Metaverse NFT: Thoughts and Applications on 3D Avatars
Author：Hemdaller
Editor’s note
This is an article about the experience and insights of project developers in the process of exploring the organic integration of blockchain and 3D Avatar technology. It is difficult to start a business, especially in a bear market environment, and it is even more difficult to find a differentiated play in the extremely competitive application layer. We do not go into the right or wrong of the field selection, but the ideas on the development of the project opening process and the problem-solving shown in this article may bring us a different angle, allowing us to have a clearer perception on the development of the crypto industry.
3D Avatar is an image that can be used in the metaverse. It is a multi-dimensional digital asset, which is different from a still picture. It has the characteristics of users’ body control, strong uniqueness, and the prevention from being directly copied.
3D Avatars have a wide range of availability. It can be used as a personal image in the metaverse, as a “skin” in video chat, as a “Vtuber” in live broadcast, and as a game character in GameFi, etc. It will become one of the important carriers of personality expression in the future.
At present, there are some 3D Avatar NFT projects on the market that have very good performance, such as Halo.
My own 3D Avatar project started in March and it has been close to 4 months so far, which means that I am one of the very early developers. As developers of this specific field, we will talk about our feelings in the past four months and our thoughts on this new concept in the bear market. We welcome everyone to make suggestions!
To put it straightforwardly, in our opinion, the original purpose of 3D Avatar is to solve the utility problem of NFTs, and then build our own metaverse around this. Since many utility solutions in the past did not meet the expectations of the community, in the early stage of our project, we adjusted the priority of solving this problem to the highest, and gradually determined the solution based on community feedback and the team’s technical reserves.
Finally, we settled on the sub-field of the metaverse: developmental 3D Avatar + social.
This sub-field is very difficult since 3D Avatars are competing with Web2. This is the biggest difference from other NFT sub-fields. It is a segmented product competition in the metaverse industry. Avatar in web3 needs to be better than web2, attracting users to the metaverse bordering web3, rather than the “metaverse” in web2.
To compete with Web2, 3D Avatar needs to have a good product. 3D Avatar technology alone is far from enough. A product scenario that can be used frequently and allows users to continue to pay is a must. Also based on the bear market conditions and the creativity of the team, we moved forward the development of 3D Avatar, part of the Metaverse development function originally scheduled to launch after the public mint, to April this year. And continue to strengthen the utility in combination with the existing 2D NFTs:
- Build the utility of 2D NFTs around 3D Avatars;
- Each holder of our Genesis NFTs can receive the airdrop of 3D Avatar in the second stage;
- Avatars will be used in the third stage for socializing and creations.
In project development and industry macro analysis, we have accumulated the following understandings:
3D Avatar is the next metaverse field with the potential to burst out.
Generally speaking, the analysis of a product’s market potential mainly starts from three perspectives: user needs, use scenarios and technical maturity.
1. User Needs
3D Avatar can meet the further needs of Web3 users: more free social expression with high privacy.
Web3 users as a whole have a highly unified consensus: “decentralization” and “money-making”. Under this consensus, there are subdivisions of different attitudes.
Web3 users are more like “social animals” than web2 users. They have stronger social needs.
As can be seen from the prosperity of various Twitter Spaces across the Chinese-speaking, Japanese-speaking, and English-speaking communities every night, users’ desire for expression, display and curiosity is very prominent. At the same time, based on the ecological environment of Web3, users’ privacy protection is very prominent.
Therefore, the needs of users are: to expand the social demonstrations of emotions, knowledge, and personal characteristics, under the premise of protecting privacy.
For these needs, 3D Avatar can meet the former parts. However, the social presentation will depend on the scenarios.
2. Using Scenarios
3D AVATAR use scenarios start to appear: more free and open video content platforms and social platforms
Now the main application scenarios are mainly in video meetings such as Zoom and Tencent Meeting. In a relatively closed communication circle, it is a potential use scenario, but it does not meet the social demands of users. Here, Avatars can merely be used as a virtual representation of individuals.
i.e.
Users need more open and free use scenarios.
With the overall development of the NFT and Web3 markets; it is foreseeable that TikTok, Instagram, and other larger social media will enter Web3, such as TikTok’s Top Moments and Instagram allowing users to mint and display their NFTs in Feeds and Stories.
The access of the video platforms to Web3 and Metaverse will create a large content gap, e.g., applying the underlying technology of cloud games, browsing the Metaverse exhibition online on the video platforms, shooting videos for Avatar, or using Avatars in live broadcasts, parties, etc. From the perspective of the existing Web2 products, the Chinese market size of Vtuber alone reached 77.6 billion yuan in 2020. By December 2021, the Vtubers of Bilibili had received streaming gifts of 69.4 million yuan in total. In the past two years, the ARPU has reached 140 yuan. It can be said that the potential of the Vtuber/streaming industry is huge.
In addition, the increase of metaverse use scenarios is also the next predictable wave. According to CoinCarp statistics, there have been 412 registered metaverse platforms by now in 2022, and the market size has exceeded 10 billion (it should be a little less now). The top platforms have more than 2 million registered users. Thus, the application of 3D Avatars in the metaverse will also be a big scene.
3. Technical Maturity
The technical level of 3D Avatar has been gradually upgraded. However, as the technical maturity increases, the cost remains high.
