Show HN: Free 3D virtual office in the browser • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Free 3D virtual office in the browser

#101

Post by egypturnash » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 12:51 AM UTC

wilsonrocks wrote: post #77

egypturnash wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Account creation doesn't require clicking a link in the email, I just used 'buttmonkey' as the username and 'buttmonkey@mailinator.com' as the email. And now I am stuck in the tutorial because it wants me to zoom in and out with the mouse wheel or the track pad, and I am at my desk with my computer closed and plugged into my monitor and my Wacom tablet and it doesn't recognize using the touch ring set to 'scroll'. It…

Is opening the computer a possibility?

It's under the desk, hidden away.

Re: Show HN: Free 3D virtual office in the browser

#102

Post by bradknowles » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 5:13 AM UTC

I’ve tried this sort of thing at a previous employer. In short, this is skeuomorphism raised to … some large power.

Focusing on the looks of whether or not we’re in the right virtual space unfortunately detracts from the actual communications themselves.

We don’t need to rebuild a full 3d virtual office where everyone has a personal avatar to wander around the space, in order to communicate with our office mates. If you want that, just go build your office in Second Life.

But keep in mind that there’s a reason why Second Life doesn’t have a population of hundreds of millions of people — that concept doesn’t scale, and there are many of us who actively avoid 3D MMOs.

Re: Show HN: Free 3D virtual office in the browser

#103

Post by marcind » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 8:39 AM UTC

ghempton wrote: post #2

One of authors here. As a kid, some of my most meaningful relationships and experiences were forged through online gaming (UO anyone?). A big part of this wasn’t necessarily the game itself, but was instead the sense of place and community afforded through the shared environment. As an adult, many of my most meaningful relationships have come from my work environment. When working remotely or in a distributed setting…

I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the 3d virtual office. I find they often require a greater number of clicks to perform a task I'd otherwise complete "the old way". I'd be more likely to use an app that delivers "always on" virtual connections if they legitimately made my life easier. Maybe consider adding some desktop/keyboard shortcuts that are available when minimized/off?

We've been working on solving similar problems but going about it differently. Rather than a shared virtual environment, we're looking for better ways to connect real, distributed environments. We created https://sharetheboard.com because we simply didn't want to give up the whiteboard sessions. Reading here though I wonder if some kind of mashup wouldn't be interesting? A real whiteboard session could easily be displayed on the wall of your virtual office, allowing for serendipitous participation... Let me know if you're interested and we can discuss.