[DAO: QmX7kuC] Wear Essentials - Wearables for everyone

[dao]

by 0x82d54417fc69681dc74a6c0c68c6dbad5a2857b9 (Malloy)

Should the following Tier 6: up to $240,000 USD, 6 months vesting (1 month cliff) grant in the Platform Contributor category be approved?

Abstract

Wear Essentials is an application that will offer users the ability to create their own wearables without needing to know 3D technical theory. Wear Essentials will provide an interface for users to build and publish a Decentraland wearable by adding their content to a library of pre-approved templates. The existence of this new platform will reduce barriers to entry for creators and builders in Decentraland to participate in the burgeoning world of digital asset creation, reduce the strain on the wearable-curation committee, and increase revenue back to the Decentraland DAO.

Tl;dr - A silk-screening service for Decentraland with increased revenue directed back to the DAO.

Grant size

240,000 USD

Beneficiary address

0xCC7BC60bFcC029ecC8357A9c80b4CC51aF67798E

Description

Problem:

The current technical requirements for wearables to be approved into the Decentraland ecosystem can be daunting for new users in the space. The Decentraland wearable creation process currently has a steep learning curve for non-technical 3D artists who want to express themselves or facilitate a brand experience. 2D artists currently are completely dependent on 3D artists to be included into the ecosystem; an inadvertent gate set up by the current wearables submission paradigm.

On the other side of the spectrum, non-3D-proficient submissions often lead to delays in the curation process as multiple rounds of submissions and back-and-forth between the curation committee can occur before a final design is honed and approved. This excessive iteration could lead to delays for brand items to be ready for events on time, but also strains the wearable-curation committee as the submission fee does not account for the time the experts ultimately spend reviewing.

Solution:

Wear Essentials will provide a platform for aspiring wearables creators to design wearables without technical barriers. An easy to navigate user experience will allow creators to upload a 2D image and see their graphic presented on a catalog of essential wearables in real time. The solution will then manage the submission and curation process, deploy the wearables, and provide analytics with feedback about their uptake and distribution.

Upon submission to the wearables committee - an action which will be available right in the platform - the whole process of deployment and royalty management can be handled. Through use of payment splitter contracts on polygon, an allocation of creator funds raised through primary and secondary sales can be shared with the DAO.

The collection of templates can also be expanded over time in partnership with brands and organizations.

It makes it easier for creators as the platform will provide a set of guardrails to produce quality wearables. A set of template wearables - hats, shirts, sweaters, shoes - provide a foundation to ensure the end result will have the correct poly-counts and vertex weighting. Creators can then upload 2D imagery to be mapped on the templates. Users only need to make choices on template color and placement/size of the 2D image content to result in a wearable ready for submission to the committee. This opens up the whole ecosystem to 2D artists (illustrators, graphic designers, tattoo and traditional).

It reduces the burden on the DAO Wearables Committee as submissions coming direct from the platform have less for the team to review. Confident that the poly-counts and assets are templated, the focus can then be placed on the guidelines for the 2D images that users uploaded (approved content, IP-infringement issues, etc…).

It will increase revenue to the DAO in a few ways. Through the simplification of the wearables submission process, this platform may lead to an increase in submissions to the DAO. In addition, payment splitters or similar payment rails can be put in place to enforce revenue sharing of primary and secondary sales revenue directly with the DAO. Note that while the purpose of this initiative is to primarily build engagement and increase participation in the wearable creation process, we believe it does not hurt to add additional subsidies back to the DAO where possible.

Once the application is public we will release opensource to the community with a well documented guide!

Specification

Here is a graphical pitch deck.
Discrepancy regarding the submission price in the pitch deck, this has now changed due to recent proposals

Here is an early mock up provided by our designer. It will definitely change but it depicts the base user journey before we make it pretty!

Personnel

Who we are:

We are community devs seeking to build assets for our community. From the team that brought you the custom Vogu Head - DCL wearables which literally changed the game…

Feeka Café is a talented group of metaverse artists and creators helmed by Malloy and Catabasist, who have been involved in building and bridging projects inside Decentraland. With extensive experience in 3D asset production, its members have created dozens of wearables and have worked on projects such as the Metaverse Festival ‘21, AO Metaverse and MTFW.

Atlas Corporation is a somewhat mysterious team of web3 innovation developers who call Decentraland their home. Atlas Corporation has worked on initiatives directly interfacing with the Decentraland wearables contract and has deep experience with analytics related to Decentraland wearables and assets.

Tim Phelan is an independent designer that bridges the gap between product design and branding. With his flair for image making, terrible puns and enhanced user experiences, it is no wonder that Decentraland has become his second home.

