Use the Creator Studio to publish on-chain Artwork — no coding or smart contract skills required.
Much of what we do and who we are in the open metaverse will be directly tied to the digital items, contents, and experiences that we create, own, interact with, and share with others. This content may come from a variety of origins and provenances — from individual artists to IP-led user-generated content — and could have multiple visual manifestations, purposes, and utility across online platforms and virtual worlds.
In the blockchain space, these parameters are typically set at the time of a piece of content’s publication, included as part of its smart contract and accompanying metadata as it is brought on-chain. However, the process of publishing digital contents is often complicated, time-consuming, and inaccessible for many non-Web3, non-technical creators, and largely focused on marketplace sales. Not only that, but the process of then distributing creator-generated Items into a digital or metaverse experience, defining the parameters of how they will (or will not) work in those experiences, and/or ensuring their interoperability across multiple platforms is an intricate challenge — requiring a deep understanding of various technical protocols and standards.
In the interest of making creators’ lives simpler, LAMINA1 launched the Creator Studio: a no-code, easy-to-use toolset enabling anyone to create tokenized assets with integrated rights and royalties. Creators can use the Studio to quickly tokenize their content for use in applications and Storefronts. Composable templates encourage and facilitate community and derivative fan content with just a couple of clicks. The Creator Studio also fits seamlessly into the Lamina1 Hub, unifying the content creation, distribution, and consumption process for Lamina1 creators.
Navigating to the Creator Studio
To get to the Creator Studio, simply log in to your Lamina1 Hub account, then click on the ‘Studio’ tab at the top of your screen. This will take you to a dedicated page where you can begin uploading and publishing content to Lamina1.
Right now, there are two sections in the Creator Studio you can use to access and create original content: Templates and Drafts.
Templates are fully-composable, pre-set toolkits that make it easy to design and deploy specific types of Items, metadata, and content for open metaverse Spaces and experiences. Clicking on a Template will take you through a streamlined flow prompting you to upload an original piece of content, input key things like descriptive and discoverability data, establish creator rights/royalties, and publish it to the LAMINA1 blockchain.
Once you’ve started creating an Item, the Drafts section is where any creations you started filling in information for using one of the above Templates will go if you do not complete the user flow and actually publish the Item.
Your Studio creations will automatically save to this section if you close the page while creating or exit the Item Creation flow at any time, and will take you back to the place you left off when you click back into them.
Lamina1 Hub users can store up to 100MB of data in their Studio tab before they either need to delete a draft or publish an Item to clear it from this folder.
Right now, there is just one Template available for creators to use to mint content to the Lamina1 Mainnet: The ‘Artwork’ Template. For more information on how to use it, read on below.
Creating an Artwork on the LAMINA1 Hub
The Artwork Template is a ‘generalized’ template that allows you to publish any still/2D image or GIF to the Lamina1 blockchain and easily customize its metadata and parameters for future use. Generalized Templates like this are designed to be a blank canvas for creators who want to start the digital Item creation process from scratch, and do not require you to fulfill any kind of specific metadata, tag, or contract parameters.
As such, the Artwork Template is a great option for creators who would like to turn their original Artwork into NFT Items that can be traded, bought, and sold on the Lamina1 blockchain in the future.
Beginning on May 28, 2024, content creation on the Lamina1 Hub will be free for all creators, minus the gas cost required for minting it. This cost will then likely go back up once the Lamina1 economy has matured post-launch, with all L1 used to publish content going back to an account owned by the Open Metaverse Foundation that will be used to fund future creator, rewards, and developer initiatives on the network.
Scroll down for a video overview of how to create an item using the Artwork Template, or follow the written, step-by-step tutorial below.
- The first step you’ll need to take to publish an Artwork is to upload a cover image. Moving forward, all Templates will include specifications on which type and size of file(s) are required on this initial Upload page — in this case, a still, 10MB or less PNG, JPG, or TIFF image. GIFs are also technically supported, but only in a limited capacity.
- After uploading your image file, you will need to select a 1:1 crop so that your Artwork can be displayed properly across the Lamina1 Hub and ecosystem — noting that your full image will be stored for posterity along with the Item’s metadata and properties, and viewable once published in your Items tab.
