Project Name: Optophonia.com
Author Names: Audiovisual artists with music and motion graphics backgrounds including from Art Blocks, Sotheby’s, Zeblocks, UltraDAO, Goldman Sachs, ITV, Simon Fraser University and the Institute for the History of Arts.
Number of OP tokens requested: 250,000
L2 Recipient Address: TBD
Relevant Usage Metrics: (TVL, transactions, volume, unique addresses, etc.)
UI & Performance Demos
Optophonia is a real-time motion graphics application based on Unreal Engine, with the beachhead market targeting live visuals for music performances, both IRL and in the metaverse. Its simplified UI gives users instant access to the graphics power of Unreal, without the steep learning curve normally associated with a game engine. The app cuts cross many existing markets of digital creative tool users, including vj artists, motion design artists, visual programmers, musicians, modelers, animators and visual effects artists. Our target is to reach 1m users as a conservative estimate of its potential user base, when considering how many tens of millions of users regularly use apps such as After Effects, Unreal, Max/MSP and Resolume with which Optophonia intersects in its capabilities.
Market Size Information:
Electronic Musicians:
• FL Studio: 5m users, 30k monthly downloads
• Ableton Live: 1m+ users
Game Developers:
• Unreal Engine: 7m users
• Unity: 2.5m registered developers
Motion Graphics:
• Adobe Creative Cloud: 26m users
Video Programming and Live Effects:
• vvvv, MaxMSP, TouchDesigner, Resolume, VDMX, MadMapper: 1m+ users
Optimism alignment (up to 200 word explanation):
Optophonia utilizes throughout its feature set design patterns that will be very familiar to digital artists of many stripes. By offering NFT integration—NFTs imported In as media assets, and NFTs Out as new minted performances— it creates a bridge between Web2 and Web3 ways of producing digital audiovisual media. Beyond the app itself, the marketplace we are developing around Optophonia disrupts over 20 years of digital asset conventions by adding media rarity and secondary sales to the process of obtaining digital assets for audiovisual compositions.
Proposal for token distribution (under 1000 words):
With a subscription-based software model and an adjoined NFT marketplace, Optophohonia is uniquely positioned to be resistant to downturns in crypto markets, since its user community is organized around a motion graphics digital creativity tool. Being based on a game engine allows us to integrate many kinds of digital assets into motion visual compositions, including: 2D images (textures), 3D models, rigged animatable characters, motion capture files, digital clothing, audio and video files. This makes Optophonia a new ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ (a ‘total artwork’) format, one that literally invites every kind of digital artist to participate in the kinds of artwork that can be produced with it.
High quality 3D real-time rendering is the future of the visual culture for electronic music. Visual aesthetics are changing as high resolution 3D real-time rendering becomes more accessible compared to acquisition of traditional style vj loop packs and database-driven live video processing. The videos below exemplify how 3D rendering is transforming the look of electronic music visuals:
By building on top of Unreal Engine, we’ve eliminated the steep learning curve of a game design environment by presenting only the core functionality needed to produce performance visuals for music. Any artist that has ever used a video editor, music DAW, visual programming tool, 3D modeling app, or hardware controller will find Optophonia to be a highly intuitive digital creativity tool with direct NFT and asset integrations.
How will the OP tokens be distributed?
50% - Creators
20% - Community
15% - Marketing
15% - Development
How will this distribution incentivize usage and liquidity on Optimism?
We are building a new creator economy where millions of visual artists and musicians can mint and sell media assets on Optimism for use in their musical performances, disrupting a 20-year old industry with royalty splits.
Why will the incentivized users and liquidity remain after incentives dry up?
Our vision is to empower visual and musical artists to collaborate with each other and produce new media for NFT marketplaces, live performances and the Metaverse. Creator incentives for digital artists and musicians will remain when listing or selling media assets in our marketplace.
Blockchain-enabled technologies allow for communities of professional artists and their audiences to set up new alternative economies that are not subject to the same economic laws as the winner-take-all internet platforms associated with Web 2.0. The dominant platforms, such as YouTube or Spotify, mostly produce pennies of income for the digital creatives which provide them with content. Our community-driven enterprise has an historically significant yet also ground-breaking concept rooted in the traditions of the fine and performing arts. As such, Optophonia will serve diverse digital creatives across visual and musical media in the era of Web 3.0.
Over what period of time will the tokens be distributed?
12 months.
Has your project previously received an OP token grant? If yes, what’s the status of these tokens?
No.
How much will your project match in co-incentives?
We plan to match fund 200,000 OP tokens with $1.5m in investment.