRChat) of a commissioned reference 3D avatar. The modeling is quality work and the visemes work great too. The reference is a bit too high poly though, like the hair is 50% of the triangle count (120k).

One nice feature about 0N1 Force pfps is how the sideways benefits a 3D artists workflow by using the mirror modifier while modeling ontop of the image. Once a trait has been 3D modeled it can be textured for all the variations and scaled to the reference avatars head.

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Gutter Cat Gang

https://opensea.io/collection/guttercatgang

• Commercial rights:
• File format: unknown
• Status: WIP, modeling

https://twitter.com/GutterCatGang/status/1444353463454863362

Gutter Cat Gang partnered with House of Kibaa for making 3D avatars. The gang is also making virtual worlds in The Sandbox Game and perhaps elsewhere based on renders posted on social media.

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CloneX

Opensea: https://clonex.rtfkt.com/

• Commercial rights:
• File format: unknown
• Status: Dropping soon

There is so much hype for this drop. According to this article, wearables for the avatars will be released as future physical claimables from RTFK Studios. They'll also make these wearables DCL compatible which implies that lower poly versions will be released also (DCL has strict limitations for performance reasons).

The avatars will be all rigged and have shapekeys for use with face filters and vtubing software: https://twitter.com/RTFKTstudios/status/1449105769656369160

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Mekaverse

Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/mekaverse

• Commercial rights: unknown
• File format: unknown
• Status: Minted

There is so much hype for this drop too, don't know much about them yet besides giant robots

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Deadfellaz

Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/deadfellaz

• Commercial rights: unknown
• File format: png
• Status: WIP, modeling

https://twitter.com/Deadfellaznft/status/1445417617397673987

Deadfellaz goes 3D: Our 3D team will transform all 10,000 Deadfellaz from our original collection into fully rigged 3D models. Original 2D tokens will not be impacted, this is an addition not a replacement. As we approach completion we will be exploring the possibilities and opportunities that these models open to holders, including avatar use across the metaverse, AR and social media. Source: https://deadfellaz.medium.com/deadfellaz-roadmap-2-0-b5bcaab6ff8

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Axolittles

Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/axolittles

• Commercial rights: unknown
• File format: gif
• Status: Minted, WIP modeling

The axolittles are fully rigged and low poly. All of the traits are getting 3D modeled. Every Axolittle owner will get a customizable aquarium where they can see their Axolittle hanging out in.

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FLUF World

Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/fluf-world

• Commercial rights: unknown
• File format: mp4
• Status: Minted

Well, I can see how they are technically interesting..

The NFTs all have animations, seems like these bunnies were made in blender too which is good.

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Metakrew

Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/the-meta-key

• Commercial rights: unknown
• File format: mp4
• Status: Minted

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Blitnauts

Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/the-blitnauts

• Commercial rights: (public domain)
• File format: ?
• Status: Minting, WIP modeling

It started with composable on-chain pixel art: https://www.blitmap.com/

Then came the expansion pack. Blitnauts are public domain: https://blitmap.mirror.xyz/KrZT0ub7DqaLyEim5phEffpcNJboKdRHdBM5FgeAylc

Wonder if that includes the 3D models as well? If so, where download?

The design of these 3D avatars can be used for any 2D NFT to be the face. I think that's pretty huge if you think about it, every cryptopunk / pfp that doesn't have a 3D avatar collection can atleast have something like this.

Smart contract: blitnauts.sol

• NOT MINTABLE
• just for solidity friends to look at
• 1500x1500 “pfp” style nfts w/ data on chain
• colors can be customized by minter!
• original blitmap svg data is slotted in

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Cryptosergs

Website: https://cryptosergs.com/

• Commercial rights: ?
• File format: ?
• Status: Minting, WIP modeling

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Tubby cats

Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/tubby-cats

• Commercial rights: CC0
• File format: ?
• Status: WIP modeling

https://twitter.com/tubbycatsnft/status/1501606581691195392

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Custom avatars

Maybe none of these 3D avatar collections are your type and instead you want to mint your own custom avatar as a NFT. Lets start out with file format.

FBX is a file format that Autodesk has control over. NFTs are usually minted for royalty free open file formats for longevity. For 3D avatars, glTF (.glb as binary) or VRM (which is based on glTF) is recommended for this reason + instant compatibility with a big ecosystem.

You could mint a NFT and have multiple file types zipped together and uploaded to IPFS, pinned using a service such as https://pinata.cloud, and added as an unlockable for the owner to extract. This is a crude way of doing things however. What if you wanted to update the files later? Plus there aren't that many open platforms to mint a glb file or add an unlockable (currently just opensea and rarible).

