Sinewave Entertainment’s Breakroom (the corporate cousin of their social VR/virtual world platform Sinespace) has recently implemented the spatialized, three-dimensional audio API offered by the revamped High Fidelity.
The deal is a convergence of pioneers who have made their mark on the development of virtual life. Philip Rosedale is the CEO of High Fidelity and launched Second Life in 2003. Sine Wave Entertainment, the creator of Breakroom, got its start as a content brand in Second Life before it spun out to create its own virtual meeting spaces for real-world events.
Adam Frisby, chief product officer and cofounder of Sine Wave, said in an interview conducted inside Breakroom that the High Fidelity spatial audio will help Breakroom create a triple-A quality experience in a virtual world.
“The real benefit of having 3D audio in a virtual world like this is you can have lots of conversations going on simultaneously,” Frisby said. “3D audio is the only way to replicate the real-world experience in an online environment. You can have a 150-person conference and end up with 10 groups of people talking at the same time. That has helped us with engagement.”
Breakroom is among the first group of clients for Philip Rosedale’s company. Adam tells me that they are looking at implementing the same 3D audio in Sinespace at some point in the future.
Here’s a two-minute YouTube video where Adam Frisby explains and demonstrates the new 3D audio:
This blogpost is sponsored by Sinespace, and was written in my role as an embedded reporter for this virtual world (more details here).
If you think Second Life was hard to get into, wait until you buy your first NFT and try to show it to a friend.
—Philip Rosedale.
Philip Rosedale’s and Adam Frisby’s avatars in Breakroom at the Campfire Talk: Adam admits he has become very attached to his bunny rabbit avatar 😉
Today, Philip Rosedale, the founding CEO of Linden Lab (the makers of Second Life) and the current CEO of High Fidelity, had a chat with Sine Wave Entertainment’s Adam Frisby in Breakroom (the corporate cousin of the Sinewave platform), who was also heavily involved with the development of OpenSim.
In fact, I learned before the event started from Adam Frisby that Breakroom had implemented the High Fidelity spatialized audio system, just before the event! A crowd of about 50 avatars gathered in a custom virtual world created by Adam himself, which reminded me strongly of the great Canadian north!
Here are a few quick notes on just a few of the topics from that conversation today (I hope to be able to add a video of the complete event later):
Rohan Freeman of Sine Wave Entertainment gave an introduction, mentioning that their business had started in Second Life
Wagner James Au of the blog New World Notes had a few audio difficulties, but eventually was able to speak, thanking everyone for coming, and mentioned a few features of the web-based Breakroom app (including emojis and hand-raising)
What is a metaverse? Adam said it is a powerful blank canvas, allowing people to create and express themselves. Philip said that the older he gets, and the more he contemplates virtual worlds, the less sure he becomes about what the “metaverse” is. He defines it as “the digital space between us”, a creative space that consists on our shared agreement on the space between us (based on consensus). That space is the metaverse.
The nature of virtual worlds includes the idea of the person/individual/avatar, a concept that is missing from the internet, which mainly exists to connect information
Most surprising or humbling thing about user creativity? Philip said the infinite creativity of people building upon each others’ work over and over again, and how far Second Life has come in its history, which is inspiring to him. Adam said the game-building that has taken place in Sinespace, how people continually subvert the rules of the platform and make amazing things like first-person shooters
What aspects of SL user creativity should newer platforms learn from? Philip is proud of SL, particularly the economy and the ability to creative derivative works/derivative rights, which he says still really hasn’t been replicated elsewhere. Adam said the financial and legal work required to enable that economy and operation, allowing people to create and sell their goods, calling it a “self actualization economy”.
Adam: you can succeed in building a virtual world without an economy (cites VRChat), but if you want to get people to invest, you want to attract professionals who expect to be able to earn money, let them run free, which makes them more popular (e.g. Roblox)
Is the metaverse limited to younger people? Philip said no, but the youngest generation which has the most time and energy, determine whatever happens next. Second Life started off with a younger userbase, which has aged over time. (Many people tell Philip that they got their start in SL.) Adam talked about the pivot to Breakroom during the pandemic, which has had huge adoption in areas such as banking conferences and events (something that he would not have previously predicted). Adam got his start in Active Worlds, when he had lots of energy! Different people want different things: socialization, creativity, etc.
