Ailiverseis in the Computer Vision Industry

Ailiverse

ailiverse

and NFTs are now household names in the crypto universe. Since 2021, the two crypto tools have seen immense growth and adoption in different sectors. Entertainment is one of the sectors that has contributed to the increase in Defi and NFTs. Moreover, more projects are buying the idea of developing Metaverse, a network that hosts games, concerts, and gambling houses. Defi However, the most prevalent Defi and adoption was in the gaming industry. Dozens of platforms were conceived within and before 2021, intending to provide gamers with play-to-earn systems using Defi and NFTs. Below are some of the Defi platforms with gaming and NFTs that investors should watch out for in 2022. NFT 1. Illuvium is a Defi project with gaming and NFT functionalities, in which players hunt for beasts and use them for battles. Its developers aimed to create an entertaining game with a good experience. Illuvium Illuvium combines Defi and NFT to provide passive income options while gaming. For instance, the network has a native token dubbed , which is the main asset of the ecosystem. $ILV helps in purchasing NFTs and rewarding the network participants. $ILV The $ILV token is what makes Illuvum a Defi platform. Illuvium provides a Defi staking option using the $ILV token. There are two core pools available for staking $ILV to earn rewards. They instituted a liquidity mining program whose primary intention was increasing the supply of $ILV tokens. Stakers receive regular rewards and can vote on the betterment of the project. Already, some of the platform's tools are online. Hence, the network takes the first spot as one of DeFi and NFT gaming projects to watch in 2022. 2. AidiVerse is another Defi network focused on blockchain-based gaming. It is a product of Aidi Finance, bringing a vast array of Defi, gaming, and NFT solutions. AidiVerse Aidiverse launches as a play-to-earn gaming platform combining yield farming and blockchain gaming solutions. This platform combines entertainment and competitiveness with income-earning options. It offers rewards to its network participants and players. The Aidiverse platform combines a comprehensive collection of services to reach investors. It has a dual token system involving the AIDI ETH and BSC tokens. Aidi ETH will be the primary token for Playfi (gaming). It will be the main currency to purchase in-game assets in the playFi. On the other hand, the Verse is the utility token for AidiCraft, the NFT platform. The platform operates on multiple blockchains, including Ethereum and BSC. As a Defi platform, AidiVerse has a decentralized exchange option working in multiple chains, dubbed AidiSwap. On top of that, it has an in-house NFT marketplace, an asset tracker app, and a merchandise store. 3. GoFungibles is another decentralized finance platform that combines Defi and NFT in gaming. The Defi-focused network allows investors to create, trade, and earn using NFTs and other features. GoFungibles GoFungibles allows participants to generate income while gaming. According to their website, their combination of different tools ensures gamers have a thrilling experience. It combines a wide array of Defi tools starting from yield farming, staking, and rewarding solutions. GoFungibles also instills different NFT options to offer a good user experience. It provides fractional NFT ownership, a unique property compared to what most NFT and DeFi projects offer. It harbours collateralized NFTs, NFT leasing, farming, staking, and artist donations. GoFungibles also has a fair NFT fee structure making it easy to mint and list NFTs with low fees paid when selling. It also features the DAO governance tool for decentralizing the services. 4. NFTb defines itself as a multichain Defi and NFT gaming option. NFTb, which first launched its services in May 2021, aims to create a gaming environment where participants can generate income within the network. NFTb In its mission to enhance the growth of Defi, the network introduces a launchpad that helps new projects. Defi and NFT related projects can leverage the launchpad to seek community support. On top of the launchpad, the network also offers Defi services. For instance, this network has an NFTb earn tool, mainly focusing on providing Defi-related staking and farming services. Investors can stake the native token and earn an income in the network. NFTb The network has a tool for creators to mint NFTs, with a marketplace where investors can purchase or sell NFTs. The marketplace takes the bidding format, where the highest bidder goes with the asset. Final Words The concept of blockchain gaming integrated with NFTs is still growing, although not all die-hard gamers consider the ideology' palatable.' However, as time flies, developments on the DeFi and gaming could change their minds. Upcoming projects like Illuvium, AidiVerse, GoFungibles, and NFTb aim to uplift the blockchain gaming industry, as they also plan to improve the gaming experience of a modern-day gamer. All said and done, as an investor, you should do exhaustively research what projects suit your position. The above projects are the 'ones to watch,' but remember to DYOR on every project available before investing.