Roadmap and milestones

Our approach will consist of:

• A strong UX/UI design concepting stage
• A sprint period to combine 3D assets with the UX/UI and prepare assets for development.
• Contract and back end development to innovate bridging between these elements

Fund Allocation:

Art and Asset Creation

• Platform branding and design
• Platform user experience design
• First wave of ‘Wear Essentials’ 3d asset templates
• Promotional and educational materials

Development

• Scrum master / project management
• Front end site engineering
• Template to Wearable technology (to be innovated)
• Wearables analytics / revenue to DAO tracking
• Site infrastructure and hosting
• Integration of wearable submission process
• Payment-splitter deployment

We will be sure to show graphical updates in the DAO discord to share with, and receive feedback from, the community.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

[maraoz]

Absolutely love this proposal. I would definitely use something like this (I’m even interested in being an early tester!) However, I have some questions before I vote yes.

Positive feedback:

• amazing idea
• great proposal presentation (thanks for adding concept images!)
• I really really wish there were more proposals like this one (ie: proposals for better tools for content creation) – it’s not only the Decentraland Foundation that can build tooling for Decentraland!

Negative feedback / questions:

• How are you planning to spend the money, roughly? I always become suspicious of grants requesting the max amount without specifying how they arrive at that budget.
• Can you add some milestones for the project, so the community knows what to expect from the team in terms of timing and deliverables?

[MrVertual]

Really loved the idea,hope this get all the support needed! I’m only questioning, and would like to know what’s your idea about that, a re-use of the model will not go against decentraland werables regulation? " wearables in Decentraland still need to be moderated in order to prevent spam, abuse, duplicated content"

[Kat]

I think this is an interesting idea, however the templates sound limiting from a 3D perspective, unless I’m misunderstanding. If this proposal were enacted, could creators still submit their own 3D models, or only decorate the templates provided?

I’m all for making the process easier for new creators, but at the same time, I don’t think anyone should be limited to X templates. The key to digital fashion and self expression is being able to explore outside the realms of traditional garments.

[Nicic]

This has very limited use case, I feel like only few might use it to put logo on shirt/hat but that’s it since most of the people want their wearables to have their own unique 3D design/look.
Since only a few might use it the ROI on this proposal for the DAO will be very bad, I don’t think the DAO will ever recoup the investment made.
Its better to allow users to just download the base models and show them how to add a photo to a shirt, that would be a good starting point for them to learn the basic of wearable designing.

[michi]

Hey Malloy,
I love this proposal! I agree with @Kat that this should be used along side builder. I would even go further to say this should be developed and integrated into builder so you have two tabs. I wonder if that’s something that can be done or if it needs to be written into the proposal?

This will increase the quality in the space of 3D meshes, many times we (wearable committee) get really half-assed shirt designs from even big brands in the space. Most people dont want to create a female and male representation so there are shirts on the market with only one gender representation due to lazy designers. Clipping issues are now appearing over a lot of male shirts/upper body published prior to Jan-Feb 2022 due to a recent avatar update and anything published prior to the reversed faces update from last year that has issues, can’t be updated by Decentraland but creators (that might not be active in the space) where as if there was system like this in place there can be a clean sweep update to any shirt or basic wearable published with this add-on.

A lot of people are sometimes overcharged for hoodies and shirts also, so this will automate that process for new people entering the space. Also this wont devalue the creators doing commission because then they can offer a stylised basic for anyone looking for something a bit more custom. (like myself offering a bit more of loose fit or long skinny fit)

My only speed bump to voting yes (besides it being an add-on to Decentraland rather than a seperate body), is a clear budget please~
A proposal being past at highest tier should have a clear budget breakdown as a minimal requirement so it’s easier for the grant committee to review expenses at a later date.

@Nicic I’m not sure what everyone thinks but I wonder if a project that is looking to improve accessibility to the platform though a grant, should it be finding a way to repay the DAO money?
Genuine thought on my behalf~

Look forward to seeing how this goes!

[michi]

I wonder if this platform should have capped rarity to avoid spam?

Re-using a mesh in this case might be ok since it’s a template for the masses that cant do 3D.
These would also need to go trough the standard approval process to avoid IP infringement, repeat designs and other guideline issues.

[Malloy]

Hi @maraoz !

Thank you for the positive and critical feedback, appreciate it greatly!

We will do a run down of costs in a visual format and drop that in here for people to see ASAP. It is majority salaries of developers, artists, designer and preliminary budgeting for 3rd party service hire (3D animation studio/Voice over artist for tutorial/promo materials).

Milestones will be included in the graphic. Will tag you with an update when it’s ready!

[Malloy]

Hey @MrVertual,

Yes the meshes supported will be the same however the uniqueness of the final design via chosen colors/branding pattern or design will make it a unique wearable in it’s own right.

