What could a Metaverse home look like? Developer shows demo
Greg Madison, Unity's UX wizard, shows off his latest interface experiment. It gives a preview of digital life in the age of the metaverse.
There are numerous, multi-layered metaverse definitions: from purely virtual 3D worlds to a comprehensive digital extension of the real world. What exactly is the metaverse? There is no consensus on that yet.
Away from these more theoretical debates, however, the basic premise of the metaverse can be described in one simple sentence: Reality is becoming more digital, and the digital is becoming more real. Greg Madison, UX designer at Unity, demonstrates this vividly in his latest demo.
Real and virtual - the line is blurring
For his new project, Madison created a digital twin of an apartment. Using a 3D engine, he built a virtual version of the apartment in the exact dimensions of this digital twin, which he can see and walk through in virtual reality via a VR headset. The idea is not new; there have already been numerous demos of this kind in recent years.
Madison, however, wants to illustrate something else, namely the continuous change between realities: reality as we mainly know it and virtual reality. Madison calls the two forms of reality "augmented real virtuality" and "de-augmented virtual reality".
For his demonstration, Madison has created a small digital window through which he can look from one world to another. In augmented real virtuality, he looks through the window into the virtual reality apartment. In the de-augmented virtual reality, he looks out of the virtual apartment into the real one. The switch between the worlds works smoothly.
Video: Greg Madison
So Madison's apartment exists twice: in the standard real version and a virtual real version. Thanks to VR and AR, Madison can move around in both apartments or a hybrid - as long as he wears a VR- and AR-enabled tech headset.
With Meta Quest 2, which Madison uses in his demo, passthrough AR works rudimentarily in black and white. With future devices like Quest Pro and a possible Apple headset, this mixed reality world will be possible in higher quality and color.
"Many digital layers at the same time"
"However many times the marketing will rebrand alternate realities, in the end we are going to walk through many digital layers at the same time. That revolution starts in your home," Madison comments on his video.
The former magician and UX professional is known for his demo videos, which are meant to give a glimpse of a future in a digital-real mixed world. In the past, Madison showed a mixed reality apartment as a game room and a semi-virtual computer, among other things.
Madison also provides a demo of the XR mixed world in the 3D design tool "Shapes XR" for Meta Quest. The app is available for free in the Oculus Store. Use the code "EW9XZ5A5" to get into the room Madison has set up.
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