4 Defi Platforms with NFT Gaming to Watch in 2022

UK-based web 3 entrepreneur Sebastian Clej is determined to solve the image problem of crypto art through his idea of a highly curated art marketplace for contemporary art and blue-chip NFTs. His vision gave birth to ASKNIGHTS, the art-focused and tech-driven company he founded in London in 2020, and his determination has helped him to survive even the worst crypto bloodbath. Today, ASKNIGHTS has more than two thousand followers on Discord and much more on Twitter and Instagram. And it has helped over 400 international artists and collectors to share its fast-growing digital platforms. Clej recently sat down with Olayimika Oyebanji to discuss NFT art and his vision for a freer and more inclusive art market. 1.ASKNIGHTS can be the launching pad for many undiscovered artists who struggle in an industry that is as heavily gated as the space industry. How do you explain your motivation behind the founding of ASKNIGHTS? The art industry and market have been gated for a long time. It seems that things are beginning to change now, thanks to innovative technologies such as blockchain, smart contracts and NFT. I have been an artist myself, so I know how difficult it is to penetrate the market and grow as an artist. Through ASKNIGHTS, my whole motivation is to help other artists and collectors as I would be helping myself. The secret lies in mirroring - looking at others and seeing yourself, or at least a part of, in them. Since 2020, it’s been a lot of challenges, with ups and downs, but that is normal, no one said or expected that it is going to be easy. Holding on to a balanced, open-minded and agnostic approach, we mainly faced challenges from the two extremes: crypto maximalists and non-crypto maximalists. Both extremes leverage too much. Glad that the industry got rid of some in the meantime, such as FTX and partners. 2. The image problem of NFT or crypto art has divided the art audience globally. Here in the UK, you’ve got an eminent artist like David Hockney describing NFT as “silly little things’’. Do you think there is a real image problem in the NFT space? That’s a great question; I don’t see it as a problem. It is normal to have different opinions; this is diversity's beauty. It has always been like this throughout history. I respect David Hockney and his art, and I am not surprised to hear that from someone aged 85. Academic research in neuropsychology already pointed out that the older we get, the harder it is for the neurons in the brain to make new connections so that they can truly understand and learn new things. Those old neuro cells prefer to label the new as something bad even without grasping new concepts. Based on our surveys as well, usually, older people are neither interested in new technologies nor learning something new. That’s why this attitude was highly expected. In the end, no one can stop a positive innovation that benefits the many, and it’s for the greater good; it generally just occurs sooner or later. Thus, it is not like I am condemning such an attitude, but rather that I understand it. For instance, I can’t be sad about my grandfather for only being a fan of the Moon and not Mars. The sky and Moon were limited during his time, but now it is Mars. What is stopping us from dreaming bigger and surpassing our actual limits as humans is only our mind; history has proved it multiple times. Or let’s simply look at a younger artist such as Damien Hirst (57-year-old), a great English artist from Bristol. He successfully launched his new art collection as NFT, and it helped him reach new audiences more effectively than the traditional one. 3. Judging by your disposition, it’s compelling to say that you don’t subscribe to the notion that NFT is a fad or a bubble. Does crypto art yet qualify to be described as contemporary art? In a way, some believe that everything after the Big Bang or God’s Genesis is a bubble. Without going that far, I don’t see NFTs as a bubble. NFT art and Web 3 definitely have more long-term potential than art on Web 2. It is mainly because this new technology is more secure and reliable. It solves the ownership and traceability issues without breaking information privacy rules, as is common in the old Web 2 space. Web 3 NFT Art also offers immutability and is here to stay for a long time; what we are seeing now is definitely just the beginning. 4. What is the value proposition of ASKNIGHTS? Own art: Exclusive NFT Art & Artiverse’ is our UVP. The goal is to support immutability and art conservation, focusing on blue-chip fine art and especially the digital side of it because we believe that if thinking in thousands of years, digital art is more valuable due to better art conservation standards and risk management. Basically, we are making art as long-lasting as possible while aiming for eternity and making it everlasting. And the beauty of Web 3’s new space, compared to Web 2’s, is that it generally consists of an open and creative space where everyone is free to get involved in multiple ways and choose the role that suits them best. And so is at ASKNIGHTS. 5. How is ASKNIGHTS in a different class of its own? By solving key market issues in a unique and efficient way. We seem to be the only one that links artists and collectors, being blockchain agnostic, decentralised, and truly hybrid. Or, in other words, we act as an impartial medium and portal, always valuing freedom of speech and artistic expression and its ingenuity. Art is meant to be freer even than journalism and entertainment since some of it may only be addressed to a verified private list of members. Art DAOs with NFT verification are a great use case example in this sense. ASKNIGHTS also started its DAO registration on Discord. To be more specific, no one is creating that much value and utility to the NFT art world than we do, based on our limited low budget as it is for now. If we had gathered more funds, the situation would obviously be better, and we could have helped the users more. Perhaps everything happens at the right time so let’s not complain. At least, it proved we’ve been extremely cost-effective for what we built by now and still going a few steps upward when the whole market did it the other way around, according to recent market data. 6. The idea of building a virtual environment for the curation and exhibition of art pieces is superb. Is the art world ready for immersive technologies? I definitely think 2020-2023 is marking only the beginning of it as both a product and market development. It is one of the most favourable times we have experienced recently for such implementation and adoption. Or let’s just think about the time during the covid waves when everyone had to stay cautious and keep it safe at home. Virtual digital spaces were a great alternative to continuing our daily life routine and even improving it in some areas. Users enter virtual universes or worlds through VR headsets, laptops or even smartphones. However, what we are seeing now is just the beginning. When talking about immersive experiences, there is still more way to go; more exciting things are ahead of us! Just keep an eye on this new economy, creative culture and art movement manifesto where the NFTs are the expressions of it. 7. What advice do you have for young emerging artists making technology the cornerstone of their craft? Always use your thoughts, ideas and words wisely so it benefits you in the long run. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be more punkish, mix things in between or that you can’t go for both physical and digital art forms, called hybrid or phygital. Make the best out of your experiences and use technology as a way to make your work more effective and its outcome better. Art and technology are here to stay and help us have a better future. How do you intend to solve the art industry's problem with elitism through curation? First of all, by offering to everyone a decentralised curation system and rankings governed by smart contracts on immutable public ledgers. In this way, hacking, corruption and elitism are at least 100 times less likely to occur. Secondly, by supporting as much diversity as possible through curation. And, of course, there shall be no intention to promote any political party. What is the stack of technologies that can help fulfill ASKNIGHTS' ambition? How do you leverage them? Decentralised networks, blockchain, Token Gating for events attendance and exclusively private content, Dynamics NFTs, NFT Brewery Factory to change NFTs over time (breeding and transforming them into something new), proof-of-authenticity, proof-of-originality, meta-reviews, and proof-of-reserve for physical art tokenisation (collaborating with ChainLink in this regard). Decentralised public ledgers and smart contracts support everything. We also use ThirdWeb and Token Factory (Rarible Protocol) for minting NFTs and their back-end functionality on our curated NFT art store and marketplace. For the metaverse within Fringe Multiverse, we use Unreal Engine and 3D creation software such as Blender and Cinema4D. It is vital for us to connect the NFT art marketplace with the metaverse within Fringe Multiverse so that it adds up more value and creates more utility for NFTs. In this way, we make both sides happy, including the customer, who is the collector and owner. Since intellectual property, terms and conditions, and ownership are our cornerstones; we encourage everyone to include as many of them as possible in the metadata before minting and selling anything. That is what ASKNIGHTS is doing together with its partners. Originally  published here.

