PROPOSAL NAME:
All ApeCoin holders get 3 D avatars: 3 D Avatar Generator compatible with ApeChain and Otherside
TEAM DESCRIPTION:
Led by ToxSam, CEO of Polygonal Mind and seasoned character artist and Cynnx, COO of Polygonal Mind. Polygonal Mind is the creative studio behind the development of the official BAYC 3 D Avatars among many other creative developments. We run a professional studio of 3 D artists and game developers with experience developing in Web 3 and metaverse platforms since 2019 .
Some of our studio highlights are:
Designed, developed and delivered the 10 , 000 BAYC 3 D Avatars to Yuga Labs in 2023 .
Created the 100 Avatars collection (initially off-chain) in 2018 , which has some of the most used avatars in VRChat, our avatars are used by more than 50 k people everyday in VRChat alone.
Created the first 3 D Avatars collection minted in Ethereum, CryptoAvatars, created in September 2020 .
Our own 3 D Avatars NFT platform, VIPE, with more than 250 k avatars is the largest of its kind and it’s integrated with several virtual worlds like Nifty Island, OnCyber, Hyperfy, Dverso, Pavia, Voidge, Hubzz and others.
Only non-Japanese member of the VRM Consortium, under CryptoAvatars SL. The VRM is the file format that standardised 3 D avatars across hundreds of applications.
We’ve developed virtual world experiences or avatar developments for known brands in both Web 3 (Yuga Labs, The SandBox, Decentraland, CyberKongz, Broadside, etc) and Web 2 (Forbes, Doritos, Tommy Hilfiger, Mtn Dew, Santander, etc).
Delivered over 70 , 000 avatars to several collections, brands and clients in 2023 alone and over 100 , 000 at this moment in 2024 .
Our contact information:
Email: info@polygonalmind.com, quique@polygonalmind.com, adani@polygonalmind.com
Website form: www.polygonalmind.com
Twitter: @polygonalmind
Discord: @cynnx @toxsam
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[Image render approved by Yuga Labs PR team]
PROPOSAL DESCRIPTION:
A 3 D Avatar Generator, OtherSide compatible, powered and branded by ApeCoin DAO, supported on ApeChain with tokenized accessories (traits) to combine together and generate a 3 D Avatar. The ultimate tool to onboard the whole ApeCoin community into Otherside and enable builders to have characters for their ApeCoin-branded developments (any game funded by the DAO for example).
Over the last 12 months we’ve developed a web-based system technology to mix and match accessories into a character and generate a completely functional and interoperable 3 D avatar.
We have the technology working and published for anyone to try here with very light-weight optimized and anime-style models: https://vipe.io/myvipe. It’s a character creator like you would expect in many games, but it’s web-based and generates and exports a fully functional avatar.
Initially we’ll set the whole inventory for free, simply tokengated for ApeCoin holders to use. If the DAO chooses to, we can set up mints of new accessories that fund back to the DAO. In either case, we believe that by owning ApeCoin, people should have an inventory available by default.
Getting immediate access to the avatar unlocks infinite possibilities for holders to create content with them, do VTubing, animations, streaming, video calls and much more.
Since we did the BAYC avatars, the target tech specs for these avatars would be the same, delivered in FBX and VRM and fit for Otherside. Compatibility with OtherSide as of today is mainly based on making these new avatars with the same tech specs as the official BAYC avatars. This means: same file format, similar size, same texture size, same armature, similar bounds, etc. Another good thing is that we’re among the studios getting early access to the OtherSide SDK (ODK) so we’ll be able to test these features too.
If the community strongly recommends it, we can look to increase the scope to have every single piece of the puzzle have an additional low poly version so there’s a second version avatar that is more lightweight and fits lighter-requirements platforms, delivery of those would be in VRM, which is supported in a plethora of apps.
We would set up recurrent releases of traits and also create traits featuring partnerships the DAO makes or other suggestions.
Additionally, over time, we have the ability to support additional IPs if the DAO wants to enable that. Think not only of this collection and style but also other collections wanting to be on ApeChain or have the same technical specs and ability to customize.
The IP created would be for the DAO to hold. We want to be credited as the designers and developers behind it.
BENEFIT TO APECOIN ECOSYSTEM:
These are the following benefits we foresee:
Create a new revenue stream feeding back to the ApeCoin DAO treasury. (If the DAO chooses so, initially the tool will be designed to have everything for free for DAO members).
Enabling ApeCoin community members to customize their virtual personas ready for Otherside and to make content.
