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Show HN: I built a fun video meeting app with 2D physics and proximity chat

flat.social

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Re: Show HN: I built a fun video meeting app with 2D physics and proximity chat

#41

Post by pawelwentpawel »

mentos wrote: post #37

Hey amazing work. I attempted a 3D version of this in 2020 using playcanvas and Agora.io but ran into the realization that navigating a 3D world is not intuitive for non-gamers. Also, 2D is great because it lets you author new content 10x faster and be more performant than 3D. Really love how you implemented a physics engine to make it all that much more playful. Curious to know what your pipeline is to create the en…

Firstly - thank you!

I recently introduced a "floor builder" which allows you to select different tiles that you would like to use in your flat. This might be something more serious with professional looking meeting rooms or more fun with a dinosaur and a swimming pool.

Elements pipeline - I render most of the elements in blender. I also need to tell the physics engine where the walls are for the new elements for blocking audio, video and movement.

As per offloading more work to the client - that's what I'm trying to avoid. I'd like to make flat.social as tech-inclusive as possible and make sure that it works on weaker devices. Processing audio, video and the game itself is already enough so when possible, I try to offload the work to the backend.

Also, Slack integration is pretty much ready but still in testing :) While I do not think that it's possible to render the app itself within a Slack channel, there are couple shortcuts that might be useful for teams/communities who want to organise recurring events with Slack notifications.

Re: Show HN: I built a fun video meeting app with 2D physics and proximity chat

#43

Post by jupp0r »

jhugo wrote: post #26
pawelwentpawel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems from the website that InSpace is a proximity based chat app too so this aspect might be similar. I don't really see a demo there so hard for me to assess the exact differences! I'm experimenting with the revenue model right now, would be happy to hear any input on the current pricing I set out. As per the servers cost - it's directly correlated to the usage. It runs audio, video and physics on the backend so…

Any reason for doing audio and video work on the backend rather than adopting the (much easier to scale) SFU model and just forwarding packets? Similarly for the physics, seems like doing that work frontend would scale much better.

Even if you use stream forwarding only, network will be a major O(n) cost factor when using cloud providers, at least for video.

There is also some super interesting middle ground between full video forwarding and selective reencoding by using SVC for cheap video resizing on the backend.

Re: Show HN: I built a fun video meeting app with 2D physics and proximity chat

#44

Post by dymk »

midenginedcoupe wrote: post #39
dymk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just close the tab… This looks like it was built for team social events. If you’re getting harassed and bullied on your team, you have bigger problems you need to take care of.

Which could be fine, as long as the tool is only ever used for social events within existing teams with an out-of-band channel for dealing with harassment or bullying. But we all know that this won't be the case. So let's not pretend these problems can't exist, or can just be hand-waved away with "well you can just leave". That's not how real social interactions work, especially those with employee/employer externali…

If it's used for non-team interactions with strangers: You can close the tab. No hand-waving here. You just click a button.

If it's used for team interactions: If you're being bullied by your teammates and/or boss, no amount of software moderation is going to fix that. Go talk to HR about it, quit, and/or go to the NYT with a juicy story.

> That's not how real social interactions work

What are you talking about? Unless you're being physically stopped from leaving somewhere, you can leave. If you're being physically stopped from leaving somewhere, call the police and hopefully you've taken a self defense class and/or have pepper spray on you.

Re: Show HN: I built a fun video meeting app with 2D physics and proximity chat

#45

Post by hnlmorg »

WoodenChair wrote: post #4

How is it different from InSpace? https://inspace.chat/ What’s the future revenue model? How expensive are the servers?

That seems to be more corporate / educational focused. There's a few of these types of solutions around though. I've used Gather (https://www.gather.town/) before because I quite liked it's retro aesthetic. However this Show HN submission looks a lot more polished. So kudos to the devs there.

Re: Show HN: I built a fun video meeting app with 2D physics and proximity chat

#47

Post by mentos »

pawelwentpawel wrote: post #41
mentos wrote: post #37

Hey amazing work. I attempted a 3D version of this in 2020 using playcanvas and Agora.io but ran into the realization that navigating a 3D world is not intuitive for non-gamers. Also, 2D is great because it lets you author new content 10x faster and be more performant than 3D. Really love how you implemented a physics engine to make it all that much more playful. Curious to know what your pipeline is to create the en…

Firstly - thank you! I recently introduced a "floor builder" which allows you to select different tiles that you would like to use in your flat. This might be something more serious with professional looking meeting rooms or more fun with a dinosaur and a swimming pool. Elements pipeline - I render most of the elements in blender. I also need to tell the physics engine where the walls are for the new elements for blo…

Awesome thank you for sharing sounds great!

I think you have enough features so to me the challenge is finding how to make it feel like it already lives inside the applications people are already using for work (like Slack). Imagine a trailer that demonstrates how one command can launch this amazing adventure. Something like "Your next /happyhour awaits"

Re: Show HN: I built a fun video meeting app with 2D physics and proximity chat

#48

Post by [deleted] »

midenginedcoupe wrote: post #38
ctvo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ask any woman what it's like to go to a tech conference, and then try to guess if they would be comfortable using a tool like yours as it currently stands. Why did you ignore their reply to you entirely? > Please mind that the demo room is an open space to show off the features. Once you create your own flat, you are able to edit moderators, guest list, allowed email domains, banned list and keep the flat open and…

I didn't ignore their reply. I responded to their expansion on the physical options for moving in the space. The same argument for booting disruptive people could be made for conferences, too. Yes, it's much easier with smaller and more closely-knit teams, but it still happens. And your suggestion is _only_ any good for closely-knit teams. Once it starts getting used for more open-attendance events, that starts to fa…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I built a fun video meeting app with 2D physics and proximity chat

#50

Post by sgt »

pawelwentpawel wrote: post #42
sgt wrote: post #31

Really cool - just spoke to Pawel for a bit, then I teleported into space.

Remember you can always teleport back with the home button! :)

I tried that, but the button didn't do anything. Maybe I should have just waited a few secs more.
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