Reclaiming Virtual Reality : A decentralised, user-owned vision for Web VR
Virtual reality In the browser has been around Almost as long as World Wide Web. VR chat-rooms have existed since 1997 or earlier, at that time the virtual reality was very very basic. Avatars were 2d images, only visible from the front and back like card Soldiers in Alice Through the Looking Glass, and 3D landscape was similarly basic, consisting of simple primitives.
However, the history of the VR web has not been smooth. littered with many short lived providers, appearing, providing a state of the art experience for their users, and allowing users to invest a lot of time and effort in creating their personal virtual worlds, before vanishing., and of proprietary locking, such as Metsa’s Horizon worlds.
The underlying technology or the early incarnations of VR on the web was VRML, an XML description of 3D spaces that, like HTML, could be hand written. The modern replacement WebXR is controlled from JavaScript, restricting development to people willing to learn JavaScript programming. However, the opensource A-Frame project provides an easy to use XML interface, and various extensions provide a pathway to create rich interactive VR websites, compatible with both standard browsers and VR headsets.
In this session I will present a vision for the future of self hosted, simple interconnected VR, based on A-FRame.
taylorjadin: Hey everybody the session will begin shortly!
Niall: Hello, this is a prerecorded presentation, so you can ask me questions here as it runs.
Knitting Nomad: hello
Grant: I had alot of fun playing with Mozilla Hubs w/ Oculus V2 in 2020-22 .. too bad it was folded https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/end-support-mozilla-hubs
Grant: Hubs Foundation https://hubsfoundation.org
Niall: Yes, it's a pity hubs vanished, but the source is still on github
Grant: @niall have you played with Vivecraft? My kids had fun playing with it for a couple years. https://www.vivecraft.org
Mark Corbett Wilson: I pulled out my Google Daydream viewer and it doesn't work with my newish Google Pixel phone.
Niall: I think Daydream support was droped two or three versions of Android ago
Niall: No, I've not come across Vivecraft
Grant: Love the SongExploder podcast .. had not seen their AFrame experiment - love it! https://experiments.withgoogle.com/inside-music
Pilot: I keep hearing that Blender is particularly intimidating because there's so many different things it can do, it's hard to know where to start
Niall: I think starting with something imported is a good way to start with Blender, and also look for tutorials on youtube about 'low poly' models.
Grant: The 2025 Oscar for Best Animated Feature was won by Flow .. created entirely with Blender https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgZccxuj2RY
Grant: Forward-facing cameras providing boundary detection on the Oculus V2 saved some living room lamps in 2020-2022 on a number of occasions ..
Grant: One of my fav VR gaming experiences .. NoMansSky VR
Pilot: Thank you so much! This was really great. I've been wanting to learn more about VR but not sure where to start
Niall: Cameras and boundaries are standard in quest, though the latest update is a bit irritating, as it also does ceilings, and assumes the are the same as the floor - not great in an attic like my study.
Mark Corbett Wilson: Thanks to all!
Wendy: Thanks Niall, great overview of VR. Since my MR HoloLens project in 2019 I was interested to hear what is currently happening in the market.