pre-[PROPOSAL] 1 DEV + 1 SOUND DESIGNER (VR DAO)

Creatives Creatives DAO
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Project Name : Proposal to establish 2 part-time positions; 1 Developer and 1 Sound Designer

Project members :

@sainthiago
@nico

(guidance from @microchipgnu and @frnvpr [for the administrative part])

Target Address : Instead of asking the payout to a DAO wallet, both will ask the payout directly to the Creatives DAO.

Project Accounting : non-applicable

Funding Period : October.

:high_brightness: Requested amount : 5000$

Updated Project Timeline

During the month of September the VR DAO has onboarded a part-time Developer to work on the various ongoing VR related projects the VR DAO is developing, plus helping other DAOs when they are in need of a pair of hands to work on specific projects.

For September, the 2500$ for that specific position was included in the VR DAO Funds Request. it was [APPROVED] here [APPROVED] VR DAO September Funding Request and a bounty was created (and fulfilled) here [CLOSED BOUNTY] Part-Time Developer to work with VR related projects :slightly_smiling_face: :upside_down_face:

It is our view that, if need be, this system can continue, since it fits into our plans for the future: to be the ‘go to’ DAO for VR projects and technical expertise.

Following that, and when discussing the projects and bounties for the NEAR | CON, we found that funding a position for a Sound Designer, replicating the Developer Part-time position, would bring enormous value to the community.

That Sound Designer (his position would be better described as an immersive sound designer) can work on VR projects, but also all kinds of sound spatialization (music, film, exhibitions, etc).

Fellow VR DAO council member @nico is a professional in these fields and would love to focus his time on supporting the community.

These 2 positions would be an incredible addition to the ecosystem, as we believe the demand exists, but, since the current fund cap is 5000$, if the VR DAO supported them both it would be left with 0$ to support the various community efforts (or reward council work, for that matter).

For that effect, we would like to get the CREATIVES DAO thoughts about:

:fire: :fire: Two PROPOSALS (to be made after we hear everyone’s thoughts) to be directed to the Creatives DAO:

  • Part-time, Developer, 20h per week, monthly payout 2500$
  • Part-time, Sound Designer, 20h per week, monthly payout 2500$

The VR DAO is putting forward this pre-[PROPOSAL], but, if approved by the council, both the Developer (@sainthiago ) and the Sound Designer (@nico ) will be responsible for their own proposals to the council, plus report+payout proposal if accepted.

The VR DAO pledges, in any case, to facilitate this operation if the Creatives DAO council feels any help is needed.

:high_brightness: :high_brightness: Total amount requested = 5000$

Contacts and useful links:

Our TG channel is open to everyone who wants to engage with us and explore new VR related projects and ideas. Meet us on TG Telegram: Contact @vrdao, Instagram Login • Instagram and twitter https://twitter.com/dao_VR.

Everyone can also check what we are currently working on, just follow this link: vr-dao open doc - Google Docs ; for the moment, only council members can edit, but feel free to comment.

Find also Microchipgnus project 3XR on twitter https://twitter.com/threexr_ and discord Discord .

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@vandal @JulianaM @tabear - what are your thoughts?

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Hey team, this proposal looks nice!
I really think that having more devs in the ecosystem and in the VR related activities is very important and I’m glad to see that this bounty was fulfilled! :slight_smile: Also I guess having a sound designer as Nico onboard could represent a great step forward both artistically and technically not just for VR DAO but for other creative guilds that are willing to experiment more with sound.

I have some questions:

  • How this two part time collaborators will work together?
  • Are there any plans in collaborating with other DAOs?
  • What are the plans for the developer? Anyone can provide ideas/feedbacks?
  • Why these roles are not integrated in specific proposals, as any other creative project, instead they are described as general roles?

looking fwd to see more activity in the VR DAO :))

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:grinning: great questions.

  • They will work in two ways, under the umbrella of the VR DAO, which means 3XR and support for bounties, and they will be ready and available to support other DAO’s projects. This means sometimes they will work together (for example, @sainthiago is developing an incredible tool [hackathon] which I was able to see, and I’m sure in both that platform and in 3XR sound will be an important feature), and sometimes they will work apart.

  • Plans to collaborate are of supreme importance, even if those collaborations are not set on stone yet. That is actually why they are needed! There is a clear lack of support, from devs and technical oriented people, in some of the projects in our ecosystem. We want to change that!

