Though it’s seldom said in a positive air, “everything and the kitchen sink” may be the right way to describe the open COLLADA file format. It’s somewhat surprising that anyone is able to correctly implement it since it’s designed by a rather large committee. Any Khronos member may suggest additions to the standard while few suggestions are ever rejected, but the package has remained stable since 2008 when he latest release was published.

Security considerations notwithstanding COLLADA may be the best candidate on which to base a now suddenly realistic implementation of cyberspaces like the Metaverse or the Oasis. Perhaps this is a testament to not only maturing hardware, but maturing software as well. After all, it is a product of quite a few of the most technologically advanced companies from across the globe.



If COLLADA is chosen, it will be tested to exhaustion. Pretty soon legions of echelons of start-ups and established brands alike will be hawking virtual real-estate as if their product was Google page rankings. This is is to be expected. Perhaps this is the market of which Facebook is attempting to become a top supplier. They must be wise to history. - Prior to Google search results there was a land-rush for DNS namespace; an artificial scarcity created by what must be attributed to a static perception of the public’s incontinence. Should that perception yet again prevail, then we may indeed soon be handing over hard-earned cash for the right to position our ‘4’ between their '3’ and '5’. “Location, location, location” needs not be true in cyberspace, but if anyone can make you believe their location is the one that counts (like the space between www. and .com) then they stand to make billions.





I digress before I have even begun. This article is actually about something much more profound than numeric real-estate scammers with hearts of stone. - It’s about the bones in your body and your personal space, and this our task of traversing the yet unexplored territory between generations of VR immersion peripherals and the immortal Internet.



The skeleton in the picture which accompanies this article is modeled in 3D by an artist called momentum. It’s different from the bone structures which you are consistently told to implement when we rig 3D models for the purpose of animating them. Those bone structures are vastly simplified, and no game nor animation to date has embraced a bone structure which even approaches what you would call realism. There, the rib cage is solid as a steel bar, as are the palms. The forearms a contain precisely half the number of bones one should expect, and so on.

When animating these characters you have a reasonable number of control points to click on and drag around, but the final result always looks unnatural. Manually animating bones one by one is too time-consuming and far too clumsy for VR. It simply brings a new dimension to the uncanny valley.



We will probably begin using full-body motion capture in the home. Then, when your physical body and you virtual body come in synchronization a new entity will begin to emerge from the twilight zone between the two: the avatar.



When using motion capture there is little need to restrain ourselves to the minimal number of bones that a semblance of human life implores. We can have proper bones, like shoulder blades, kneecaps, fibula and a sacrum. With motion capture we are wise to for example define each joint’s maximum and common range of motion and based on capture input compute the aggregate angle which provides maximum strength. In our approximation of the position of the physical body we observe the laws of physics, gravity and inertia in particular, and in motion we know the mitochondria do not possess the power of a thousand suns. We do not let our limbs pass through each other, because we are not ghosts. These are simply sanity checks. The result of all this effort is suspension of disbelief.



Bipedal locomotion apparently requires a whole lot of computation, which probably is why human babies learn to crawl before they can walk. This degree of computation provides a trade-off which is relevant to consumer VR: more expense in software means less expense in hardware. Perhaps, instead of 40 expensive cameras only 4 cheap are needed. You don’t need to turn your home into a studio or change your clothes to play a game. Your personal space is after all also the space you live in, complete with furniture, other living entities, artwork and equipment.



That said, no shortage of games rely on superhuman speed and agility. Perhaps people will learn to predict and manipulate the prediction algorithms used to reduce latency themselves, and in doing so conveniently reduce their flailing, keeping from accidentally hitting members of their family, and begin to move their avatars at speed at the very edge of perception.





Be that as it may, there must be sword fights. Without virtual sword fights we have probably failed to engineer a new reality. In order to have sword fights we need to just forget about using big, upright 'pills’ as the collision boundary for our avatars. We must be able to barely dodge strikes from the other side of the globe with only milliseconds to spare. We can expect avatars to wear the most fanciful, anti-utilitarian skins with peacock feather arrangements, billowing robes, and epic hair; all of which must to be severed by whirling blades in fleeting moments of sublime satisfaction.



Environment surfaces need to be more physical. We all know that fictional flesh easily punches through rock when you’re powerful enough, so 'materials’ can no longer contain only information for the shader; they must be for the physics engine as well.

Things like rendering a pair of disembodied, gun-toting arms on a separate overlay for the purpose of hiding when you’re clipping with your environment have to go. Bum rushing your opponent should be a perfectly valid fighting strategy. Currently in games a tactic in this category at best results in a scripted event, such as trampled bugs when your hitbox floats near theirs. Currently, should you actually have legs underneath your avatar your feet are mere animated obstructions to your view, and in each game you have to experiment to find out how far over a ledge you can move the camera. Most games consequently remind me of that Indian Jones movie, where Harrison Ford walks on an invisible bridge of faith.





Perhaps roaming by walking will have to be put on ice for a few years while VR gaming matures. This could result in a somewhat contrived scenario where the game assumes that the player is either sitting or standing. Sitting, the player is on a mount or vehicle and able to move longer distances in the game world. Standing, the player is confined to a small area, perhaps physically accentuated by something on the floor like a carpet. A carpet should be easily recognized by both computer vision and the user’s feet. A situation like that Dance Dance Revolution game from a few years back comes to mind, where you step on an area on the floor in order to move forward, keeping your hands free.



Either way, this will require some sort of convention. Adding everything and the kitchen sink may not work since we are talking about physical objects and physical real estate. Many people who buy a VR kit might do so at critical expense. We probably don’t want to miss out on the world’s best swordsman because the buy-in was too expensive. The more the merrier, says I.