Notes from the desk
The Holovate blog
Short, honest notes on immersive technology, AR/VR experiences, and holographic interfaces — written from the practice of building an explorable 3D world for the open web.
Performance discipline for browser worlds
Frame budgets do not care about your art direction. The habits that keep a WebGL world smooth on ordinary hardware.
· Immersive TechnologyWhat an immersive economy owes its players
If a world has a currency, the world owes its players clarity about what that currency is. Our position, written down.
· Immersive TechnologyInput schemes for walkable webpages
WASD, drag-to-orbit, wheel zoom, touch D-pads: making a webpage walkable without a tutorial screen.
· Immersive TechnologyPersistence is what makes a world feel real
Discovery, position, and ownership that survive a page refresh — locally first, ledger when connected.
· Immersive TechnologyThe minimap problem
Compressing a 3D world onto a truthful 2D minimap: projection, color language, and knowing what to leave out.
· Immersive TechnologyTerrain that feels alive on a budget
Layered sine fields, fog, and emissive accents: alien terrain without heightmap downloads or heavy assets.
· Immersive TechnologyWhy spatial memory beats menus
People remember places better than lists. What discovery mechanics do that a filterable grid cannot.
· Immersive TechnologyImmersive technology, minus the headset
The most accessible immersive device is the browser tab. What WebGL worlds can and cannot deliver today.
· AR & VR ExperiencesWebXR and the zero-install future
The browser standard that lets the same page serve a screen today and a headset tomorrow — and where it stands.
· AR & VR ExperiencesFrom land-rush hype to usable virtual land
Virtual land is only interesting if it is usable. What parcels are for when speculation is removed from the design.
· AR & VR ExperiencesDesigning for the six-inch window into 3D
Most people meet your virtual world through a phone. Layout, controls, and readability for small-screen 3D.
· AR & VR ExperiencesAR and VR experiences start with presence, not polygons
Presence is a feeling with specific triggers: consistency, responsiveness, and a world that acknowledges you.
· Holographic InterfacesThe holographic look: light as material
Emissive surfaces, halos, and transparency — building interfaces that appear to be made of light.
· Holographic InterfacesHolograms in fiction versus interfaces in production
Movie holograms are photogenic and unusable. What survives the trip from film to a shipping interface.
· Holographic InterfacesCrosshairs, halos, and readable 3D UI
Selection and focus in three dimensions: the small markers that keep a spatial interface legible.
· Holographic InterfacesWhat we actually mean by holographic interfaces
Not laser-projected volumes — a design language of depth, light, and translucency that already ships today.