VR metaverse company High Fidelity recently released an update that allows users to easily deploy their own High Fidelity domains to the cloud. The project was created in collaboration with DigitalOcean, one of the largest hosting and cloud service providers in the U.S.
High Fidelity is a free, open source, multi-user VR platform founded by Second Life creator Philip Rosedale. With hopes of building the foundation of a social VR space capable of scaling to the massive numbers of users yet to come, the company has now made a move to allow cloud hosting of user-created online ‘domains’.
According to a High Fidelity blog post, integration with DigitalOcean’s cloud server technology (called Droplets) allows High Fidelity users to create their own cloud-hosted VR domain “in minutes with very little configuration or system administration work.”
“Early on, High Fidelity made a strategic choice to pursue a development model based on distributed ownership of the virtual spaces running our software,” writes High Fidelity COO Thomas Schofield. “We believe that our users, nascent virtual reality entrepreneurs and creators, will want to own the environments they create (rather than having those spaces be owned to High Fidelity). There are challenges that come with making this choice, not least being that it obliges creators and VR entrepreneurs to take the technical steps to set up the servers needed to run our software.”
Schofield maintains that cloud-distribution of online spaces is an important element to the future growth of VR. Typical computers, even those capable of running VR applications, aren’t suited to reliably act as servers to distribute content with high-bandwidth requirements. Cloud hosting puts the content’s point of distribution in a virtual space much closer to users, giving the platform a great ability to scale.
You can download High Fidelity here for SteamVR-compatible headsets. Check out this handy guide on how to deploy your own domain using DigitalOcean’s cloud tech.