  • The developer was onboarded with a handful of tasks to perform, already :stuck_out_tongue: Look at this example: [CLOSED BOUNTY] Provide feedback about the VR related technologies in the Near ecosystem - 10$ - #22 by microchipgnu We were able, with this bounty, to collect strong feedback from the community regarding the 3XR experience, and Mintbase in general. Those tasks need someone to focus and work on them. That does not mean, at all, that we have tunnel vision, and that’s why, right now, the council for the VR DAO has people from diverse backgrounds. Artists, a writer ( :stuck_out_tongue: ), curators, researchers, etc. We expect the Dev (and the Sound Designer) to be excited to work with the community in all kinds of projects - that way we (and they) also keep growing.

  • The answer to the last question I feel is best explained by the math provided in the original post. Guaranteeing this kind of talent is outside the realm of possibility for a single DAO (not counting Verticals), with the 5$k cap. And the scope of the projects are too permanent, too wide, too complex, to keep that talent engaged if we don’t offer some sort of stability. If we engage with them on a project by project system, we lose their ability to plan ahead.

  • We hope, in the future, and with the help of this and other talented people, to generate revenue and depend less and less on the Creatives DAO support, but for now, for all reasons stated above, I (and I think all the members in the VR DAO and the community at large) would love to see this happen.

Hope this answers in a sufficient manner all your concerns :robot: :robot:

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Hey @frnvpr to echo @JulianaM’s reply I think the proposal looks good and it’s something that I can get behind. I do have a couple of other questions.

  • Are there any current or proposed projects that both the Dev and Sound Designer would be working on?
  • How can we ensure the other DAOs can benefit from submitting bounties and how many bounties do you think could realistically be filled based on time commitments?

Would be great to see a roadmap develop around this, I really feel like other DAOs could benefit and we should figure out a way for them to know what they might be able to ask help for.

Awesome stuff!

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Good morning :slight_smile:

  • The Developer is already working on the list of suggested changes and improvements to the 3XR.space. The Sound Designer was asked to create the sound for this: [APPROVED] Creation of Motion Landscapes in VR. The result of the project will be showcased during the NEAR | CON (so, a virtual landscape + sound). If this pre-proposal is not approved, the VR DAO will create a specific Bounty for the Sound design of that Motion Landscape. **

** This does create some constraints, however, in the ‘other’ projects the VR DAO has ongoing (like these bounties, for example:

or the inability to proper fund proposals like this:

http://gov.near.org/t/approved-cabeca-na-lua-filming-stream-in-the-metaverse/

That problem has been, actually, raised by the community. We either focus on getting Devs and other talent, and we have to allocate 50%-100% of our possible budget to that, or we focus on community targeted activities, without a strong tech component.

The current pre-[PROPOSAL] is a way to have it both :nerd_face:

  • A system to allow for that must be put into place; I have not worked it out, as this is a pre-[PROPOSAL]; I’m doing it in this format for us/them to figure out if this system, which is not common, can exist under the Creatives DAO umbrella. They will create their individual proposals, if this ends up being something the council thinks would be good for the community . But I will leave it to @nico to give his opinion on that. :brain:
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Makes sense! There could eventually be other areas of collaboration, say with NxM, where music producers can contribute to the and sound related activities. I know this is just a pre-proposal now, but would be great to consider into the roadmap moving forward!

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I actually find this an important objection; it would be different than the currently ‘normal’ procedures. I would not disagree if, instead of a fixed position, this was organized (specifically for the Sound Designer, since the Dev position is so intertwined with our core council’s work) on a bounty-basis, but the main reason for this proposal would still be valid:

:point_right: The current cap puts significant stress on our ability to collaborate with high-level devs and artists. If the council can address that, than maybe some kind of system can be worked out.

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Hey @vandal! thank you for the questions.
Just to add to what @frnvpr already said, I will be working on the sound for the first [APPROVED] Creation of Motion Landscapes in VR, and speculatively speaking, the second Landscape would be falling into the scope of this pre-proposal.

In order to ensure other DAOs inclusion a booking system for a sound project needs to be set, which could be based on this platform and subject to approvals as any other bounty. Before presenting a proposal I would need to talk with the interested party to set an amount of hours to the project and evaluate if the work actually fall into the categories of Sound Design proposed.

The scope of the sound services that can be facilitated are:

  1. Interactive design for VR or physical installation (based on Pure Data/Max implemented in Unity in the VR case, or with Raspberry Pi or Arduino in the physical case)
  2. Recording (With Ambisonic microphone)
  3. Edition and mixing (with ambisonic toolkits for spatialization in binaural rendering or multi channel speaker arrangements)
  4. Design and development of digital audio effects and Ableton Live plugins
  5. Sound design and composition (with a focus on the spatial aspects of sound)

Depending of which kind of project/service are booked I can estimate that per month I could produce from 2 to 3 projects depending on their complexity, and considering that Recording might be in the pipeline of Edition/Mixing and considered as one project only.

