For the last three weeks I’ve not been very active on this blog because I was incredibly busy with my daily work at VRROOM and finally today I can reveal what we’ve worked on that hard: a new version update and a new amazing VR concert featuring Armani White!
VRROOM
If you don’t know VRROOM… well, first of all… why you don’t know VRROOM? You should feel really bad about it 😀 .
VRROOM is a social XR platform dedicated to music, performances, and life shows. Its mission is to revolutionize events and art with a platform exclusively dedicated to that. It was launched in alpha in January 2023 on the major VR platforms (Steam, Quest, Pico) with a concert of three emerging French artists (Web7, LeJuiice, and Maxence). On the launch day, it reached the top spot of the most downloaded free app on the Pico Store. After the launch day, there have been a few events there, but mostly the team was working on developing the features for the next version…
Armani White Concert
In a few days, the rapper Armani White is going to perform inside VRROOM. If you don’t know who he is… again… why? Before I had to explain to you what VRROOM is, now who Armani White is… writing this article is becoming tiresome like writing a new Wikipedia! 😀 Anyway, honestly, I had no clue either.
Armani White is a rising star in the American RAP ecosystem, and songs like “Billie Eilish” and “Goated” have become immediate hits. The move that Armani White performs while singing Goated has even been integrated into Fortnite.
We had the enormous pleasure of collaborating with him in creating a new wonderful VR experience. I can’t tell you much about it because I don’t want to spoil you everything… but I can just say that our art director had a very cool idea about it based on the concept of “multiverse”. When he told me that, I was like “Wow”… I think this is a very new take on VR concerts, something that many of you would like to try.
If you want to know more, here you are a trailer, so that to give you a sneak peek of the experience:
In case all of this caught your attention, well, join us and support our new platform! The premiere of the concert is happening on November, 6th at 8pm EST time (New York), and then a replica will be on air on November, 7th at 8pm CET time (Rome, Paris). I can promise you you will enjoy it. And It will be a quite short experience this time, so in case you are working those hours, you can just hide in the toilet for the time needed to sing Goated Goated Goated with us. I’m pretty sure you will also find your boss there, having fun at our concert, too!
Ah, the concert is of course totally free: we are creating this just to make you all have some fun. Plus I just received an email from an African Prince wanting to give me 10 million dollars, so I don’t need money anymore…
The role of artificial intelligence in this project
Actually, Generative AI had no role in this concert: instead of artificial intelligence, we preferred using human stupidity and creativity. And you see that we are stupid because in the communication material, we still use the word “metaverse”, which we all know is dead. So, sorry, we are old school. But I’m ready to repent and say sorry to ChatGPT!
The big platform update
Do you know what is cooler than having Armani White performing in VRROOM? It’s having the first big update to the VRROOM app, which so evolves from being an alpha to being an “early access” platform! In this new update, you will find a lot of visual upgrades: for instance, the initial room is prettier, and the menus have been improved, too. The avatars are also much cooler and more contextualized with the musical vibes of the space.
But especially you will have two main big features: one is a recording tool, that lets you shoot professional videos inside the platform. You can still use the virtual phone to shoot GIFs to share on social media, but now you will also be able to shoot long movies with moving virtual cameras for more professional productions. We think this is relevant for people who want to record their performances on our platform. It is super cool… almost like a product of its own!
And then worlds are now fully dynamic! Before we had a fixed number of available experiences, while now we are like all the other platforms, where there is a growing dynamic database of worlds in our cloud, and every time you want to enter into one of them, you download it from the cloud, and you enter there.
Worlds are created using our Unity SDK, which is going to launch in closed beta. If you want, you can use this SDK to create your artistic world for VRROOM in Unity, publish it to our platform, and let people enjoy the events you create in it! If you are a creator, and you are interested in an SDK for a platform that is dedicated to music, live shows, art, and creativity in general, get in touch with us at creators@vrroom.world and we will be back to you soon…
But what if you are not a Unity developer and still want to perform in VRROOM? Well, we got you covered, too… you will be able to start from an existing template and be able to create your performance “just in a few clicks” (our CEO likes this motto, so let me use it to make him happy). We’ll share info on how to do this very soon. This is how we want to democratize the creation of events in XR.
But what if you don’t want even to do a few clicks? Then become just a visitor! Come to our platform and enjoy the shows created by other people!
What if you don’t want even to be a spectator? Well, you can still lie on the bed, put the headset on with the VRROOM app open, and sleep 🙂 As you can see, we have a place for everyone.
Content
There is also more content waiting for you than the alpha, which, honestly speaking, was quite empty. The first world you will learn to love is an always-on social plaza where you can meet with other people and make new friends. And apart from our official program, we can’t wait to see what independent creators will be able to develop in our space!
(PS This, together with the platform update, is coming the day of the concert launch… if you go to VRROOM today, you may still find it a bit empty…)
The future features
Under the hood, there are also already many other cool features already in development. One of them, which I personally didn’t manage to finish in time before the cut-off date, is… well, I’m not sure I can say its name, so let me just give you a hint: I was not sitting while working on it…
This and many other features are coming in the next weeks, so stay tuned!
The huge work behind it
Being the CTO of VRROOM is a rewarding and very challenging experience. Making a VR platform is a huge undertaking, and after I started it, I understood all the problems that other amazing platforms like VRChat or ENGAGE are having (for instance, I now understand why VRChat went for Easy Anti Cheat). It’s a huge project, and every week, I make mistakes and learn something new from them. Lots of compromises are needed, and for instance, various features that we wanted to give to you of the community as soon as possible have been postponed because they weren’t ready for prime time, yet. This hurts, because I personally wanted to give you the best experience possible, but the reality is never as smooth as we hope and so some compromises are always needed.
When we released the alpha, I joked with you that I expected a “big crash”, with the app crashing at the same time for all people in the world using it. Here I can say something similar: we are in early access, so something may not work as intended, the app may not work properly, your headset may crash, and SkyNet could take control of the world.
It’s part of the game when developing such a huge product, so bear with us if something is not working. You just pretend nothing happened and share on social media “Amazing experience, the best concert ever #metaverse #VRROOM #ArmaniWhite” even if you just see a black screen. I will pass you some money under the table for that.
I’m still committed to writing for you one or two big posts about the lessons learned in my year and a half working on this platform. I wasn’t able to do that in the past weeks because of the final rush for the concert but trust me, it is going to happen in the upcoming times. Happy to share my knowledge with you, hoping to inspire you to do cool XR experiences, too!
So, save the dates: 6th or 7th of November, depending on the timezone, come and see our Armani White concert in the new version of the VRROOM platform! You can reserve your spot here: https://vrroom.world
See you there!
(And by the way, also a final special thanks to our partners like Pico and XRSI for the help they are giving us)
(Header image by VRROOM)