“I Don’t See NFT As a Bubble”, Sebastian Clej on NFT Art And Blockchain Technology

"No veo a NFT como una burbuja", Sebastian Clej sobre el arte de NFT y la tecnología Blockchain

"Je ne vois pas NFT comme une bulle", Sebastian Clej sur l'art NFT et la technologie Blockchain

"मैं एनएफटी को एक बुलबुले के रूप में नहीं देखता", एनएफटी कला और ब्लॉकचेन प्रौद्योगिकी पर सेबस्टियन क्लेज

「私はNFTをバブルとは見ていません」、NFTアートとブロックチェーン技術に関するセバスチャン・クレジュ

“Eu não vejo NFT como uma bolha”, Sebastian Clej sobre NFT Art And Blockchain Technology

“Tôi không coi NFT là bong bóng”, Sebastian Clej trên Nghệ thuật NFT và Công nghệ chuỗi khối

“我不认为 NFT 是泡沫”，Sebastian Clej 谈 NFT 艺术和区块链技术

Blockchain technology is at the forefront of promoting various projects with its functionalities. This masterpiece technology has recorded considerable successes in multiple industries like Finance, Logistics, Arts, Entertainment, Sport, Gaming, and much more. In the financial realm, it started with fueling numerous cryptocurrencies, promoting DeFi protocols, and facilitating the advent of NFTs before crossing over to Metaverse and Web 3. What is Metaverse? Metaverse translates into virtual verse, i.e., a virtual world or environment where humans can explore the virtual world, experience their fantasies, and more, irrespective of their geographic location. Not only that, Metaverse has been an excellent tool for corporate organizations to conduct their various seminars, conferences, symposia, and lots more. Like many other blockchain projects, Metaverse fills a void in users' needs and strengthens other blockchain-based projects' functionalities. Among all blockchain-based projects, Metaverse seems exclusive due to its interconnections with other previous projects. On Metaverse, avatars used as human persona is an NFT (tokenized digital arts or objects) purchased or exchanged with cryptocurrencies. The use cases of Metaverse seem endless as more functionality is being discovered. One of the most valuable aspects of Metaverse is its virtual real estate, where virtual lands are sold to investors. In real-world real estate, landed property is a significant asset edging the industry towards a vast fortune. Like in the real world, land has been a profitable asset worthy of investing in in the Metaverse due to its potential use cases. These parcels of land can earn their investors sizeable ROI because they can be purchased as NFTs; while also claiming royalty on secondary sales of these lands. They can also earn investors passive income through rental and other economic use cases yet to be discovered. Do you also wonder where these virtual lands are getting their value? Well, I have an answer to your doubt which will alleviate your fear and curiosity about Metaverse lands. How Lands are Valued on Metaverse In our natural world, lands are valued based on their sizes, locations, and other economic factors, like their use cases. Like in the real world, the same factors responsible for attracting value to lands and real estate, in general, are also applicable to lands in the virtual space. Virtual lands are valued based on their respective locations, sizes, and utility. Below are how these factors determine the value of lands on Metaverse. Metaverse land size and dimension reflect land's length and breadth, which is directly connected to the aggregate value of such land. You'll also agree that a 16m x 16m virtual land will not have the same value as 12m x 12m, with other factors being equal. So the land size commensurates its value in the Metaverse; the larger the magnitude, the higher the price. Land Size and Dimension Similar to conventional real estate, the location of land in the Metaverse is also vital. Like lands are more valuable in highbrow cities than other lesser regions, lands strategically situated close to major hubs or big brands are usually worth more than others far away or isolated from them. For example, lands closer to The Sandbox Map or Genesis Plaza in Decentraland are worth more than others afar from them because these two are active locations in the Metaverse.
Furthermore, lands closer to notable brands on Metaverse like Adidas, Nike, Gucci, Coca-Cola, Walmart, Samsung, Hyundai, Louis Vuitton, etc., are valuable and worth more than those afar. This is because these notable brands are in commercial hotspots where their stores are situated; the closer a parcel of land is to them, the higher its value. Location of the Land Brand Metaverse Brand Host platform Nike NIKELAND Roblox Samsung Samsung 837x Decentraland Gucci Gucci Town Roblox Adidas AdiVerse Sandbox Hyundai Hyundai Mobility Adventure Roblox Wendy’s Wendyverse Fortnite Forever 21 Forever 21 Shop City Roblox Vans Vans World Roblox Walmart Walmart Land Roblox Dolce & Gabbana Decentraland Ferrari Fortnite Louis Vuitton Decentraland Balenciaga Fortnite The Walking Dead Sandbox Coca-Cola Decentraland Depending on the choice, proximity to in-demand natural landscapes like beaches could also attract value to lands within such landscape perimeter. 3.      Land Utility The land utility is another factor that attributes value to parcels of land in the Metaverse; it is a function of what can be developed on such lands for appreciable ROI. Generally, utility is the main factor driving value to Metaverse (lands and other Metaverse objects). It concerns the economic architecture of landowners/investors regarding their lands. As an investor, you can develop real estate as an arena for public events, retail outlets for virtual stores, etc., and rent them out to users. There are various use cases of virtual land, which also determines how those lands are valued regarding their locations. The following are virtual land use cases. i.                    Virtual Game Play-2-Earn (P2E) games thrive on the Metaverse; they are the frontrunner that promotes the Metaverse to further utilities. Lands on Metaverse can be developed as a gaming environment where users can play and earn. , a gaming platform, took this initiative when it purchased land in The Sandbox. On September 26, 2022, retail giant Walmart announced its debut into Metaverse with "Walmart Land" and "Walmart's Universe of Play" on Roblox (another Metaverse gaming platform). Atari ii.                 Virtual Stores Virtual stores are similar to physical stores where commodities can be purchased, but only virtual products and merchandise are sold in virtual stores. These merchandises exist as NFTs, which include fashion accessories like footwear, headwear, glasses, clothing, etc. Brands like Samsung, Nike, Adidas, Gucci, DKNY, and many other brands already have their stores on various metaverse platforms. iii.               Entertainment Metaverse as a virtual world was not shut out of entertainment due to its euphoria and relaxation. Entertainment is also booming in the Metaverse, especially the music industry; artists like Travis Scott, Ariana Grande, and Marshmello have separately performed on Fortnite, a metaverse platform. On Roblox (another metaverse platform), Soccer Mommy and David Guetta have separately performed, Post Malone performed on Horizon World and Daler Mehndi on Somnium Space. Conclusion Virtual lands drive their value mainly from their utilities alongside other factors like location and size. This doesn't mean there can't be other factors responsible for adding value to virtual lands in the nearest future; the Metaverse is a digital world susceptible to dynamic trends.