In terms of technical maturity, the Avatar technology in Web2 has developed relatively maturely. The industry implementation path is divided into 5 steps. It can be said that each step has renowned manufacturers, but there are no manufacturers that can provide the full-on complete solutions yet:
Let’s take a look at 3D Avatar’s industry map, we can find that in Web2 there lacks of good client-end APP.
The core reason for the lack of client applications is that the cost is too high, which could be hundreds of thousands of dollars. The wearable devices that need to be purchased also increase the users’ barrier to entry; the second is that the use cases are relatively small, and the more mature ones are usually conferences and live broadcasts. These are basically one-way interactions, and the interactive gameplay between Avatars is too little.
Based on the above, we believe that:
If the use cases and cost problems were solved, 3D Avatars must be one of the important ice-breaking points of Web3 in the future.
3D Avatars are responsible for the visualization of social business cards and personas of Metaverse users, and will definitely shine on video content platforms and social media.
To summarize, the essence is to solve the three problems of use scenarios, gameplay, and entry cost:
So we did three things:
1. Create scenarios for 3D Avatars to solve social and display needs under high privacy;
2. Reduce the cost so that everyone can customize their own metaverse Avatar;
3. Scalability and growth, create an exclusive Avatar cloakroom, cooperate with multiple IPs, and connect online and offline. Maybe one day it can become a Gundam!
In addition, since 3D Avatar is essentially a unique expression of specific content, it is also an important part to give rich IP value to its own products. At the same time, providing users with supporting creativity tools also plays an important role in the empowerment of their own culture and content value.
We have also implemented corresponding strategies during this development progress.
4. How do we do?
First, let’s talk about IPs
Building an IP is a long-term strategy, which is slow but a must-have. This is an important process of forming a consensus. We have created nearly 10,000 character and worldview settings for one of our cultural IPs: Zero Avatar — Miss CAT, and based on this, our community created a novel called “Miss Cat’s Strange World”
Web3 is different from Web2. There is not only PGC and UGC but more importantly, CGC. This is very helpful for community loyalty and branding.
CGC (Community Generated Contents) refers to community co-created content.
This is the most attractive aspect of Web3 for content creators. The development of the story, the characters that appear, and the decisions of the protagonists are determined by the community. Usually, I personally like to read “system articles”, but I never imagined that in the CGC novels developed by our community, the community actually played the role of the system, providing ideas for the protagonists and providing a system store. This approach has received good feedback from the community.
In addition, we also co-created the Web3 popular science cartoons with the well-known Chinese cartoonist @miaowu2005.
I have counted the difference curves between NFT development and IP development. They showed a positive result, because the development curves between NFT and IP are complementary.
But it’s important to realize that just using this combo will attract users very slowly. The short history of Web3 is obviously not valuable enough to be observed. During the same period, there were also many IP-based brands in the market, such as BAYC, Azuki and many other projects. These three problems also led to the slow progress of IP-based projects.
To conclude, three problems were found in the actual implementation:
1. IP content is being produced faster than the market is forgetting;
2. There is a conflict between “long-term IP content operation” and “NFT short-term and fast operation”;
3. The overlap between NFT users and IP content users is very small, and users’ willingness to accept IP content and stories is much lower than Web2.
IP content derived from *Zero Avatar Miss CAT* is implemented into our CATEN metaverse as a long-term strategic IP reserve.
Then we talk about creativity tools
On top of the existing self-developed virtual human technology, we will continue to develop content editing tools around Avatar, combined with NLP and Deep Learning, to provide users with the following editing tools to support the users’ recreation ecosystem:
- Avatar settings and worldviews
- Customizable Avatar shapes and sizes
- Customizable Avatar clothing and decorations
- Avatar short video editor
- Other NFT 3D editing modules
5. More read
Regarding the three necessary conditions for the development of 3D Avatars, you can also refer to the following two cases. Here is a comparison of the development potential of “AI painting NFTs” and “AI music-composition NFTs”:
About AI painting NFTs: there are already some complete development conditions available at the product level
User needs: Users have certain demands for graphic arts, and there is a demand for scene art and copyright-free art materials as well.
Product design: Although the AI painting program “Disco Diffusion” is based on coding, it can be produced as long as the configs and options are set. Although there are certain barriers to entry for code reading, users can be able to use it after a short period of learning.
Technology and cost: It is technically comparable to the works of middle-level artists. Programs are especially good at artistic conception and coloring. In terms of the physical costs, there is only the cost of servers and very less labor cost. In terms of the time cost, the production speed is also very fast, which can meet the conditions of mass production. But for close-up characterizations, character illustrations, and two-dimensional painting styles, programs are not very good at it. They can only be used for creating banners.
AI music-composition NFTs: lack of complete development conditions at the product level
User needs: First, users’ needs for personalized music are not prominent, and they are more inclined to the collection value of famous songs. Second, personalized music lacks use scenarios and is difficult to present on social media.
Product design: For example, AIVA, an AI music-composition platform, has a full range of functions and can provide dozens of styles of writing songs, and also has an arrangement software background for users to adjust.
Technology and cost: It is technically inadequate, and can be regarded as a stubborn low-level long-term practitioner, who is good at musical instruments and blues, but not so good at the whole rhythm of other styles such as pop and hip hop. There is no consistency in emotions. It can only be used as the basis for accompaniment and arrangement, and the audibility alone is poor. Although the cost is very low, the technical level is flawed.
