metauni

Metauni is a network of virtual worlds, with a 3D virtual environment provided by Roblox and location-specific voice chat using Discord. It works on PC, Mac, iOS and Android. It is free in the sense of freedom and freethought and the freedom to make your own node. Watch the video intro. Metauni can be used for hosting events, lectures, tutorials or working groups, using slides, whiteboards, multiple voice channels and mini-games. It aspires to be both beautiful and fun.

Quick start (Rising Sea node): install Roblox and Discord programs, join the Rising Sea Discord and Roblox world and in Discord send a message !register Wintermute in the #registration channel where Wintermute is your Roblox username. See Instructions below for more details.

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Events

Talk events consist of a talk followed by questions and challenges. For announcements follow us on Twitter. Some upcoming events:

Eleanor McMurtry on zero knowledge proofs.
A series of lectures on communications and social media, with a range of speakers and hosted by Lucas Cantor and Barrie Segal.
Seminar series by MDLG in collaboration with Michael Chappuis on deep learning theory, program synthesis and examples of “natural computation” in biology.

Past events

5/3/2021: Stories from Zhuangzi by Ziling Ye {#4A, #4B}. Challenge inspired by Leibniz’s observation about binary arithmetic and bagua.
26/2/2021: Community builder event {no challenge}. We visited Kuroyikijima and the M.U.M.S room and then metatute: Calculus wars where we discussed running tutorials in Roblox (video).
19/2/2021: Adam Dorr on “Rethinking Energy” {#3A, #3B} with a pre-event tutorial on the logistic equation (video). The main event was not recorded but you can read the report it was based on and watch the associated video. The post-event challenges and question time were recorded (video).
12/2/2021: Community builder event {no challenge}. This started with an introduction to Weiqi on the new Weiqi boards, followed by a livestream on how to add metauni objects (the Whiteboard, Viewer and Weiqi board) to your Roblox world. BP then explained how to use the new metauni admin features to kick/ban users and manage usage of the whiteboards (video).
5/2/2021: Lucas Cantor on music (video) and a pre-event tutorial on the Chinese Remainder Theorem and its connections to music by Will Troiani (video) {#2A, #2B}.
29/1/2021: Build Your Own Node event. We introduced the Roblox + Discord setup and walked people through these instructions (video). After that was a livestream introducing Roblox Studio (video) {no challenge}.
22/1/2021: Daniel Murfet on deep learning theory (video, lecture notes, slides) {#1A, #1B}.

There is a brief video guide to attending talks.

Instructions

How do I get in?

Roblox is a utility platform for large-scale 3D social environments (see Baszucki keynote and their SEC S-1 filing). Localised voice chat in metauni is based on Discord, a popular real-time communication platform. Here are instructions for visiting a metauni node:

Create Roblox and Discord accounts and install both programs.
Enter the Discord server for the node (see the Node Directory, e.g. the Rising Sea Discord).
On your first visit to the Discord server register your Roblox username with !register <username> (possibly the etiquette is to do this in a #registration channel).
Manually enter any Discord voice channel (e.g. General). Please use headphones to avoid feedback.
Enter the Roblox world by visiting its webpage and clicking on “Play” (again see the Node Directory, e.g. the Rising Sea world).

This setup should work on PC, Mac, iOS and Android. Moreover, you can run the Discord and Roblox applications on different devices (i.e. run audio via Discord through your phone but Roblox on your computer).

Some notes on in-game controls and features:

The translucent boxes are voice chat zones which transition your Discord into a specific voice channel when entered. Leaving the zone will not remove you from the channel. If you want to return to the General voice channel, click the “Reset” in the top right hand corner of your GUI.
You move your player with the arrow keys (or WASD) and you can look around by holding down the right mouse button, or doing a two-finger drag on a trackpad. The control scheme can be changed in Settings (press Escape in-game to access).
To interact with in-world GUI elements, such as buttons, you simply (left) click on them. Most of the white floating displays can be clicked on for a more readable popup view, including the presenter display in the talk zone.
To use the in-game chat press /. It’s convenient to quickly toggle between fullscreen and windowed, which is fn + F11 on a Mac, but you’ll have to first disable the “Show Desktop” shortcut in System Preferences.
You can access animations, such as waves, by pressing .. You can enable additional animations on the Roblox website.