Understanding The Value Of Metaverse Land

Building the Next Metaverse with Metropolis World

The pattern always fascinated me. I found it interesting, useful, and compatible with object-oriented programming. A lot of us know it thanks to Node.js. event loop For some reason, recently, I have been looking to implement it and experiment with it. And I finally got the opportunity to do so at work. Event Loop Concepts An event loop doesn’t do too much. We can ask it to start and stop itself. And once started it waits and reacts to events. The events could signal a new message in a queue; an expired timeout and so on. Events trigger an action or a script once they occur. With this in mind, we can already define these interfaces. They’re evoking the aforesaid behaviors: interface EventLoop {
  void start();

  void stop();
}

interface Events {
  Optional<Event> next();
}

interface Event {
  void trigger(Script script);
}

interface Script {
  void run(JsonObject properties, Consumer<Instant> onSuccess, Consumer<Throwable> onFailure);
} The interface deserves more attention. We can ask it to with given properties and with two callbacks. One for success and one for failure. The first one sends the script end time. The second one sends the exception that has occured. Script run Simple event loop The simplest event loop that comes to mind uses : busy waiting final class BusyWaitingEventLoop implements EventLoop {
  private final Events events;
  private final Script script;
  private final AtomicBoolean alive;

  BusyWaitingEventLoop(final Events events, final Script script) {
    this(events, script, new AtomicBoolean(true));
  }
  
  BusyWaitingEventLoop(final Events events, final Script script, final AtomicBoolean alive) {
    this.events = events;
    this.script = script;
    this.alive = alive;
  }

  @Override
  public void start() {
    while (alive.get()) {
      events.next().ifPresent(event -> event.trigger(script));
    }
  }

  @Override
  public void stop() {
    alive.set(false);
  }
} Once started it checks repeatedly for a new event. Once the event is found, it’ll trigger the script according to its own rules. But this approach has a major drawback: the event handling blocks the event loop. This means that we can handle only one event at a time. Multithreaded Event Loop An approach to resolve the aforesaid issue is to start the event loop two or more times. Each time in a different thread. So, here is a potential multithreaded event loop implementation exploiting the : ExecutorService The responsibility is to run tasks. It can run them in different threads or in a single thread. Java provides both implementations thanks to a bunch of . ExecutorService factory methods final class MultithreadedEventLoop implements EventLoop {
  private final EventLoop origin;
  private final Integer nThreads;
  private final ExecutorService executorService;

  MultithreadedEventLoop(final EventLoop origin, final Integer nThreads, final ExecutorService executorService) {
    this.origin = origin;
    this.nThreads = nThreads;
    this.executorService = executorService;
  }

  @Override
  public void start() {
    for (var i = 0; i < nThreads; i++) {
      executorService.execute(origin::start);
    }
  }

  @Override
  public void stop() {
    origin.stop();
    shutdownExecutorService();
  }

  private void shutdownExecutorService() {
    // Java specific code
  }
} We can start a with eight threads in this way: MultithreadedEventLoop public final class Main {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    var nThreads = 8;
    new MultithreadedEventLoop(
      new BusyWaitingEventLoop(
        anEventsObject,
        aScriptObject
      ),
      nThreads,
      Executors.newFixedThreadPool(nThreads)
    );
  }
} Now we can handle eight events in parallels. An improvement, but we can do it even better once we have resolved the main issue: the event loop and the script running in the same thread. Asynchronous Script The solution to the aforesaid issue is to run scripts and event loops in different threads. In this way, we can have threads dedicated to the scripts and threads dedicated to the event loop. We already have a multithreaded event loop but we are missing the other piece: an asynchronous script. Here is an implementation that exploits the again: ExecutorService final class AsyncScript implements Script {
  private final Script origin;
  private final ExecutorService executorService;

  AsyncScript(final Script origin, final ExecutorService executorService) {
    this.origin = origin;
    this.executorService = executorService;
  }