- By uploading this Item, you attest that you are the original creator of this work, and/or that you are not publishing someone else’s work without their permission. Any content that violates this attestation could be reported and/or blocked from future display on the Lamina1 Hub and eventual use in Lamina1 Spaces. For more information, see our guidelines on Fair Use & Creator Rights on Lamina1.
- In the next step of the creation flow, you must add a title, as well as a description for your Artwork according to the Template’s parameters. This information will be shown most places where your Item is viewed, such as in Spaces, in-game or Item tab inventory, storefronts, and transactions. You’ll notice now that this information, as well as your title and description will auto-populate in the Preview panel to your right. This shows how your Item will display on the Lamina1 Hub to other users.
- From there, you will be asked to input a few tags for your Item. Tags help describe your content’s purpose, interoperability, and discoverability when distributed into Spaces. For example, some Spaces, like galleries, may choose to only display Items labeled as #Art in their accompanying metadata (which is where these tags ultimately end up). Space creators will also be able to search for specific types of Items to include in their spaces, making this tag a great way to make your content visible to other open metaverse creators if you choose to let other creators use it.
- Speaking of whether or not you’d like other creators to use your content or not, the next step in this flow is around creator rights — our v1 framework for defining ownership, attribution, and future permissions for open metaverse Items. Here, you will be asked to answer a series of questions to determine which creator rights you’d like to include in your content’s metadata, from commercial use to AI.
- Next, you will be asked to identify co-creators who you’d like to attribute in this work, and potentially award Royalties to once rights become enforceable on the LAMINA1 Hub. NOTE: The rights and co-creators you set today are not yet enforceable, but will help determine how your Item is used and attributed to you and others in open metaverse Spaces and experiences later on. For more information on how we plan to develop this framework, see the following Defining Rights and Royalties section in this guide.
- Finally, you will reach a screen asking you to confirm the information you input via your right-hand Preview panel, as well as the price for publishing the Item. Pressing publish on the bottom of this page will mint this Item as an NFT to the LAMINA1 Betanet, where it will exist in perpetuity on the LAMINA1 blockchain.
NOTE: All Artworks published in this initial phase of Mainnet are for Showcase ONLY. You cannot sell items to other Lamina1 users at this time (however, you can send them to other users via direct transfer).
When Storefronts roll out in summer 2024, creators will be able to burn/upgrade Artwork NFTs via a dedicated “upgrade Template” that will allow users to add enforceable on-chain royalties and pricing before they can sell it on the platform. Creators will get 100% of tips, royalties, and resale royalties (minus marketplaces fee) for all published content on LAMINA1.
Where can I find & manage my creations?
Once you’ve published your content, it will immediately appear on your public Profile and in your Items tab. Clicking on an Item’s thumbnail on either will reveal its accompanying image, description, properties, and Item history. This updated Item Details page will also show you the creator rights you selected during the publication process, as well as any co-creators you set, and — in the future — any Spaces that Item is usable in.
You can burn items you no longer want in your Items tab anytime by selecting the ‘Burn Item’ button. This will send it to the Lamina1 burn address and remove it permanently from the Lamina1 Hub. Once you burn an item, you cannot recover it from this address.
Once partner and community Spaces begin rolling out early next year, Space developers will decide which content can be brought into their virtual worlds or experiences based off of the properties, rights, and information you input here. You will also be able to bring these Items into Storefronts when they roll out to the community in the summer of 2024.
What’s Next for Content Creation on Lamina1?
In the near future, we will expand the Creator Studio to include no-code tooling for creating additional file/asset types (e.g. 3D contents, music, video, avatars, GenAI etc.), and the ability to create your own custom Templates for derivative and user-generated content.
Other upcoming features we have on our roadmap for content creation include:
- Creator Storefronts, where Lamina1 users will be able to list, monetize, and distribute their content via public Profiles or Space pages
- Direct Item transfers, where you can easily share Items you have created with other LAMINA1 Hub users and track its history across transactions
- Enforceable rights & royalties, as well as additional rights/royalties customization for creators to distribute their content across the open metaverse
- Marketplace upgrade Templates, where artists can upload previously-published Creations and upgrade them to incorporate royalties and rules around secondary sales.
Have an idea on how to make content creation more powerful and accessible on Lamina1? Send us a message at ecosystem@lamina1.com.