The field of possibilities in terms of applications is very wide, and people working in the realms of visual art, music and cinema could benefit a lot from. I would be more than glad to talk with people and hear them out, and to figure out together if their ideas can be realized through these ensemble of techno-aesthetic services

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Just for clarification, this was approved for the VR element, and is an ongoing project, to be delivered by the end of the month; it was proposed to @nico to create the sound design, but a bounty for that has not been established, yet, for possible lack of funding.

This is also at odds with the ‘possibility’ of a second Motion Landscape for the second headset ( NEAR | CON ). As things stand, the VR DAO will certainly not have money to fund it all, and that is why this pre-proposal was put forth.

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Thanks for clarifying this :smiley: :smiley: this sounds very interesting not only for the VR DAO community but I see the value of this collaboration for the whole creatives ecosystem. But I think that at least in the first steps, this could be a bounty-basis and or project-based contribution, the first one being the collaboration with @nearestchico and the devs team to start. Let’s hear the opinion of the rest of Creatives council.

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Thanks for the reply @nico. Looking forward to seeing it all grow from here and experience the Motion Landscape! Going to need me some VR goggles real soon :wink:

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Hey everyone,

Thanks for all the clarification. I agree that having a fund available for a developer available makes sense to also keep things moving forward on the tech side of things.

In my opinion, as long as it is clear how much the creative community can also participate/use this service, it is very senseful. I would imagine that, as the Sound Design position is not approved/established yet, it might be unclear what projects can be taken on (besides the landscapes). I think giving it 1-2 months to establish and then work on a monthly/project based basis would make sense to assure that the funds are allocated well and that the whole community can have access.

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So many insightful comments here already. My main addition to this will be to add that there is not yet a set budget for the Creatives DAO for Q4 2021. While it is reasonable, in my opinion, to have a portion of the Q4 budget allocated to developer/technical support for the creative community, it is not clear yet what that $$ amount would be.

For Q3 2021 the budget for the Creatives DAO was 10k NEAR for July, 20k NEAR for August, and 30k NEAR for September with a goal of 30k NEAR/mo for Q4. This budget, at today’s NEAR price ($7.15 atm), would be $643500 for the quarter. There are currently ~20 Guilds receiving funding from the Creatives DAO which makes up for ~50% ($300000) of the budget with no additional Guilds coming on board.

Q3 OKRs for Creatives DAO: [Q3 OKRs] Creatives DAO

Q3 started with 4 Creative guilds and ended with ~20, so it would be reasonable to assume that there could be enough new Guild coming online that this Q4 budget could get maxxed out. The Creative DAO council (@mecsbecs, @chloe, @JulianaM, @tabear, @vandal) will have to decide what the developer budget will be out of the total quarterly budget to decide how many open positions there could be.

Also, I think @tabear has a valid point here:

If funding is potentially going to be taken from a potential new Guild (each dev is = to half of a Guild budget) then it should be clear to the entire creative community within the NEAR ecosystem how this proposal is supporting them.

Starting with 1 dev for October (funded by the Creatives DAO) and increasing the available bounties for technical/dev related support as the quarter progresses seems like a sensible path forward. Also, this would allow for the VR DAO to still have dev support (funded by the Creatives DAO), as well as the ability to set up the sound designer (funded by the VR DAO) in October!

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Thanks for all the feedback, everyone!

Chloe, so, just to clarify:

  • the Developer @sainthiago can, in October, create a [PROPOSAL] directly to the Creatives DAO. That will, evidently, be prepared between him and the administrative team :robot: :robot: :robot: of the VR DAO, so that all information regarding work in bounties, support for 3XR and NEAR | CON, plus any other ongoing projects are highlighted and explained.

  • That, if [APPROVED], liberates 2500$ from the VR DAO October budget, which can, in turn support efforts in Sound Design and others.

Is this a nice summary?
If this is it, I think it’s awesome!!

After confirmation I will update everyone’s expectations of what the workflow can be for October.

Thank you all again

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Agreed to my mind! And you know I’m going to be campaigning for October to be basically dedicated to NEAR | CON sooo maybe then this dev and sound designer could be open to the community more broadly technically starting in November :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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aye aye captain :pirate_flag:

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This is what I had in mind, yes.

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I think what we spoke about yesterday on our call can help in the future as well, if we find funds specifically for Devs to support the guilds and DAOs :slight_smile:

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yeah that would be great :slight_smile:
any feedback on the final proposal?

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