UnfoldVR, a short story
A quick overview of UnfoldVR — The creative Metaverse on the IC
History
UnfoldVR team is a veteran group of 5 people, some of us working together for over 6 years. The original line of business was developing custom Virtual Reality and then Augmented Reality apps for enterprise users in a B2B manner. We worked with many fortune 500 companies on marketing, training, real-estate and many other type of apps.
In 2022 we started looking for ways to integrate blockchain technology into our first B2C product — UnfoldVR, and we already new Internet Computer was the framework to go.
Once we got more clarity on what UnfoldVR would look like as a web and VR blockchain app we managed to secure a grant from Dfinity Foundation and began dedicating our full efforts on building out the core features of UnfoldVR. So much so that we never got around to writing this medium post sooner!
The Product
UnfoldVR is a VR-first app that has a companion web app, running fully on chain, on IC. We built the tools to empower consumers to create, share and discover 3D content that is built for the Metaverse.
The Metaverse vision, in its earnest, sees a digital representation of our day to day lives, with massive words, not necessary massive concurrency, but rather the ability to reach anyone — so a very big user pool and with activities that mirror typical ones spiced up by what’s achievable in a digital environment.
And it has to be immersive, because our live is.
From this description alone it is clear that no one-entity can build this vision alone. The metaverse has to be collaborative, just like our real-world is. So we’re building the tools to decentralize the metaverse construction.
With UnfoldVR you can create content using simple-to-use tools that yield great aesthetics. You can invite friends to watch or help while you’re building this or you can teach a masterclass with a wide audience using VR web streaming.
You can then simply take that content out of UnfoldVR as a 3D NFT and bring it in another Metaverse project and use it there, with some actual utility — like a vehicle, an accessory, etc.
Or you can list it as discoverable in UnfoldVR. People will browse 3D content much like on TikTok jumping from world to world, based on an awesomeness algorithm.
You can also craft the place you call home, where you greet other people, a place that represents you and that you can share as a greeting card. We call this your lobby. Your lobby space can be customized using expansion NFTs or our Creator Gloves NFT collection and you can decorate it with some of your 2D and 3D NFTs.
The vision
The vision is to fully build the above story. We have, so far, built the backbone of it all:
- an alpha version of the VR app where you can create web-friendly content, chose a lobby space and place 2D and 3D NFTs — all on chain
- a companion web app where users pair their wallets to access 2D and, for the first time on the IC, 3D NFTs
- a pairing system using WebRTC and WebSockets to essentially treat the VR app like the frontend of any web IC apps by linking the VR app with our IC web app — the same architecture can be scaled for other uses
- we spearheaded the ICMS (IC Metaverse Standards) workgroup with all of the top players in this space to achieve the kind of standardization that interoperability requires
But there’s a long road ahead of us. Building the Metaverse vision will not be easy, nor cheap and, more importantly, it will require a group effort from many teams and projects.
Our vision is to be the building block of that Metaverse reality.
Creator Gloves NFT Collection
And here comes into play our first NFT Collection, the Creator Gloves.
This NFT collection is designed as a founder’s edition. It is first and foremost a utility token that grants special powers inside UnfoldVR, both on the Web and the VR app. 3333 NFTs will be issued on Yumi Marketplace late September.
But beyond that, you’ll be supporting our team and our efforts into building our vision alongside many other projects.
For the first time on the IC, we’ve partnered with 6 other projects, involved in the Metaverse Ecosystem to issue each 9 unique NFTs, with their branding which they’ll share to their community by various means. This decision was designed to commemorate the dedication of these projects to the wider Metaverse efforts and to signal that their 3D NFT collections are or will be supported by UnfoldVR.
The choice of partner projects was in part conjectural and we know there are many more projects out there that support the same vision. These projects are involved with 3D artwork right now and plan to be a part of the Metaverse ecosystem. These are PokedStudio, Distrikt, Plethora, VRSTL, Nauts and DogFinity.
The utility aspect of the Creator Gloves NFTs include:
- The ability to mint 3D creations made with UnfoldVR — Q4 2022
- Vote for future feature implementations on UnfoldVR poll system — at launch
- Extended creation tools enabled by Custom Glove model while in Create mode — at launch, will expand more in Q4 2024
- VR Web streaming support — Q2 2023
- Founder title in-app and on discord
- Ability to see 3D NFT in WebAR and in other Metaverse Partner Projects* — depending on partner project
- Exclusive access to sneak peaks, early access to new content to test
- Airdrops and WL for future utility and aesthetics NFTs (for lobby expansions, VR streaming, creator tools, etc.)
- Paired with user activity, grants access to DAO token airdrops upon token release
We’re very excited to see what you’ll create with UnfoldVR tools and we’re grateful to be operating in a community that genuinely values collaboration.
A new standalone VR app and and updated companion WebApp will be launched right before the NFT collection. You can register right now at www.unfoldvr.com which is where the updates will be listed.