  @Override
  public void run(final JsonObject properties, final Consumer<Instant> onSuccess, final Consumer<Throwable> onFailure) {
    if (!executorService.isShutdown()) {
      executorService.execute(() -> origin.run(properties, onSuccess, onFailure));
    }
  }
} is a decorator. Using this, we can turn a synchronous to an asynchronous one. AsyncScript Script Script Indeed, we can easily integrate in the previous example: AsyncScript public final class Main {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    var eventLoopThreads = 2;
    var scriptThreads = 14;
    var executorService = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(eventLoopThreads + scriptThreads);
    new MultithreadedEventLoop(
      new BusyWaitingEventLoop(
        anEventsObject,
        new AsyncScript(
          aScriptObject,
          executorService
        )
      ),
      eventLoopThreads,
      executorService
    ).start();
  }
} Now we have an with sixteen threads. Two threads were assigned to the event loop, with fourteen available to the scripts. So the event loop will receive new events in two threads. While the scripts will run in others fourteen threads. ExecutorService Java Tip A possible improvement specific to Java is to use generics. Something like: interface EventLoop {
  void start();

  void stop();
}

interface Events<I, O> {
  Optional<Event<I, O>> next();
}

interface Event<I, O> {
  void trigger(Script<I, O> script);
}

interface Script<I, O> {
  void run(I in, Consumer<O> onSuccess, Consumer<Throwable> onFailure);
} In this way we can handle generic input/output in the . Script Real-World Scenario While the aggregates objects, in my case, it aggregates multiple that emit . The latter triggers the scripts with the message body as properties. And on completion they remove themselves from the queue. AggregateEvents Events Azure Queues Events AzureQueueMessage Conclusion We can improve the presented implementation in various ways. For example, we can add more capabilities to the event loop, such as restarting. But, as always, keep in mind the modeled domain. Furthermore there could be more opportunities to catch. For example I can guess a prioritised implementation, or I can guess event loops with different implementations. In this way, we could have finer-grained control over threads or priorities. Events ExecutorService Currently, I’m investigating a broader and more consistent way to apply this pattern. So, stay tuned and happy looping to you all!

Implementing an Event Loop in Java for Fun and Profit

Yay me – I just released an AlloApp! 🎉 The first of many to come, this basic drawing board is a server-side-running, inherently collaborative “tool” to be used simultaneously by multiple people in a virtual Place. It’s being built side-by-side with the continuous development of our , whose purpose is to enable anyone to build their own AlloApps! So if you don’t like my drawing board – just make a better one yourself! 😉 AlloUI Library Regardless of what you think of my drawing board – it may not look great or have its full intended feature set yet – it is , and seing the result in action is satisfying. working extremely So, without further ado, I’d like to take a minute to walk through and demystify the process of building an AlloApp. Beginning with a set of lofty “what if you could…” ideas, and ending with a useful product that eventually led to this magical moment of trans-atlantic communication: Ideation A journey of a thousand miles should probably begin by figuring out where you’re going. As such, let’s consider some properties of a good drawing board. In my opinion, it should be a sized black or white board, allowing its users to do free-hand drawing on it with a chalk or pen with high color contrast. In addition, you should be able to erase the board, and access to multiple colored pens is a plus. OK, that’s pretty much it. lagom Next, let’s get crazy. Remember, this is an app made for a world unconstrained by our traditional notions of physics. So, no holds barred, how can we imagine a drawing board that’s ? Let’s see what we can think of. What about… better than IRL Being able to change the pen thickness and colour on the fly (without ever running out of ink or accidentally picking up a permanent marker some prankster left behind) The ability to draw from a distance The ability to dynamically change the size of the board if we run out of space Now that’s a bit more exciting! Let’s get to building! Implementation “But wait a minute”, you say. “ “. If you do, then surely you haven’t peeked at the finished product yet. Seriously though, UI- and UX design for the Alloverse is something we’re very excited about establishing and iterating on, but this specific project is more about the technology. If you’re interested in the future of spatial UX, come ! We’d love to hear from you! Shouldn’t there be a design phase first? discuss it in our Discord Anyway – for now, let’s focus on the immediate concern of creating a drawable surface. How do? After a quick foray into a completely over-engineered vector-based solution, I sobered up and found – a popular and super potent open source 2D graphics library. With it, we can create a , paint it black and place it in the world. Due to the inherent simplicity of a drawing board, that’s all we need for a minimum representation of one in 3D! Cairo Surface Now, enter: interactions. Thanks to Nevyn’s efforts, Alloverse has called point and poke. A point is triggered when a user overlaps their pointer beam (originating from the their Avatar’s hand and beaming outward) with an app component, giving the latter access to: built-in support for nifty interactions An identifier of the hand that pointed, and in world coordinates, the point of intersection between the component and the beam. Once we have that, converting the intersection point to local app coordinates is doable. easy Now that we know where on the board the user is pointing, we simply wait for them to trigger the poke interaction by pushing the trigger button. As this happens, we can “make the pen touch the board” by telling Cairo to draw a small circle. And guess what? To emulate freehand line drawing, we now simply need to keep drawing circles at the point of intersection for as long as the user is holding the trigger button! The current implementation requires us to continously save and load the board Surface to disk as a png image as long as someone is drawing. Thus, we’re limiting it to 20 updates per second for performance reasons. 😅 I know what you’re thinking, but hey, it works! We’re well aware this is a proof of concept and we’re happy with hacks – the ability to stream textures is on the roadmap and we’ll write a . Real Solution™ soon™ Drawing the rest of the owl With the basic functionality completed, we can move on to adding some other basic features: Buttons that increase/decrease the thickness of the pen. Controlling it is as easy as modifying the variable that sets the radius of the drawing circle. A “clear” button that resets the board by simply drawing it black. Like any other AlloApp, we can allow users to freely move it around in the Place. This can be achieved from the get-go by simply attaching to it the generic moveHandle created by Nevyn and supported by his . latest math adventure Resizing the board is done by grabbing and dragging the top-right resizeHandle which is locked to be moveable only along the board’s x- and y axes. This component started out as specific to the drawing board, but will likely be broken out into a more generic component in the future (much like the moveHandle above). Upon detecting the handle being moved, we: Save the contents of the current board (technically, its Surface) Create a new Surface with a size matching the position of the resizeHandle Load the previous Surface‘s contents onto the new one. All right, that’s about it! Let’s take a look at the final result: After trying it out “in the field” for the first time I soon noticed a bug caused by my “single player” mindset. In a place with multiple people, the board couldn’t differentiate between which users sent the points and pokes, resulting in a line being drawn along pointer beams intersecting with the board as long as was pushing their trigger button. Thankfully, this was patched relatively easily by implementing a drawingUserControlTable that keeps track of who initiated the intent to draw with a poke, and only allow the running of the circle-drawing function on point for those users. any someone Regardless, this proved a valuable lesson reminding me that , and that . Thus, in the future, the AlloUI framework will be inspired by my control table solution and in the future provide built-in support to more easily keep track of interactions from multiple users. Alloverse is an inherently multi-user environment all apps need to keep this in mind from the get-go Moving Forward Though the Drawing Board is functionally complete, it’s still obviously lacking some parts of the puzzle: Improved UI/UX: The board should simply look more like what it is, so as to reflect how it should be used. This probably includes at least having borders, and the buttons probably shouldn’t be visible for all users at all times. Prettier buttons and controls. This one’s hingeing on our work to enable the importing and streaming of assets. This one’s roadmapped to be coming soon™ . Additional features – at the very least, there should probably be an “eraser mode” and a way to change ink color. Under-the-hood improvements, like using streams instead of continuously saving and loading to/from disk. We’ll also need access controls, i.e. limiting who is able to draw or erase. Just imagine running a class in a virtual classroom without this feature… 😅 Final thoughts Hey, thanks for reading this far! I hope you found it interesting or useful. For more posts like this, follow us on Twitter or join our ! @alloverse Discord Till next time! — Tobias

