A little sum up of 2021 (apart from the obvious covid continuation) might be the year the world learned the word Metaverse.
So facebook changed name to become Meta, which is in fact a great move for the future of VR. Whatever you think of FB, it gives the stamp of authenticity to an idea I have believed in for 30 years. But they obviously think they are going to control it and run it. When Zuck says… « oh the metaverse shouldnt be created by us.. oh no» what he means is that the infrastructure should be, but the content can be left up to users… just like.. er… facebook.
But we wont let that happen, will we? FB have been a great force in that they bought Oculus, and they do know the social stuff, but in the end, The ‘verse will be made by many companies, but something will have to connect them. Maybe links, maybe a payment system/ economy. I believe in Ready Player Me system, where you create an avatar one place then will be able yo use it in multiple virtual worlds. I have reservations about how they will get paid however.
But this aint new… we’ve known all this for years, now the man in the street knows.
So what HAS been new this year?
Well this has been the year of getting the real world INTO VR. In various ways.
At the start of the year we were clubbing at lots of pop-up nightclubs on AltSpace, screens streamed from Twitch DJ’s, Varjo brought out a super high quality headset in the summer, with the proposed ability to scan the local environment and invite people to that space… bring your real world into VR. Plus advances in Photogrametry saw the popping up of virtual spaces scanned from iphones. Matterport took their advanced scanning cameras for estate agents to an iPhone app.
Also in the last half year we saw some interesting developments in live filming, and auto greenscreening so live bands (more normally solo singers, could play concerts in VR. In AltSpace they used a technique they call Holoteleportation. But its a bit 2d so far.
The most impressive «live» event was a show for K-pop performer AleXa, which unfortunately I missed. Built in its own program by Improbable Games and featuring some insane CCU figures, (1500 fans) thanks to some kind of advanced multiplayer integration by IMS, and including scene changes, and a 50 foot avatar. Not my thing, but looked cool.
Oslo start-up Holocap are doing interesting things with the humble Kinect. They have a system for filming in 3d and auto generating an avatar for conferences or virtual concerts. Going to be experimenting with this.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-59674930
https://www.virtualhumans.org/
https://holocap.com/pages/technology
https://ims.improbable.io/insights/worlds-first-k-pop-concert-in-the-metaverse