Today marks the launch of a new and exciting social VR platform, Resonite.
Resonite is a free-to-play social platform available on Steam, accessible via a PC-compatible VR headset or a standard monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
Let me start by saying that I believe Resonite is the closest we have seen to hitting the promise and potential of Virtual Reality and as of today’s date may be the very best VR has to offer.
Before we get into why I believe this, let me give a cliff notes version of the origins of Resonite so you have some understanding of how we got to where we are today.
Tomáš Mariančík, also known as Frooxius, is the Lead Developer and Director of Resonite. Frooxius was the original solo developer on a social VR platform named neos under the development studio Solirax. Solirax was cofounded by Frooxius and Karol Hulec.
Without getting into all the detail of what happened behind the scenes at Solirax, the two co-founders had a falling out on the direction of the project and were not able to settle their differences. A simple search will give you the details into the past few years of neos and everything that happened.
Fast forward to today, October 6, 2023, Tomáš “Frooxius” Mariančík has a new team aligned in his vision of the future and has formed Yellow Dog Man Studios. With a new code base, underlying framework and incredible team of dedicated individuals, Resonite is now here and, simply put, it’s the most advanced Metaverse platform to exist at the time of this article. The vast majority of the Neos community has transitioned to Resonite, drawn by the ethical and moral path that Frooxius and the team are paving in the metaverse.
There are many digital platforms to explore and hang out in with your friends, but where Resonite is different is in its collaborative in-game building features, engine and advanced graphical capabilities.
Some platforms require a knowledge of Unity to build experiences. If you know how to use Unity then you may need to sit at a PC and design a world or experience, then import it into the platform of your choosing. From there you would enter the platform, load up what you built, test, find what needs to be fixed or changed, leave VR and fire up Unity again to get back to work, rinse and repeat for as long as it takes to build what you want all on your own.
In Resonite, you can create, design, edit, program, texture, and more, all without ever taking off your headset. You can work on projects with as many people as you would like, all at the same time. Anyone that you have allowed into the world can come by and help and offer input. When exploring Resonite, anything you see can be interacted with, edited and changed on the fly. If you hold an object and think to yourself “wouldn’t it be cool if it did X?” then just pull out your dev tool, open the object and make it do anything you’d like. Its collaborative building system is only limited by your imagination and the time that you have to put into it. So far, I have not heard of anything that anyone has been able to think of that is not possible inside of this platform.
If building and creating isn’t for you, that’s OK too! Come on in and join your friends and explore all of the amazing places and gadgets that have come right from the imagination of Resonite’s residents. Play with interactive avatars that can do things that you’ve never imagined possible, explore new worlds, play with an almost infinite number of digital toys and just have fun without ever worrying about anything technical. Just try to take in all the unreal things there are to see and do. You are sure to see all kinds of things you may have never thought possible.
Resonite has the ability to revolutionize so many parts of our lives. From education, engineering, medical, gaming, events, entertainment and so much more. By giving the community everything needed to create anything that anyone can think of, there’s no limit to what can be done and the impact the platform could have on society.
Resonite has a dedicated group of people that help new users. If you have questions while in a public world, there’s likely someone around to help or answer them. No VR headset? No problem! Just launch Resonite from Steam and it will launch on your monitor. If you are in VR and need to take your headset off, simply hit the F8 key on your keyboard and you can instantly switch between VR and a monitor and keyboard.
Keep in mind this is a new platform that’s in active development. If you have a problem today, those problems may not exist next week.
There are some things that may initially turn off a casual user. The amount of control you have in Resonite means there are a lot of options and menus that at first glance may intimidate a new user of the platform. For the most part, if you are a causal user then you will be able to ignore a lot of it. Just go in and have fun. As your imagination starts to blossom to the possibilities of the platform, these options and tools will be there for you to explore at any time. But don’t feel pressure to get into any advanced features.
Another thing to note is that Resonite is a very beefy program. If you are hoping to get 120 frames per second in every world, then you will need a computer equally as beefy. Resonite will run on most somewhat modern gaming rigs, but temper your frame rate expectations if you attempt to run this on previous gen hardware.
Resonite is compatible with most PC VR hardware, headsets and a large selection of peripherals. From full body tracking to haptic suits, eye and face tracking, you’ll find an incredible amount of support here. If your hardware isn’t supported by default, you may find community-created support by asking around. Because of the nature of this platform, anything can be supported as anyone can make a device work. No waiting for some company to assess the install base on the hardware to see if its worth using development time to implement.
Resonite gives you the control. Don’t like how a development tool works? Change it or make your own completely! Not a fan of your home world? Change it or build another! Want your avatar to change into another creature, grow wings and take flight into the digital night sky? Make it happen. You are in control of your digital existence. Not some corporation making these decisions for you.
In closing I would like to say that when I first put on a VR headset, what I saw through those original lenses was possibility. So many ways the world could be changed by what I was experiencing. Resonite takes this to a new level. I’m not being paid to write this. I have no monetary gain at all over the success of this platform, but what I see here is, again, possibility. This platform has the possibility to take this beloved XR technology and society as a whole to new levels. I’ve never been able to say that about a single piece of software before. So please forgive my optimistic and excited tone in this article as when I load into Resonite, possibility is what I see.
Now’s your chance to be a part of something truly special.