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Virtual World Compatiblity

Avatar Interoperability dev log

This is an incomplete list of worlds that offer various levels of support to import your 3D NFT avatar into. There's a big list of applications that support VRM format avatars here: https://vrm.dev/en/vrm_applications/.

There's also Craftopia and Valheim (via mods) on Steam which you can import your custom VRM avatar into + tons of VTuber apps.

It's probably useful to think of this list in the context of virtual location scouting. One aim is creating content to promote open standards and file formats to make interoperability easier. Another is to make clips about what the open metaverse looks like, a new schelling point per say. I like to use VRChat as a collaborative virtual production studio for this, they have the best camera system and good support for custom avatars and worlds. See: https://slate.host/jin/vprod

I think the market will demand it as a feature soon, people want more places to express themselves and throw events for their community in.

Decentraland

No custom avatar support in the main reference client. Can make a GLB wearable, like a head piece, in order to import the likeness of it into DCL.

The reference web client is a bit clunky if you wanted to create great videos with it. If possible it'd be better to export the gltf geometry and skybox from Decentraland and rebuild it in another engine to do virtual production.

Cryptovoxels

The community has largely voted in favor of implementing meebits into the platform and the team is interested as long as the wearables ecosystem can be compatible with new VRM avatars. Either the team can implement VRM spport with Babylon.js, convert VRM to GLB and shoehorn into their current avatar system, or through the Godot client with the VRM plugin.

I've created a proof of concept to help illustrate the possibility for owners to export their cryptovoxels avatars with wearables attached for use across the metaverse: https://github.com/madjin/cryptovoxels-avatars

I also recorded a short presentation on why its a good idea to implement other NFT avatars.

Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14Xk4Lpl5nbqWmLbPUjbM1CrpKNOPY47inmAIkphPS-w/edit#slide=id.p

There's a Cryptovoxels world in NeosVR and VRChat if we wanted to upload custom avatars and use Origin City (circa Dec 2019) as a film location. See https://hackmd.io/@xr/grid3

Somnium Space

Somnium Space supports custom avatars that are based on FBX file format. AFAIK their web client only supports Ready Player Me avatars as far as custom goes.

Webaverse

The Webaverse web app has support for custom VRM avatars and 3D spaces (models are glb). The project is currently in alpha.

Webaverse has the best avatar system on the web hands down. Savvy developers could build a vrchat or neosvr clone on the web with it since the project is open source, just don't expect free support if you do.

One significant detail about Webaverse is the inspect feature being developed. You'll be able to inspect 3rd party wearables with it as well.

Being able to verify something as authentic or not is an essential feature for the virtual economy.

Overall I believe Webaverse stands as the best out of the bunch in being the reference client / gold standard of what to aspire for in terms of compatibility and features. It will melt faces when its released.

JanusWeb

Open source 3D web project, extremely easy to self-host and mod with. GLB and VRM avatar support is being worked on by the dev. Currently both formats load in just fine, but the animations and skeleton retargeting for VRM is not finished yet.

VRChat

Supports custom avatars, have to use FBX file format and upload from Unity using the SDK. VRChat has a very helpful performance ranking guide located here: https://docs.vrchat.com/docs/avatar-performance-ranking-system

Side note: I've observed some interesting ways some VRChat creators handle wearable previews in-game. At chloma's virtual store you could resize clothing and grab the sleeves to pretend wear it over your custom avatar.

NeosVR

Supports custom avatars in various file formats, like glTF, but not VRM at the moment. Everything for Neos is made inside Neos, so you can just drag n' drop the file from your hard drive into the window from desktop or VR mode and start working on it.

There's a Cryptovoxels world uploaded to NeosVR. Its a powerful engine and inspiring place to meet up in. The community is very friendly.

Substrata VR

Early in development. Multiplayer and supports custom glb and VRM avatars. No VR support yet. Selfie camera included.

Nifty Island

Not launched yet, heard on Twitter spaces there will be VRM support though. They've also teased meebits on social media as well.

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Conclusion

The 3D avatars need to be rigged and optimized.

I'll continue to update this catalog to track noteworthy projects and will share my knowledge on best practices. We'll need to work together and create new schelling points for the open metaverse we want to live in. Virtual production is a powerful tool.

There's still a number of unsolved issues I aim to cover in a follow-up post. Questions like, what if you want to update your 3D NFT avtar in the future like changing a wearable or converting to a different file format. Would doing such require issuing a new token?

Wearables are traits and traits are what give NFTs their rarity, so you can see how big a deal wearables are. I also think people will want to mix and match wearables in the future so I've been experimenting with methods of wearable interoperability too. Stay tuned.