How important is the adoption of VR headsets? Adam said that it is still too easy to “break the spell” when in virtual reality, and thinks that VR might reach 30% of households at some point. VR per se will not make or break a metaverse. Philip said he learned that it’s still to early: the VR headset is still not going to be a replacement for something like the smartphone anytime soon (e.g. the awkward workarounds for typing in a headset). “We’re absolutely not there yet.” Divisive with respect of the people willing to wear an “electronic blindfold” (creates an imbalance in the social fabric). Despite this, he is still enthusiastic about VR, despite his pragmatism based on his experience with the old High Fidelity social VR platform.
Cryptocurrency and NFTs: Philip said that there are still many challenges to face, saying that cryptocurrencies tend to concentrate wealth even more rapidly than regular currencies. Neither do NFTs. “If you think Second Life was hard to get into, wait until you buy your first NFT and try to show it to a friend.” Adam is NOT a fan of crypto, citing losing your passwords and losing access to your wallet as a serious problem (and customer service cannot help you!). These sorts of things are complete antithesis of something consumer-friendly, plus the environmental destruction caused by mining cryptocurrency. Philip thinks SL’s governance helped open up the conversation on how best to manage economies.
The event ended with questions from the audience. All in all, it was a wonderful event, with a great many people in attendance who are active in the metaverse!
UPDATE June 30th, 2021: As promised, here is the unedited, 80 minute-long YouTube video of the event:
This blogpost is sponsored by Sinespace, and was written in my role as an embedded reporter for this virtual world (more details here).
On Thursday, June 24th, 2021 at noon PST/8:00 p.m. BST, the following four speakers will be taking part in a panel discussion titled Collective Dreams: The Metaverse As a Shared Imagination. The event takes place on the social VR platform Breakroom (created by Sine Wave Entertainment, the makers of Sinespace).
Philip Rosedale: Founder of Second Life and CEO and co-founder of High Fidelity
Adam Frisby: Co-founder of Open Simulator and Sine Wave Entertainment
Rohan Freeman: CEO and co-founder of Sine Wave Entertainment and Breakroom
Wagner James Au: Blogger (New World Notes) and author of The Making of Second Life and Game Design Secrets
Since its inception in the early 90s, the Metaverse has inspired our wildest imagination — even if the technology to fully realize that dream has seemed just out of our grasp. But now, with advances in edge computing, VR, and 3D graphics/audio, nothing seems impossible. Given such powerful tools at our fingertips – what could this look like?
Join Metaverse pioneers Philip Rosedale, co-founder and CEO of High Fidelity, and Adam Frisby of Sine Wave Entertainment, for a candid, interactive fireside chat about virtual worlds, their past, present, and the shared creative vision for what they could be — live and onstage in the highly immersive virtual world of Breakroom.
You can register for the event here. It promises to be a fascinating discussion. See you there!
UPDATE June 24th, 2021: When you register you will receive an email message with a special link you have to click on to load the web-based Breakroom app in your web browser. Here is the schedule for the event:
– 12.00pm/8.00pm: Arrival and Networking – 12.10pm/8.10pm: Fireside Chat with Philip and Adam – 12.40pm/8.40pm: Q&A – 1.00pm/9.00pm: After Party & Networking – 1.30pm/9.30pm: Event Closes
Adam Frisby worked personally on the venue for the event and it is simply gorgeous, strongly evocative of the great Canadian north! See you there!!
This blogpost is sponsored by Sinespace, and was written in my role as an embedded reporter for this virtual world (more details here).
Earlier this week, I had a guided tour of the blockchain-based social VR platform Somnium Space, where I was informed by my tour guide that the virtual world had just implemented teleporting. Scattered throughout the one large, contiguous virtual landscape which comprises Somnium Space were teleporter hubs, where you could pull up a map, click on the teleporter hub you wanted to travel to, press a button, et voilà! You were instantly transported to your destination.