You should comply with the Roblox rules while on their platform, and that includes the developer rules if you are creating your own nodes. These rules are in place to protect the children who spend a lot of time in Roblox, and seem to me well-intentioned and reasonable. However this does mean that you should refrain from using the in-game chat or images to share URLs or post Discord information inside your node. This coordination should happen on Discord or through some other channel. Finally, do not under any circumstances climb the knot.

Troubleshooting

If you have trouble connecting to Roblox (and you have clicked Retry a few times) you might have to turn off your VPN.
You may have a better experience with the separate Discord application as compared to running Discord in the browser.
You may have problems using Firefox on the Roblox site.
If you use !register for the first time while already in a voice chat zone within the Roblox world, you may have to click General in the top right hand corner of your GUI to join the voice channel.
If your mouse gets locked try zooming all the way in with I and then out with O.
When drawing on the whiteboards you might want to turn off the in-game chat by clicking on its icon.

Does metauni violate Roblox rules?

Not as we currently understand them, but see our page on Roblox rules for more information.

Node directory

The inner nodes (i.e. nodes where we take full responsibility for what happens):

The Rising Sea (Discord). A collaboration of Daniel Murfet, Lucas Cantor and Ziling Ye. You can read more about TRS. See also Spectrum Spat the first spin-off game from TRS.
Metauni hub (no Discord).

The outer nodes:

M.U.M.S (Discord). Melbourne Uni Maths and Stats Society (web).
Kuroyukijima (no Discord).

Outer nodes may use some of the tools we have provided, and we may link to them on the metauni hub, but we have no control over the content of the Roblox worlds or their Discord channels.

How do I host my own node?

Currently a metauni node consists of code inside a Roblox game talking to a Discord bot hosted on Repl.it. We have compiled detailed instructions for setting up your own node and run regular drop-in sessions where you can get help. Once you have your node up and running see this page for a list of metauni tools that you can install in your world.

History

Current contributors are Daniel Murfet starsonthars, Billy Price, James Clift and Lucas Cantor HeadOfMusic.

14/1/2021 - History start, got Discord integration working, intro video.
16/1/2021 - Update with clickable documents, audio plinths and working teleports, another video.
16/1/2021 - Quick video on understanding “Publish to Roblox”.
17/1/2021 - Rewrote Discord bot to use MongoDB, fixed some bugs, implemented slide presentations (video).
17/1/2021 - Implemented popover “fullscreen” GUI for looking at slides, synced to the presenter’s current slide. There is a video demoing this feature as well as recapping the other features.
18/1/2021 - How to attend an in-world talk (video)
18/1/2021 - Instructions for building your own node to be read in conjunction with this blog post for the database and this one for keep alive (now superceded by Billy’s excellent guide, see below).
20/1/2021 - Development update: implemented “gather all” for voice channels (video) and implemented the challenge system, with the first two challenges for the first event #1A, #1B see challenges.
20/1/2021 - BP has posted detailed instructions for setting up your own node.
26/1/2021 - Over the last week the Discord bot has been rewritten by BP to use HTTP POST rather than a webhook, and now uses the repl.it database rather than MongoDB, among other improvements. This drastically simplifies the setup process, the guide to which has also been rewritten. The Rising Sea node has two new areas “Solar Peak” and the “Well of Past Events”.
27/1/2021 - Social media accounts up and running (LC on Instagram, DM on Twitter).
31/1/2021 - Added new talk area for Ziling Ye’s event (The Island). This will be final new area construction for a while in TRS.
1/2/2021 - Working whiteboards (by JC) and a new talk area (the Music Tower) for Lucas’s event.
6/2/2021 - Persistent Weiqi board added (construction video).
10/2/2021 - metauni Weiqi board first release on the Roblox Toolbox.
11/2/2021 - metauni Whiteboard and Viewer first release on the Roblox Toolbox (created by JC).
17/2/2021 - Updated whiteboards, now drawing is visible to new players in a server, significant performance improvements (JC).
18/2/2021 - New administration features: kick, ban, control of whiteboard access (use /?admin to see instructions) (by BP).
19/2/2021 - Debut of new logo (by LC).
25/2/2021 - First public release of AdminCommands (by BP).

Music in the Rising Sea node:

“Pop with Toys” by Lucas Cantor - in our event video and on the audio plinth near the knot.
“Forgotten Sacrifice” by Lucas Cantor - in the Cave of Forgotten Sacrifice
“The Deification Of Naram-Sin” by Lucas Cantor - at the Solar Peak.
“A Metric Based on Insects” by Will Troiani - in the Blind Cave.