VR experiments in the Croquet metaverse
Some time ago (second half of the 2000s and first half of the 2010s) I was quite active in the Virtual Reality (VR) metaverse. Now I’m experimenting with VR worlds again.
I’m experimenting with Croquet, which I think is the most promising Virtual Reality (VR) metaverse platform around. Croquet is a successor to the Croquet project developed by the legendary Alan Kay with other computer scientists including David Smith. The project was stacked upon the Squeak open source implementation of Smalltalk.
Smith is the Founder and CTO of Croquet. In 2018, other computer scientists and members of Kay’s team joined Smith as Co-Founders.
Years ago I used to run an online talk program called teleXLR8 using a VR technology platform for real-time collaboration and conferencing activities called Qwaq. Qwaq, a technology based on Kay’s Croquet project, was much ahead of its time. Successive iterations of Qwaq that I have used are, in the order, Qwaq Forums, Teleplace, Open Qwaq, and Virtend.
All teleXLR8 videos are on Youtube and Vimeo. The program produced many talks by technologies experts and futurists, and online extensions to conferences such as the ASIM 2010 Conference, satellite to the Singularity Summit 2010, and the TransVision 2010 Conference. In the latter, streamed interactively as a full 2-way “mixed-reality” event with both local and remote speakers, the participants in Milan were joined by remote participants from all over the world.
The ASIM 2010 Conference and other teleXLR8 highlight are covered in the interview MIND and MAN: Getting Mental with Giulio Prisco, by Natasha Vita More.
Now I do these things using Zoom like everyone else, but believe me, in a VR world you get a much more powerful experience of “being there” with others, and this makes an important difference. So I would like to go back to a metaverse one day.
Today’s Croquet can be seen as a new implementation of Kay’s Croquet project with JavaScript playing a prominent role. The current Croquet “is a complete reimplementation, there is no code shared with the original Smalltalk version from 20 years ago,” says Co-founder & Chief Architect Vanessa Freudenberg on the Croquet Discord server. “The basic idea of using synchronized client-side computing is the same, but pretty much every detail changed.”
The Croquet Discord server (follow the link in this page if you want to join) is active and very useful. Co-founder & Chief Scientist Yoshiki Ohshima gave me very helpful advice.
Parts of Croquet are still in beta but the project is developing fast, and I have no doubt that it will be fully operational soon and do all that Qwaq does, and then much more.
My very first experiment with Croquet has been to create a very simple multiuser VR room that you can visit online (picture below). This room is built with Croquet Metaverse Web Showcase. In this room visitors can voice chat.
My second experiment with Croquet has been to create a very simple VR microworld that you can visit online (picture below). This microworld is built with Croquet Microverse World Builder. This microworld has two (very) minimalist scenes interlinked by portals that allow visitors to teleport from one scene to the other and back. In this example the portals simulate an actual door (the two scenes are the outside and the inside of a building). If a portal is open you see what is on the other side. If you don’t see what is on the other side, click the portal to open it.
Note that if you enter this microworld from the url given above you’ll join a private session without voice chat. To enable voice chat, add “?voiceChat=true” to the url. Then you can invite others to join you by giving them the full url (example).
Almost everything happens client side in Croquet, and therefore the server can be very simple. In fact, all my experiments run in Github Pages. Regarding the client, one doesn’t even need special client software to enter Croquet worlds. A browser is all one needs, so you can enter a Croquet world using your computer, tablet, or smartphone. Or you can use a VR headset.
The cover picture shows three visitors, one using an iPhone, in my second experiment.
What next? Croquet still needs development to achieve usability and appeal. For example, the current avatars are very basic, and I think an important lesson from the good old Second Life (still the only social VR world that has achieved mass appeal, back in the 2000) is that avatars are important.
However, my experiments have persuaded me that Croquet is built on rock solid foundations. Very soon, I think, Croquet will be used to produce stunning VR worlds and avatars. The upcoming Croquet for Unity (see this recent interview with David Smith) could be a game changer.
I’m pausing this project for a little while, but I’ll restart experimenting with Croquet in two or three months. Perhaps I’ll reawaken my dormant 3D design skills and create a nice VR world.
UPDATE: Things are moving fast in the Croquet metaverse, and I’ll have a lot of fun when I restart this project. For example, the last Croquet update has introduced realistic avatars in Croquet worlds like this one. In the picture below I’m using a custom remote avatar that I just made with Ready Player Me.
Pictures from Giulio Prisco.