How We Made a Virtual Drawing Board

Applied game dev math can be tricky, but is really rewarding. Here’s a follow-up to Nevyn’s Twitter thread on his journey from incomprehensible mess to enlightened one-liner. Follow the dev journey and learn the math involved. I studied game programming in 2004, which included linear algebra — matrices, vectors, that sort of thing. It was the most fun I’ve ever had with math, since it’s the basic underpinnings for 3D graphics, physics and many other game development topics, so I was able to immediately try out every new thing we learned in code, and literally play with it. Fast forward sixteen years, past a long iOS career that didn’t really need that much math, to the now where I’m part of a group building the future of VR. Alloverse is 3D, and built on game tech, so all that old knowledge is needed again. I’m kind of a lazy programmer, so it’s rare that I reach a point where I truly understand something; I enjoy the building and the result more. However, in this case that wasn’t an option, and with some help from my friends and colleagues, enlightenment was reached and the satisfaction was supreme. Failing slowly So here’s the project, which I thought would be easy: point your hand at a thing, press the grabby button, and have the thing you’re pointing at move, its position and rotation staying fixed relative to your hand as if you glued it onto the end of a stick. Alloverse’s front-end is Lua, but its shared code and backend is C, so I was doing this math in C and only using transformation matrices. After several days of dead-ends, I ended up on the same VR engine that Alloverse uses, . It took an entire day, but Lovr’s APIs are really stellar, and it was so much fun. You can see the result in the video at the top of the post. Here are the important bits: writing a minimal test case in Lua Lovr You don’t have to understand this code, that’s how wrong it is. My general thinking was: Find the point on the grabbed box which should stay fixed relative to the hand. Save the offset from the box’s origin to that point. Also save how far away it is.Calculate the box’ new position by taking the hand’s new position, adding the distance away from the hand, and adding the offset (from grabbed point to origin on the box). Try to do the same thing for rotation by saving the difference in rotation between the hand and the box, and set the box’ new rotation to the hand’s rotation plus the saved difference. I figured it’d be easier to decompose the problem from matrices (which I know how to work with and are okay proficient with, but which are hard and always do my head in) to positions and rotations (positions are easy, but for rotations I haven’t used quaternions before, so it’s all new territory for me). The problem was, as you can see in the video above, that the rotation was applied in the wrong coordinate system, so it rotated along X when I wanted to rotate around Z, and so on, depending on the camera location when drag started. This is something I conceptually understand how to fix when working with matrices (you usually need to invert the order of multiplication, since matrix multiplication is not commutative), but with Quats I’m lost. Enter: . All that work to switch tools, only to want to switch back, and I didn’t understand anything any better. I had spent over a week full-time on this already (to the point where it would distract me from eating and sleeping outside of work hours). frustration A little help from my friends It was time to ask for help. Luckily, I had the privilege to befriend math prodigy and VR hacker when I lived in San Francisco. When I described the problem over Messenger, he disappeared for a few minutes and then returned with a PDF with some LaTeX formulas. 🤯🤯🤯 Rasmus Apparently, my thinking that I needed to keep track of the point at which the “stick” was touching the box muddled the waters for me, making the problem much more complex than it had to be. All I really needed was to save a single transform — “HandFromBox” above — and everything just falls into place! Still, I was not able to take this theory and apply it to practice on my own. Luckily again, I’m now colleagues with one of my closest friends (who also studied Game Programming at BTH with me): ! We spent two whole afternoons pair programming using . The result is beautiful: 19 lines replaced with 4. Voxar the amazing screen sharing tool screen.so Plus, you know, it works 😅😂 Voxar and I are both working on our collaboration style (at one point, I argued vehemently for a full hour that he was wrong, but of course he was right 😅). We had two big squabbles; but since they were such sticking points for us that we kept arguing our sides vehemently, we ended up teaching ourselves something really valuable when working with matrices. Rasmus’ chosen terminology — “XFromY” — really did our heads in for the longest while, but using it means that the naming itself helps you understand the semantics of matrix multiplication. Again, since matrix multiplication isn’t commutative, this is super valuable. In the past, I would just swap every multiply in my code until it works; but after this exercise, I’m actually able to reason about the order and figure out the correct order without experimenting. This has the advantage that I don’t introduce mistakes that cancel each other out; I’ve done this mistake times, and leads to just writing