All Hail Hagall | State of Matterless #36
Today, we’re going deep into the machinery that makes Matterless magic happen! Buckle up and right this way.
All Hail Hagall
In episode 2 of the Cyberdelic Podcast, we talked about our vision of steering AR down a road of privacy preservation and decentralization. Now we can reveal one of the biggest ways we’re doing that! It comes down to one word: Hagall. Meaning Hail in Old Norse, Hagall is what we’ve called the decentralized real-time network server that our augmented reality apps Incos and Floorcraft operate on.
The Auki Labs team created the Hagall network so that digital dreamers can experience real-time shared AR together. It’s designed for interoperability and can host traffic from multiple different apps within the same session in real-time. Internally we call this functionality ‘app agnostic.’
Best of all, it’s designed with decentralization in mind; just about anyone who has above-potato-level hardware can be a Hagall server operator by running it on anything from their router to a Raspberry Pi.
With a global network of Hagall operators, users running Auki-enabled apps like Incos or Floorcraft experience faster response times from being algorithmically connected to a nearby node instead of an AWS node.
For us and app developers that use Hagall, we save money on hardware and server hosting. Check out the video at the top; the Floorcraft demonstration by Nils and Dusko was running on a server hosted by an Auki Labs Discord community member!
Do you have spare compute and want to earn rewards from hosting? Check out the documentation on GitHub and get yourself a Hagall node.
3D Cookery
As work on Incos and Floorcraft continues at full speed, our digital maestro Batu has been cooking up several courses of 3D assets for our developers to implement once finished. Have a seat and here’s the menu…
For our hors d’oeuvres, we have a glow effect for new types of Inco skins currently under development. Would you want a radiant digi-doggo? Done!
For our starter, we have a Floorcraft skid particle that will emanate when the hovercars make hard turns. Check out the skidding sound effects we added last week too!
The main course is a platter of Floorcraft muscle car skins! Batu explains:
When designing these skins, it’s important to respect the bold, angular shape of the muscle car model. I have to ensure that the skins enhance these qualities instead of distracting from them. The skins you see above are the result of that thinking, and more will be coming.
And finally, for dessert, we have a checkpoint asset for a Floorcraft game mode we’ve been working on, Floor Scramble. As mentioned last week, this mode is designed for players to frantically capture and defend checkpoints.
Soon you’ll be able to dig into all of these.
Off To A Great Start
Our recently hired Senior Unity Engineer Darko started spellcasting immediately. In his own words:
In the past week, I was introduced to the Matterless project and I must admit that the project architecture is amazingly written and very easy to extend and maintain. The team is making sure that I am onboarded effectively, which boosted my confidence in the seriousness of our vision. On my first day on the job, I was able to deploy my first lines of code, which speaks volumes of how quickly I was able to get comfortable with the team.
Darko’s current task is to improve the Incos hand interaction feature by optimizing audio feedback from petting. He explains:
In Incos, we measure the distance between the pet and the hand and give the user audio feedback that varies depending on their proximity to the pet. At Matterless, we try to eliminate the artificial feel that plagues other AR apps. Our highest priority is to make the connection between an AR pet and a user feel real.
For this reason, we made the touch cube demo, which was implemented while Vidhvat was in Zagreb, and worked directly with Dusko on the sound design and implementation into the code base.
Conference Season Begins
We are currently exhibiting at the Reboot Develop Blue conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and the Global Summit in Madeira, Portugal. Soon we are going to Split for the Startup Europe Regatta, and at the end of October, you can see us at AWE in Lisbon, Portugal.
In November, our CCO Damir has been invited to give a lecture on AR and spatial internet at University College London for the London Blockchain Labs.
We will give you more on-site updates as these events start rolling.
That’s our hefty update for the week! Come meet the wizards behind the magical works you just saw on our Discord, and drop us a comment if you’d like to connect with us here!
— Kerwin, social media manager