A teleporter hub in the central city square of Somnium Space (at night)The red arrows indicate the location of teleporter hubs on the map
What makes Somnium Space unusual among metaverse platforms is that you cannot simply teleport from one place to another distant location; you either must make use of the provided teleporters, or walk/run/fly/swim to your destination. (Of course, you can certainly “short hop” using a limited form of teleporting, but that is only for shorter distances, not for instantly getting from one end of a large, contiguous landmass to another.)
In other words, the teleporter hubs of the Somnium Transportation System are set up much like a modern urban subway system, where you can only travel to a particular, pre-built subway station that is situated the nearest to your intended destination, and then walk the rest of the way. Many people might remember that in the very earliest days of Second Life, there were also teleporter hubs in the days before avatars could instantly teleport themselves from one location to another!
Another thing that sets Somnium Space apart from other social VR platforms is that there are only going to be so many “public” teleporter hubs. In face, some of these hubs are going to be auctioned off as NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), and the successful bidders with such a teleporter hub on their properties will be able to charge a cryptocurrency fee in order to use their teleporters! (In other words, they would operate much the same as a real-life toll road or highway.)
Closely intertwined with the idea of teleporting vs. walking is the layout of a metaverse platform. Is it one large contiguous landmass, like Somnium Space, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels, and (to a certain extent) Second Life? Or is it a collection of smaller worlds, like VRChat, Rec Room, Sansar, and Sinespace? If it is the former, then means of transportation (and ease of access to transportation) becomes more important. If it is the latter, then another tool which many of the newer social VR platforms offer is the ability to create a portal—either temporary or permanent— between two worlds. (Of course, you could consider a teleporter hub a portal.)
So, keeping all this in mind (particularly the distinction between SHORT HOP teleporting and teleporting to a DISTANT location), we can create a chart outlining the transportation affordances of the various metaverse platforms:
Name of Platform (Layout)
Walk/Run? *
Distance Teleport? **
Create Portals? †
Second Life (mostly one contiguous landmass, with private islands)
YES
YES
YES
Sinespace (separate worlds)
YES
NO
YES
Sansar (separate worlds)
YES
NO (but you can create teleport hubs)
YES
VRChat (separate worlds)
YES
NO
YES
Rec Room (separate worlds)
YES
NO
YES
AltspaceVR (separate worlds)
YES
NO
YES
NeosVR (separate worlds)
YES
NO
YES
Cryptovoxels (one contiguous landmass with some islands)
YES
NO (you can add coordinates to a URL, though)
YES
Decentraland (one contiguous landmass)
YES
YES (/goto X,Y)
NO
Somnium Space (one contiguous landmass)
YES
NO (but there are teleport hubs)
NO (unless you count teleport hubs)
* – Can a user walk/run/fly/swim from one location to another? This includes SHORT HOP teleporting. ** – Can a user personally choose to teleport from one location to a second, DISTANT location? † – Can a user create a temporary or permanent portal from one location to another?
Obviously, all metaverse platforms offer some form of personal locomotion for your avatar (walk, run, fly, swim, short-hop teleporting, etc.). This is standard.
It is also clear from this table that the metaverse platforms which consist of many smaller worlds (Sinespace, Sansar, VRChat, Rec Room, AltspaceVR, and NeosVR) all prefer the creation of temporary and permanent portals to allowing users to teleport great distances on their own steam. On the other hand, all the social VR platforms and virtual worlds which consist of one contiguous landmass tend to allow some form of teleportation across great distances.
You will notice that Cryptovoxels uses a rather brute-force method of “teleporting”, which consists of appending the coordinates to the end of the URL you enter into your web browser client (which are much the same as the coordinates which form part of the SLURLs used in Second Life, but not nearly as convenient in my opinion).
So, what do you think? Have I made an error in my table? Do you have an opinion about the benefits of teleporting and portals versus walking around and exploring the landscape? I’d love to hear your opinions, so please leave a comment, thank you!