tons of bad math that all breaks once you fix one load-bearing bug somewhere. two many For example, if you have a transform that represents the position, rotation and scale of your box in the world coordinate space (i e relative to the origin point of the world at 0,0,0), you can call it WorldFromBox. We can multiply a point that is relative to box with this, and get a point that is relative to world — i e it is a transform from the ‘box’ coordinate system to the ‘world’ coordinate system. So say we want handFromBox to get that “offset” we talked about before, converting from the hand’s coordinate space to the box’ coordinate space. We have the hand and the box transformation matrices (representing their position, rotation and scale in a single big box of numbers) called worldFromHand and worldFromBox. We can get handFromWorld by just invert()ing worldFromHand. Thus, Notice how the two “world”s line up, making the line readable! This was a big revelation for me. With code and understanding in place, we ran our virtual victory lap! (I accidentally only recorded Voxar’s mic, not my own) It gets tricker We weren’t quite ready to port it back to Alloverse though, because Alloverse is a scene graph. You know, like on a regular 2D computer: you have a window, and the window has a text field and a button. When you move the window, the button follows the exact movement of the window, keeping its relative position to the title bar. It’s the same thing on web sites. It’s really hard to build user interfaces without a scene graph. You really got to keep things straight with a scene graph. It’s really easy to write math that seems to work, but where you ended up accidentally assuming that one tiny part of the equation is in world coordinates when it isn’t. For example, in my prototype, the hand belongs to the world (see left); but in Alloverse, the hand belongs to the avatar which belongs to the world (see right). Also, the thing you’re moving might belong to a parent object, rather than being in the world. Yeah, I use a Windows PC as my main machine nowadays, so you’re not getting fancy OmniGraffle graphics. Deal with it. Getting a matrix that represents WorldFromTallBox is easy: just recursively multiply tall box’ transform with each of its parent nodes in turn. Converting from any arbitrary node to any arbitrary node is trickier, but again, Rasmus’ nomenclature helped us out. I’m sure there are more efficient solutions, but this works: This is taken from the . same source linked before, but a few commits later And hey presto, that took about a DAY of flailing around in C and an HOUR in Lua. A bad case of the typos Okay! The prototype works! Let’s just port the math over to C and we’re done! … Well. We ported the math over line-by-line. It refused to work. Things would just fly off the screen from a simple hand movement, some matrix being multiplied in the wrong order. We debugged for an entire day, making really really really sure every single detail was correct. clearly When we had read the code so many times we the fault must lie otherwhere… we looked at my home-baked matrix class. … and of course, my multiply_matrix method had a typo, swapping the arguments. So, every single multiplication in the entire project so far had been written in the incorrect order to compensate for this load-bearing bug. knew With absolute zero trust remaining in my skill to copy-paste math from StackOverflow, we moved to , which has all the linear algebra you need for 3D graphics, physics and all that jazz, and nothing less, and nothing more. It’s just lovely. (Its API is very similar to , which is just perfect.) felseva’s mathc library Cirno’s Perfect Math Library clearly This of course broke everything else, so I had to invert every single multiplication in the project before moving on … At long last… Yes. What you’re looking at is me moving the jukebox app with the grabby button. And it moves. Exactly following the hand’s movement and rotation. IT’S PERFECT! IT’S BEAUTIFUL! IT’S TWELVE LINES OF CODE! On the one hand… I feel like such a fraud. I like watching Twitch streams of other game devs, and I feel like this is the sort of thing they’d go like “oh, and then we need to be able to move things, lemme just” and five minutes later it’s there. For me, it was several full days of work a few months ago before we were incorporated and I was working in my free time; and now followed by two additional full weeks of work. On the other hand, I’ve only been on this job full time a single month now, and I’ve learned so very very very much so far. This is just one of the frankly quite amazing things we’ve accomplished in this short time, and there’s much more to come. In conclusion: Using the XFromY naming convention for matrices is really handy. Understanding your code can be better than just writing something that seems to work. Figure out when that’s the case and spend the time to get there. ‘s just great. Lovr Maybe don’t write your own math primitives unless you really know what you’re doing or you can’t avoid it. You can . Actually, you can (warning: C), because Alloverse is Open Source! check out our sample code on GitHub check out our product’s final state on GitHub too If you enjoyed this post, do (or just , , ) to get notified of new posts, or maybe even ? 🤗 follow @alloverse on Twitter @nevyn @voxar @rasasmus come join us on Discord Nevyn, founder of Alloverse.

