Universal.Volumetric.Video.Web.Player.mp4
Your own sandbox in the Metaverse. Take what you need, or launch the full stack.
- Includes a self-deployable platform, UI, worlds, avatars, and games
- Fully customizable for any kind of game, social experience, event or spatial web app
- User management, avatars and inventory with optional blockchain integration (see our Blockchain-in-a-Box repo)
- Social features like chat, groups, friends, blocking and moderation
- Complete world editing and administration
- 2D, 3D and XR Avatars with full inverse kinematics and facial expressions
- Fully networked physics using PhysX compiled to wasm
- Voice and video over WebRTC
- Instant login and location sharing with phone number or email
- Modular- Use the engine, server, client, editor and scalable devops infrastructure as needed
- OAuth login with Facebook, Google, Steam, Github or instant login with email or phone
- WebGL client deployable to iOS, Android and desktop
- Free, open source, MIT and Apache 2.0-licensed
We have better demos coming, but for now you can jump around this CC0 apartment we got from Sketchfab: https://app.theoverlay.io/location/apartment
A lot has changed during development, and our monorepo has gotten quite large. To avoid cloning the entire thing, use this command:
git clone -–depth 1 https://github.com/xrfoundation/xrengine
Installation instructions are here
The official XREngine tutorial can be found here
We believe that projects like this are extremely complex and difficult, and can only be built when large groups of people work together, out in the open. If you believe that your calling is to build a free, open network that everyone, everywhere can get value from, then you are welcome in our community, and we'll do our best to get you set up.
We are always hiring talented people who want to be leaders in what is to come. Inquire with anyone who seems like they know what's going on and they'll help you find who you need to talk to.
TV.mp4
We trust Big Tech to do what is in their best interest. By our definition, the Metaverse is, by its nature, anti-rivalrous, in that the market incentivizes interoperability and disincentives walled gardens. To own it is to lose, to share it is to win. To quote Lawrence Lessig, “I am not only not harmed when you share an anti-rival good: I benefit.” That benefit scales when you have distributed infrastructure for many small groups to coordinate—which we have now with Web 3.0, blockchain, decentralized identity and other technologies. Anyone who isn’t reaping the benefit of collaboration will have to make everything themselves at much greater cost, and they just won’t be able to move quickly enough to compete with a distributed interoperable network.
The alternative might not need to be an alternative—if the big tech companies are willing to work in the open and change their business model to be entirely focused around a good user experience then they are part of the Metaverse just as much as we are.
In its ideal form, the Metaverse is something we all own together, because we’re each part of communities that we’ve invested in to meet our needs. It’s a fractal network where a one-size-fits-all solution just won’t work—it needs to be built by communities, for communities.
NFTs are a primitive which can be used to build lots of different interesting ideas. We’ve already seen NFTs as community emblems, buy-in for good causes, crowdsourcing for games, and as a viable product for digital artists to make a living.. In order to participate in this kind of value creation, the big tech companies will need to dramatically rethink their strategy. The only way to own market share in a decentralized world is to make really great products that users love, as opposed to the current paradigm of making a bad experience for users by commodifying their attention.
We [XR Foundation] believe that participating in the metaverse should be as easy and natural as making a website. Our main focus is XR Engine, which includes 3D multiplayer worlds with voice, video, avatars, portals, blockchain-backed marketplace, trade, inventory and payments, everything you need to get started and build from there. All of our code is free, open source and licensed to be changed or modified in any way, for any reason. It’s important to us that the people who use our technology can own their own future and modify the code however they see fit. The teams building their apps on our technology can count on us to keep pushing the tech forward, but they can fork and go their own way if they ever disagree with our direction. All of our tech is available on GitHub, and we welcome contributions to the code from anyone.
Many people are skeptical of the Metaverse’s value proposition. Why are we doing all of this, is it a distraction from what really matters, are we speeding up the climate crisis as a result? These are incredibly valid questions.
Part of our team is building a virtual smart city called The Nexus, to visualize the world we want to live in. Our aim with The Nexus in the short-term is to build a framework for collaboration between groups. We see our role as building critical infrastructure to enable the next generation of experts and entrepreneurs to coordinate around tackling the world’s greatest problems head-on. Long-term, the Nexus DAO will vote on how to commit profits to fund research into sustainable energy and agriculture, local production of critical goods, carbon sequestration maybe even a real Nexus here on earth we can live in.
Every one of us wants to live in a world where we are safe and where we feel good about the outlook for future generations, and if there were direct and immediate ways to act, a lot more people would get involved. We’re really just trying to get the ball rolling and make space for economics that incentivize everyone to act out of collective interest. It’s a better business model.