M3 is a like a virtual hackerspace where we teach / learn / build, so collaborations happen frequently and organically. I’ve been helping boomboxhead with his upcoming NFT drop, a collection of 420 CC0 avatars, and can say for certain that there is more than meets the eye - especially so if you share an interest in things like 3D avatars and wearables systems, and new methods for supporting various public goods.

The Avatar Machine

Do you believe owning your tools is important?

There are a number of tools that can be useful when creating your own 3D avatar, but not many of the creation programs themselves are open source. Some might feel this can limit self-expression due to the limited range of choices that the programmers allow you to use when designing your avatar.

For close to a year now Boomboxhead has been working on a powerful open-source tool called boom-tools, a Unity project which generates 3D avatars from 3D traits and exports them as VRM, a 3D avatar file format based on the glTF 2.0 and integrated across hundreds of applications.

It began as a learning project that overtime grew into a powerful production ready tool used in batch assembly of 3D avatars for big projects like ByWassies and more recently for the upcoming drop Boomboxheads v2.

Boom-tools can also export HD images, posed glb files, and JSON metadata for various other use cases like NFT metadata. This is where it can get interesting, because from a collection of 3D assets we’re able to synthesize new things into many formats at once.

On day 1 Boomboxheads V2 will have metaverse ready avatars that you can drag and drop to use in applications like Hyperfy, a web based avatar chat platform, seen below.

3D NFTs Today

For majority of 3D NFTs, the art feels like it’s trapped behind glass and there’s a lot of friction to import said assets into other places for display / interaction.

We and others think there’s a better way. For example, here’s an excerpt from an emerging effort in our industry to standardize extensible token metadata aka ETM:

Here's an example of the current method by which a user might bring an NFT representing multiple assets, including a 3D model, into a game:

Existing Ingestion Path Example

1. User purchases an NFT

2. User navigates to NFT creator's website

3. User downloads the associated assets for the NFT

4. User interacts with game-specific tooling to upload these assets to the game

This procedure necessitates a lot of manual interaction by the user, because there is no standard way by which an automated system can access all of the assets associated with this NFT. This approach also requires trust that the user actually owns the NFT that they uploaded.

Multi-format Tokens

For NFTs which adhere to our proposed metadata standard, the path to ingesting assets into a game world looks like:

Proposed Ingestion Path Example

1. User purchases an NFT

2. Game verifies that the user owns the NFT

3. Game parses NFT's metadata to ingest appropriate assets into the game world

The clear benefit of this approach is that with no custom project-level support from the game developer and no manual action from the NFT owner, the user is able to use their assets in-game.

Source: ETM_MULTIASSET extension of the ETM standard

Layers of Metadata

On-chain Metadata

The on-chain metadata for every boomboxhead NFT includes fields for multiple different file types such as:

• vrm_url: File path to the VRM avatar

• animation_url: The collectible glTF figurine

• image: HD resolution image

The blockchain acts as a neutral infrastructure for projects that support crypto wallets to read and ingest the various supported asset types from it like an inventory system.

Off-chain Metadata

Currently we stand to lose many of the benefits of blockchain such as attribution if the platforms don’t support the ability to connect your wallet or read from the chain. Since that information only exists on the token layer for most collections, the files lose their magic and become well, just jpgs with no authorship information about them.

IMO the blockchain should be seen as a buff or extension rather than as a replacement to the many awesome existing open technologies and standards we have today for preserving information like attribution and licenses for digital assets.

Even without blockchain our files will still retain information about what they are. This is better than nothing when it comes to non-crypto enabled platforms.

Images

EXIF (Exchangeable image file-format) is a standard that specifies formats for images, sound, and ancillary tags used by digital cameras, scanners and other systems handling image and sound files recorded by digital cameras. It was initially release 28 years ago. Source: Wikipedia

Boomboxheads V2: More resolution + Extra metadata about artist + license + info

glTF 2.0 Figurine Model

You can use sites like gltf.report and glTF sample viewer or CLI tools like gltf-transform to inspect the metadata. If you convert the glb into glTF using a tool like gltf-pipeline, you can see the metadata in plaintext via the glTF file using any text editor.

VRM Avatars

There’s something to be said about a metaverse avatar format that was designed from the ground up to be interoperable put into the design spec decision to standardize the inclusion of metadata about the file. You can read more about it here.

By the way, the multi-format NFT thing has been an ongoing thing for awhile. Notably, pioneering VR artists like emotionull have been minting multi-format NFTs by attaching vrm_url as a hidden trait. This is all achievable, right now, using platforms like manifold.xyz where anyone can launch their own smart contracts with no code.

Conclusion

With boomboxheads V2 we are creating multi-format digital assets at a larger scale we’ve ever done before, open sourcing all our breakthroughs along the way. Lets raise the standard and lift all boats when it comes to digital ownership.

Wen Drop?

We’re aiming for around 2-3 week of April to do the drop. The assets are CC0 and the project is open source under MIT license, so mainly this is a way for people to support the project and to also help us foster a community around it.

The website is almost done, and is worthy of a post on it’s own. It is made with Playcanvas, an open source game engine for the web. 3D mint page for 3D NFTs 👍

We would love to collab with other artists and create new 3D NFT collections using boom-tools - so reach out! Lastly, I really appreciate if you took the time to read this, please share and consider collecting this post - every bit helps.

See you in the metaverse 😎

- jin