Bringing NFT traffic to ApeChain.
Enable more community members to own 3 D game-ready avatars.
Enabling future developments to have a vast library of avatars for their game developments.
DEFINITIONS:
Avatar: 3 D representation of a digital identity, usable in one or several platforms.
Avatar Generator: technology to create an avatar from a given combination of parts.
Interoperable: characteristic of a product that can work with other products. In the context: 3 D avatars that work in several platforms out of the box as opposed to a skin on a game that only works in that game.
V-Tubing: entertainment by a V-Tuber, a person that uses a 3 D avatar to showcase themselves when creating content.
FBX: a proprietary 3 D model file format by Autodesk, used by Unreal Engine and Otherside.
VRM: an open-source 3 D model file format, specific for 3 D avatars, supported in plenty of platforms.
Low Poly: a polygon mesh in 3 D that has a relatively small number of polygons, therefore lighter and optimized for real-time applications.
STEPS TO IMPLEMENT:
There’s three separate segments in the project:
1 . 3 D Art: Development of the traits to be released. Design of accessories, 3 D sculpture, optimization, texturing, rigging and quality assurance.
2 . Blockchain dev: Minting campaigns of the traits, development and deployment of smart contracts in ApeChain for users to claim/mint the accessories they want to use in the generator, security and quality assurance.
3 . Website dev: Adapting current tech to new ApeCoin UI and fit the avatar generator system to the traits; includes UI/UX Design, Frontend Development, Backend Development, Security, Quality Assurance.
All of them would advance at the same time as they’d be developed by separate teams of our in-house studio.
Month 1 : UI/UX of website, 3 D development of Base avatar, Web Development
Month 2 : UI/UX of website, 3 D development of traits, Web Development, Blockchain Dev
Month 3 : 3 D development of traits, Web Development, Blockchain Dev
Month 4 : 3 D development of traits, Web Development, Blockchain Dev
Month 5 - 12 : 3 D development of traits, maintenance web dev and blockchain dev
The 3 D Art segment will be done throughout the year, created content for 12 months.
Blockchain dev and Website dev can be developed within 4 months.
Starting on the first week of August and launching the tool on the first week of December 2024 and having content deployed from December 2024 to December 2025 .
Milestones to achieve:
UI/UX designed and published.
Base avatar designed, developed and published.
Traits/Accessories designed, developed and published.
Launch of the tool.
Publication of guides on how to use the avatars. We could find a place in the tool itself to publish them or facilitate the materials for the DAO to publish. Guides would be in text documents and sometimes as videos.
KPIs:
Number of avatars created.
Unique wallets that have created an avatar.
Content impressions with the avatars being used.
No new hires would need to be done as we have the capacity to develop the whole project with our in-house team, so work can start immediately after approval. We would have 1 blockchain developer, 3 full stack developers, 1 graphic designer and 4 3 D artists assigned to the project.
We’d require the APE Foundation to grant us access to a subdomain if the community rather wants APE Foundation to host the project, else we can offer our 3 D Avatar Platform as a host for one year.
We’d require the APE Foundation to assist us with defining what style of avatars or what traits / accessories are made so the community can collaborate and be part of the process. (Example: do we want humanoids, robots, apes or something else).
We would consider this proposal fully implemented once the tool is deployed and the content included in it ( 240 traits are available to users).
REPORTING EXPECTATIONS:
Bi-weekly updates on progress on 3 D Art, Blockchain dev and Website dev.
Public Notion page (yet to be developed) visible to anyone with the progress on minor and major milestones.
The reporting would cover the whole year where we would be releasing new accessories every month.
OVERALL COST:
“Total amount requested from the ApeCoin Ecosystem Fund = $ 370 , 000 .”
TECHNOLOGY: Blockchain Dev ($ 60 k), 3 D programming ($ 60 k) and Website Dev cost ($ 120 k) is expected around $ 240 , 000 .
UI/UX Design: $ 10 , 000
ART: Base avatar and 240 3 D accessories & traits, to release across a full year, for $ 120 , 000 .
Numbers include salaries, licenses for tools needed for the team to perform their tasks and costs associated to hardware and servers are spread across the tech team.
Blockchain Dev: $ 60 , 000
3 D Programming: $ 60 , 000
Graphic Design: $ 10 , 000
Frontend Development: $ 40 , 000
Backend Development: $ 80 , 000
3 D modelling & texturing (same artists): $ 90 , 000
Rigging: $ 30 , 000
We would love for the DAO and community to be involved in suggesting and requesting what traits they’d like to see.
