Renewal New DAO Explorers: Mobile, VR, and Desktop (in Godot & Bevy)

by 0x83f9192d59b393c8789b55d446e5d4a77075c820 (ProtocolSquad#c820)

Should the following $155,560 grant in the Platform category be approved?

Abstract

Our team has made significant steps in the Explorers in the past six months, launching Android and iOS clients. Now, our main goal is to enhance the stability of the Explorers and let them to a final version. VR is working very well but the UI/UX needs to move to 3D interactions instead. Finally, the Bevy Desktop client now allows us to quickly introduce and test new features for content creators, like lights, cinematic cameras, GLTF manipulation, and so on.

Grant size

155,560 USD in DAI

Project duration

6 months

Beneficiary address

0x04812c531083054863ef354EF600A61857921466

Email address

dclprotocolsquad@gmail.com

Description

Introduction

We are very excited to have met and achieved the objectives outlined in our latest proposal. Whether in the Godot-developed client for mobile or Bevy for desktop, it is possible to enter and explore the different worlds of Decentraland, interact with other players, customize your avatar, and discover all new places. Thanks to this solid base, today we are in very good shape to propose even more and enrich the Decentraland ecosystem.

The Bevy client as a springboard for creators

On the one hand, we have the client made in Bevy, which, while working very well and smoothly, is the perfect scenario to test and iterate on new functionalities that will enrich the content in Decentraland.

We want to allow content creators to add lights, set up ambient lighting, and access the GLTF internal content in order to accelerate the creation pipeline based on this really solid standard. Additionally, we know some features are long overdue and need to be released as soon as possible, such as cinematic camera and scrollable UI.

Iterating on these new functionalities in the Bevy client first will allow us to quickly discover if there are blockers or any challenges, and make appropriate documentation and specifications so that both the Mobile/VR client in Godot and the Foundation Desktop in Unity can easily implement them as well.

The Mobile and VR era for Decentraland

Developments on the Godot client have focused on providing a final beta product, and this is now ready to be used. The mobile versions are already in stores, in a public beta and you can explore any type of scene and interact with other players.

Having worked in the last grant to prepare the foundations serving Mobile and VR, we can now iterate to improve performance and optimization to achieve a solid experience in both targets. At the same time, we want to start focusing on perfecting both products by adding ambient sounds, music, alerts and differentiating them by adding a UX designed specifically for VR.

In terms of optimization, we will do research to minimize annoying hiccups which, although already improved over the web client, are not tolerable for the VR version. In this sense, we will work together with Bevy if it is necessary to expose tools that allow this to be improved on the content creator's side. We'll also provide guides and development tools for content creators to test their scenes on Mobile and VR.

Old content also matter

We’re going to keep implementing the SDK6 Adaptation Layer, so old content is accessible from our Explorers. This is an SDK7 scene that can run the SDK6 scene converting the messages to be used by the SDK7 runtime.

Public document with this same information, just in case: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aefap7cayJGMfEUmyHViwFRlkD4sROGfE9HALqnj1PY

Watch our videos! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb8kyCvauFQ\&list=PLBmhkGNdurqgz7OD5uDIdDVYvGkBIApCo\&index=4

Roadmap and milestones

Each milestone represents two months.

Godot development

• Keep maintaining the mobile public beta until officially released
• Milestone 1: Mobile and VR
  1. Research techniques to reduce hiccups
  2. Add sound effects (ui interaction, player locomotion, notifications, etc)
  3. Implement Wallet Connect and Magic natively for Mobile
  4. Expose Dev Tools to debug scenes for creators
     • Make a guide to debug in Mobile and VR
• Milestone 2: VR/XR client
  1. Create definitive visuals (skybox, ambient light, toon shader)
  2. Improve UI/UX with 3D content
     • Backpack
     • Settings
     • Map
     • Discover (like Genesis Plaza)
  3. Target to:
     • Try to publish to Meta Store (Meta Quest 2, MetaQuest 3)
     • Windows version for connected headsets (every headset that OpenXR supports)
• Milestone 3
  1. Make graphics settings customizable
  2. Make Avatar optimization to support a large amount of avatars
  3. Try to make a public official release on the AppStore and Play Store
  4. Implementation of the SDK6 Adaptation Layer (part 2)

Bevy development:

• Milestone 1:
  1. Properly exposing Dev Tools to debug scenes for creators
  2. Iterate and propose new scene runtime functionality
     • Cinematic Camera
     • Scrollable UI panels
     • Rich UI text
  3. Publish signed executables
• Milestone 2:
  1. Iterate and propose new scene runtime functionality
     • In-world UI (UI to texture)
     • Lights support:
       • Ambient Lights
       • Directional Lights
       • Point Lights
       • Spot Lights
  2. Support Scene Permissions
• Milestone 3:
  1. Iterate and propose new scene runtime functionality
     • Smooth transitions into animations: Blend
     • Expose and allow to modify internal content of GLTFs
  2. Implementation of the SDK6 Adaptation Layer (part 2)
  3. Implement Friends using Matrix

This proposal is summarized due to technical limitations. To view it complete and vote on it, visit the DCL DAO Governance dApp