Augment (www.augment.ninja)
Application type:
Investment
Proposal overview
(Fund Augment DAO $300,000 to build a Unity Harmony/Keepkey VR Multiplayer Online Lobby template)
Augment develops blockchain metaverse middleware to support building applications at scale.
Harmony can be the path of least resistance for developers wanting to create a web3 game. Providing the best tools to work with will bring new projects and new users.
Augment provides templates of game archetypes with documentation as a jumpstart for developers. These templates offer the foundational structure of systems like multiplayer networking and blockchain interfaces.
Proposal Deliverables
Augment will build a multiplayer online VR lobby where avatars are following user movements over the network so you can wave and shake hands with each other.
Users inside the lobby will use an Oculus headset and connected keepkey hardware wallet running a local API to access their Harmony address and pull this into the VR Lobby.
Players will then initiate signing a message in VR with the Oculus headset and finish signing on their keepkey to verify their address. Verified players will then show their address overhead across the network to the other players in the lobby displaying their unique identifier.
Problem to be solved
Web3 game development is currently stuck in the web browser because of the limitations of metamask’s window object api.
We will be using a native restful api running on localhost as a more versatile connection method. This will allow software and hardware wallets to connect directly to the game engine without the need of a web browser.
With this template we can now use a hardware wallet with a Harmony address to uniquely identify ourselves across a multiplayer network in VR.
Market and Peer Analysis
This functionality of uniquely verifying online networked users with a hardware wallet in VR space does not currently exist, even though it is necessary for any blockchain metaverse VR application.
Harmony can be the foundation for all of these projects by providing these additional native tools to build with directly in game engines.
Revenue Streams
The template offers a path of least resistance to developers incentivizing them to build their applications using the Harmony network.
These templates can be included in paid packages in the unity asset store, and other revenue share opportunities with paid asset distributors.
Implementation
VR Headset: Oculus Quest2
Hardware Wallet: Keepkey
Game Engine: Unity
Multiplayer Networking: Photon Networking PUN
Blockchain Interface: Harmony
Funding Proposal Ask:
Total = $300,000
$150,000/// 50,000 Will be paid each to 3 Engineers for the creation of the VR lobby template.
$150,000/// Used at the discretion of Augment DAO for support of bounties and community driven development of the new VR template
Metric for Success
- Completion of the Harmony/Keepkey VR Lobby Template
The community engagement and development upon the VR Lobby Template will serve as a baseline metric for further releases.
Clarification
Augment creates a multiplayer VR lobby in the core Unity engine where users can initiate signing a message on the Harmony blockchain in VR, and complete signing on the Keepkey hardware wallet. The user address is then displayed in the lobby over their avatar as their unique identifier or username.
Additional templates that will created during the development of the Online VR Lobby
-VR Character Rigging template
(Presents a baseline of how to set up a fully rigged VR character following player movements in real time)
-VR Wrist Interface template
(A holographic wrist menu interface we will use for our blockchain interactions in VR)(Attached to a VR rigged character)
-Keepkey Integration template
(Setting up the KeepKey local API for communication with the Unity engine)(Using the VR wrist Interface template)(Attached to a VR rigged character)
-Harmony/Keepkey Wrist Interface template
(Signing a message on the Harmony blockchain using all three of the other mentioned templates)
Team
Battlejoose battlejoose (battlejoose) · GitHub
(5+ years Unity development - VR and third party API integrations)
Highlander BitHighlander (Highlander) · GitHub
(7+ years in blockchain development with ShapeShift, lead developer for the keepkey-desktop application)
Pastaghost pastaghost · GitHub
(Keepkey’s Lead developer/ background in C++ and embedded development)
EthDenver2022 Hackathon - GitHub - battlejoose/EthDenverHackathon: BuidlWeek
Roadmap
April 2022
- Working VR Lobby template prototype
- Organize template docs and knowledge base
May 2022
- Demo proposal template deliverables
- Structure Snapshot and Discord for Augment DAO operations and Hackathons
- Connect with conventional Unity devs through asset plugin community Discords and bring them into the DAO (Photon Networking has a Discord, as does VRIK plugin and others. These are communities of active builders using the middleware assets)
June 2022
- Proposal for Harmony/Augment/Keepkey Hackathon building out the VR Lobby in different ways showing the power and versatility of the template
- Promote Hackathon through pre established Unity development community Discords
- Offer support to the community building with upon template
Q3 2022
- Focus on DAO organizational structure to recreate the successes of the creation and support of VR Lobby Template while minimizing failures if any
- This is when we will focus on being able to scale the creation of templates while supporting projects using the VR Lobby Template to build complete applications.
Q4 2022
This is when we will look at the previous months of the VR Lobby Template and decide the best paths forward for revenue generation. Predicted revenue paths are:
- Contracting the creation of additional templates by other platforms for bounties to distribute among engineers and Augment DAO members
- Supporting the creation of a complete application using the VR Lobby Template
- Integrating our tools into existing projects
- Game development hackathons and events