What is Metaverse? What does Metaverse mean in a digital world? How does metaverse work in programming? How can we create our own metaverse C++ app? Is there a simple Metaverse example in C++? Let’s start to answer these questions.
Table of Contents
What is the Metaverse?
Simply, MetaVerse is a digital world simulation using data that allows users to simulate and play life in its mechanism. These digital worlds can be built in 3D and can be experienced by the user in a first-person view that makes the user feels they are actually living in that digital world.
The MetaVerse term comes from the combination of the Meta and the Universe terms. Meta in Greek means “Beyond” thus the MetaVerse term means something like another universe (or universes) that is beyond this universe. In other words, it points to virtual life that can be simulated by software with data and/or databases.
You can read our article: What is the metaverse and what does it all mean on this blog.
How can we build a Metaverse in C++?
To ensure a good user experience when supporting many users this Metaverse system requires fast internet connections, huge responsive databases, and well coded software which operates at optimal speed so that it can synchronize all those elements together for each online user. One of the best programming languages is C++ to develop metaverse.
The technology behind the concept of a Metaverse is closely aligned with those of the online gaming community. Most gaming engines are developed in C++. For example, Unity, Unreal Engine is developed in C++ is oftentimes thought of as more powerful and in most cases C++ faster than C# and, in general, nearly all other programming languages. A metaverse application (client or server-side) requires faster graphics, faster sensing, inputs and outputs, multi-tasking and parallel programming abilities, ability to reach all peripherals of the device such as microphones and cameras.
C++ Builder has a powerful IDE that can be used to develop Metaverse with 2D or 3D environments, with its capability on the sensor devices such as camera, accelerometer, motion sensors, gyroscope, voice input, and similar professional applications.
Here’s a schematic view of the simplified Metaverse system:
In the slide, the green side contains the whole metaverse data which is stored on the server-side and can be used by developers and other users. Graphical Display can be directly done in programming or 3rd party graphical engines (like Viewport3D, OpenGL, other game engines) can be used. User interactions can be done by device, by VR devices or by other devices with sensors.
Why should the Metaverse be online?
In real life physics occurs in every part of the space from the quantum level to atomic or molecular level; and also, from small scale (spreading a powder) to large scale physics (moving car, flying airplane,). Thus, all these physical actions change the environment in time. We, humans also affect this world by moving physically and by crafting, manufacturing, or adding new things to this environment. Thereby, the virtual universe should be changed by other user interactions in real-time, which means there must be interactions between users, these user actions should affect the environment and other users or their actions. Simulating life identically to real life is not possible, because every simulating atom will require a lot of atoms to use in a real computer. However, we can use some basic physics and small or large-scale physics on objects and characters that may be close to real physics with some assumptions and ignoring irrelevant details.
Is there a simple Metaverse example in C++?
We prepared a simple console example that can be easily used by C++ beginners in offline mode. This example is compatible with C++ Builder, Dev-C++, Visual C++, GNU C/C++, Objective-C, and with some other C++ variations. We think that this example is also good to understand how a metaverse can be built in code. Here is a simple offline example,
Let’s define the Width and Height of our two-dimensional metaverse. In this example we use characters as objects on the map Thus, we can define our char meta[ ][ ] map. Let’s create TMyMetaverse class and define our map in the public: section as below;
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#include <iostream> #include <string> #define METAVERSE_WIDTH 20 #define METAVERSE_HEIGHT 10 class TMyMetaverse { public: char meta[METAVERSE_WIDTH][METAVERSE_HEIGHT]; // Our metaverse built by chars } int main() { return 0; } |
In this Class, under the public: definition;
1. We should print out some information and reset our metaverse when the object from this class is created. We can use TMyMetaverse() constructor (function with a same name of the class) as below,
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TMyMetaverse() { std::cout << "Welcome To MyMetaverse 1.0\n"; std::cout << "Example by LearnCPlusPlus.org\n\n"; for (int j=0; j<METAVERSE_HEIGHT; j++) for(int i=0; i<METAVERSE_WIDTH; i++) { meta[i][j] = '.'; // set default objects in the map } }; |
2. We have to display our metaverse map , we can write character objects in the X and Y coordinates of the map as below,
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void display() { for (int j=0; j<METAVERSE_HEIGHT; j++) { for(int i=0; i<METAVERSE_WIDTH; i++) { std::cout << meta[i][j]; // print out objects from the metaverse map } std::cout << std::endl; } std::cout << std::endl; } |
3. Now, we need to run our app, including User Interactions and Graphical Display in our application. At run time, we should ask which character the user wants to add, and which coordinate of the map will be modified with this character. If the character is given ‘X’ the user should exit from the application. If the character is in limits then we should let the coordinate of that map be modified then so we should display the current metaverse to the user. Here is the run() method that we create for the TMyMetaverse class.