VR Math: The Difficulties of Moving Objects in Virtual Reality

Polyhedra Network is a project focused on building infrastructure for Web3 interoperability, scalability, and privacy, leveraging advanced Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) technology. One of the innovative solutions from Polyhedra Network is the ZK-NFT protocol, which allows the creation of NFT versions with storage capacity and dynamics, providing greater interactivity. It’s a very interesting case for all and NFT communities, especially for those who are building their own projects. So let’s see how Polyhedra, with its marketing campaign that includes airdrop, became one of the most visible players this year. And if you run an NFT/crypto /AI project and need advice on marketing and promotion, you can directly. Web3 message me So let’s go! ZK-NFT Protocol Polyhedra Network utilizes NFTs through its innovative ZK-NFT protocol and zkBridge infrastructure, aiming to enhance Web3 interoperability, scalability, and privacy. The ZK-NFT protocol is a novel approach that allows for the creation of NFTs with dynamic storage capacity, enabling them to contain other NFTs and ensuring maximum interoperability across different blockchain networks. This protocol leverages zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology and a hidden address model to maintain the privacy and security of linked assets, making it possible to deploy NFTs on various chains such as Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, and Avalanche. Funding Polyhedra Network's approach to NFTs and its broader Web3 infrastructure is supported by significant funding and strategic partnerships. The network has raised $10 million in a strategic funding round co-hosted by Binance Labs, with backing from notable entities such as Animoca Brands, Space ID, Metis, and Galxe. This financial and developmental support underscores the network's commitment to advancing the Web3 ecosystem through its innovative use of ZK technology and NFT protocols. Now, let's dive deep into Polyhedra's marketing campaign. Airdrop and Testing The Polyhedra Network has confirmed an airdrop of 1 million of their tokens for users who participate in testing their Binance Web3 Wallet6. Users can experience zkBridge’s NFT cross-chain bridge and test its functionality, potentially qualifying for interactive airdrops and future rewards. How the Airdrop Works To qualify for the airdrop, participants have two main options: Mint and Bridge NFTs: Users can mint NFTs on one of the supported chains and then use the zkBridge to transfer them to one of the eight compatible chains, which include opBNB, BNB, Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Avalanche. The process involves uploading an image, selecting a preferred chain, and paying a small gas fee. After minting, the NFT must be bridged to another chain using the zkBridge. Bridge Tokens: Participants can also bridge tokens such as BNB, USDT, or ETH in any direction on the bridge between chains. This is another way to qualify for the airdrop. Airdrop Eligibility: Only wallets created and backed up within the Binance Web3 Wallet are eligible for participation in the airdrop missions6. Prize Pools: The airdrop features two prize pools, each containing 500,000 Polyhedra Network tokens, one for transferring tokens and the other for transferring NFTs between networks on zkBridge The Polyhedra airdrop is an innovative marketing strategy to promote its cross-chain NFT bridge and engage the community. By participating in the airdrop, users not only stand a chance to receive tokens but also contribute to the testing and development of Polyhedra's Web3 infrastructure. Social Media and Community Engagement Polyhedra Network maintains a presence on social media platforms, such as Twitter, where they share updates, promote their offerings, and engage with the community. They also use these platforms to announce collaborations with other projects, such as the Yuliverse Polygon NFT giveaway. In our work with projects, we always say that community is the main thing for almost EVERY project. Twitter Polyhedra Network actively uses Twitter to announce partnerships, share updates, and engage with the community. They have shared announcements about partnerships, such as the one with TOPGOAL, to enhance the gaming experience in Footballcraft1. They also use Twitter to inform the community about ongoing campaigns and airdrops, as well as to share news about their developments, like the Bitcoin Messaging Protocol. YouTube YouTube is used by Polyhedra Network to provide educational content, such as airdrop guides and tutorials. These videos help users understand how to participate in their campaigns and use their infrastructure, such as the zkBridge for NFTs. Telegram On Telegram, Polyhedra Network engages with users through channels like Genuine Airdrops, where they promote their campaigns and provide updates on their NFT activities. Telegram serves as a direct communication channel where they can reach out to a dedicated audience interested in airdrops and NFTs. Discord Discord is another platform where Polyhedra Network is present. They have launched campaigns like the Discord Member Loyalty Program on Galxe, which rewards users for interacting with zkBridge's cross-chain products and participating in the community. Discord allows for more in-depth community engagement and support. Official Website The official Polyhedra Network website serves as a central hub for information about the project, its features, and the latest developments. It is an essential channel for marketing and providing resources to potential buyers and participants. https://polyhedra.network/ Strategic Partnerships Polyhedra Network has established strategic partnerships to promote meaningful engagement with their zkBridge. For example, they partnered with Galxe to introduce the zkBridge Loyalty Point Program, which rewards users for interacting with zkBridge's cross-chain products, engaging in social media activities, and participating in the community. Appointments and Collaborations The network has appointed a former LayerZero marketing head as its Chief Strategy Officer, indicating a focus on strategic marketing and partnerships. This move suggests that they are leveraging expertise to enhance their marketing efforts and to build relationships within the industry. Educational Content and Tutorials Polyhedra Network also provides educational content and step-by-step guides, such as the Polyhedra Airdrop Tutorial on YouTube, to help users understand how to participate in their campaigns and use their infrastructure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RR_RLswK5I&embedable=true Press Releases and Guest Posts The project has been featured in various press releases and guest posts on cryptocurrency-related platforms, which helps to increase visibility and credibility among potential investors and users. Video Content Video content, such as tutorials and campaign announcements, is used to visually demonstrate the project's features and to guide users through the process of participating in airdrops and other activities. In summary, Polyhedra Network uses a multi-faceted marketing approach that includes airdrop campaigns, strategic partnerships, social media engagement, appointments of industry experts, educational content, press releases, video content, and their official website to promote their NFTs and engage with potential buyers. Currently, that’s one of the most interesting cases this year. It is worth it to check out. P.S. Check out some of my previous articles at HackerNoon: NFT Marketing Guide - The Most Complete and Detailed Playbook Autoglyphs: The $14.6 mln NFT Phenomenon Explained Cracking the NFT Code: The Psychology Behind Buying Digital Assets Breaking Down the Next Big Thing in NFTs: ERC-404 Spotlight Nobody Buys an NFT Just for Art DeFi Community Building: A Step-by-Step Guide for Crypto Startups

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