I know there is a point of contention as people have ripped other artist’s assets without permission and reskinned them for financial gain, however if this proposal is successful, we will be releasing all of the assets in an opensource package for people to use at their leisure. If someone wants to use the source model file, we have no issues there as it is for the community.

It will be a library more than just fully ready to go T-shirts, there will be hoodies, baseball caps, beanies, pants and many more!

[Malloy]

Hey @Kat

I think you tagged me on twitter and we had a lil discussion about it there but to clarify for other’s reading the forum. This application isn’t really targetted for 3D artists, it is for artists like 2D illustrators, graphic designers, painters and tattoo artists, all who previously would require a 3D artist to gain entry to the eco-system. Now they can upload their art, apply it to items and customize to their desired effect and submit for approval!

Regarding the limit on the templates, we will aim to have a diverse library of assets for artists to use from the get go and it will also be released opensource so people can set up their own submission pipeline and open up different template assets to the community, however ‘wear essentials’ will stick to the common archetypes for now (T-shirts, hoodies etc…)

I hope that answers some of your concerns

[Canessa]

I would love to see a breakdown of expenses for a grant of this size. The categories seem vague to me, and I’d like to hear how you see the funds being allocated.

[ArtReYou]

I voted no because i don’t see any benefit for the DCL Community. T-Shirts / Hoodies are Basic Wearables and there are a lot of Creators on Fiverr offer this for pretty cheap if you are not able to create this by your own with Blender or Maya.

[Malloy]

Hey @Nicic
cc: @ArtReYou

Thank you for your feedback,

I like to think the opposite, I can see this application not only being used by a diverse range of different 2D artists (graphic designers, illustrators, painters, tattoo artists even textile designers) to extend their creativity into the wearable market, this tool can also be used for the following use cases;

• Community event merch (Community member’s birthday party, wedding etc…They then have a memorable wearable, all they’ll need is a 2D design to commemorate the event.)
• Event organisers (Event organisers will no longer have a dependency on a 3D art team to provide these basic clothing items before the event deadline. It eliminates risk and helps with scheduling.)
  If a client wants something more than a T-shirt, hoodie, baseball cap etc… they’ll reach out to an 3D art team.
• The tool will also come with built in payment splitters so that event organisers/production teams can utilize this tool for the basic merch line, use brand licensed imagery and establish % of proceeds between devs and brand from the get go. No fuss.

Again, this tool isn’t for 3D artists and people are more than welcome to download the source model files and use them to their best ability when we release them. It is opensource for the community. The application just circumvents the technical hurdles and barrier to entry.

With that barrier to entry removed for a whole other spectrum of creatives we like to think it will increase MANA being given back to the DAO and this application will in turn pay back the investment in due time.

I hope this somewhat gives some clarity to your initial thoughts and concerns!

[ArtReYou]

I completely understand this. The market is already overflooded with merch. I am bearish on this kinda wearables and i don’t buy em. This is my personal opinion.

[Malloy]

@ArtReYou
Appreciate that sentiment! If this tool facilitates a clean production of basic merch lines without 3D artists having to make them bespoke everytime, they can focus on more creative and expressive wearables! Pros and cons to this but as this tool would open up the ecosystem to 2D artists and designers I feel the pros outweigh the cons. Thanks for your feedback

[smaug]

It’s a good idea to allow non-pro users to create their own wearables. However, this tool doesn’t worth so much. It’s 20,000 max. And it will never take so long to develop it. I mean it’s only a texture generator, and as guys said before, it’s more like a plugin that comes with the builder.

[Sannin]

Hello, interesting proposal. I agree with Michi and Kat’s comments, my concern is the tool could lead to the wearable market being flooded with (same models different logo/color) shirts and hoodies, etc that don’t necessarily need to be specifically for selling purposes.

I would like to see a breakdown of expenses for this grant as well as what the cost of creation, publishing and royalties split from a wearable made with this tool would look like in comparison with the current process. Thanks.

[maraoz]

Still waiting for more info @Malloy! I really like this proposal!

[Malloy]

Hey @maraoz,
cc; @Sannin @Canessa

I’m afraid we have been incredibly busy with work contracts atm but we intend to upload an infographic on the distribution of the costs. I was however, able to jump on a live stream after a late lunch with @JTV here: Exodus Beta !signup - j_t_v on Twitch , Wear Essentials comes up at 1 hour 19 minutes.

I will tag you again when we have the infographic completed, apologies on the delay with that but hope you enjoy the chat and insight on the project in the stream.

Kind regards!

[ZESTYBEAM]

This proposal mentions that the Wear Essentials project will be made open source. I asked this on Canessa and Sinful’s Twitter Space and didn’t get a solid answer, but I also understand and respect the fact that Malloy is more of an artist and isn’t likely to have answers to legal questions on hand. So, I’ll ask here and hopefully someone can weigh in:

Which open source license will Wear Essentials use?