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void run() { char inp; unsigned int X,Y; do { std::cout<< "Please enter a letter or character between 32 to 255 (X to Exit):"; std::cin >> inp; if(inp!='X') { std::cout << "Which coordinate you put?\n"; std::cout << "X (0-" << METAVERSE_WIDTH-1 <<"):"; std::cin >> X; std::cout<< "Y (0-" << METAVERSE_HEIGHT-1 <<"):"; std::cin >> Y; if( (X>=0 && X<METAVERSE_WIDTH) && (Y>=0 && Y<METAVERSE_HEIGHT) ) { std::cout<< X << ":" << Y << std::endl; meta[X][Y] = inp; // Modify the coordinate of the map display(); } } }while(inp!='X'); std::cout<< "Bye! \n"; getchar(); } |
These all were the methods inside our TMyMetaverse class. Now we can write our main program by using this class. Here are the steps;
- First create meta object in TMyMetaverse class,
- then display() metaverse map
- and then run() user interactions to modify metaverse map.
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int main() { TMyMetaverse meta; // Create metaverse and run constructor meta.display(); // Display metaverse map meta.run(); // Run user interactions in this metaverse return 0; } |
Here is the running output of this offline metaverse example.
Here is the full C++ console application for the Simple Offline Metaverse Example (compatible with C++ Builder, Dev-C++, Visual C++, GNU C/C++, Objective-C) ,
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#include <iostream> #include <string> #define METAVERSE_WIDTH 20 #define METAVERSE_HEIGHT 10 class TMyMetaverse { public: char meta[METAVERSE_WIDTH][METAVERSE_HEIGHT]; // Our 2D metaverse built by chars //---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TMyMetaverse() { std::cout << "Welcome To MyMetaverse 1.0\n"; std::cout << "Example by LearnCPlusPlus.org\n\n"; for (int j=0; j<METAVERSE_HEIGHT; j++) for(int i=0; i<METAVERSE_WIDTH; i++) { meta[i][j] = '.'; } }; //---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- void display() { for (int j=0; j<METAVERSE_HEIGHT; j++) { for(int i=0; i<METAVERSE_WIDTH; i++) { std::cout << meta[i][j]; } std::cout << std::endl; } std::cout << std::endl; } //---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- void run() { char inp; unsigned int X,Y; do { std::cout<< "Please enter a letter or character between 32 to 255 (X to Exit):"; std::cin >> inp; if(inp!='X') { std::cout << "Which coordinate you put?\n"; std::cout << "X (0-" << METAVERSE_WIDTH-1 <<"):"; std::cin >> X; std::cout<< "Y (0-" << METAVERSE_HEIGHT-1 <<"):"; std::cin >> Y; if( (X>=0 && X<METAVERSE_WIDTH) && (Y>=0 && Y<METAVERSE_HEIGHT) ) { std::cout<< X << ":" << Y << std::endl; meta[X][Y] = inp; // Modify the coordinate of the map display(); } } }while(inp!='X'); std::cout<< "Bye! \n"; getchar(); } }; //---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- int main() { TMyMetaverse meta; // Create metaverse and run constructor meta.display(); // Display metaverse map meta.run(); // Run user interactions in this metaverse return 0; } |
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