Terraforms

Mathcastles' Terraforms collection consists of 11,000 NFTs that are fully on-chain, featuring land art that was dynamically generated within a 3D world. Each NFT in the Terraforms collection represents a parcel of land located within a virtual "hypercastle" that spans across 20 levels. The project's entire infrastructure is entirely on-chain, which means that the procedurally-generated code required to create the virtual world exists entirely on the Ethereum blockchain.^[1][3][5] Mathcastles is a studio that consists of two anonymous developers known as 0x113d and xaltgeist.^[6]

Unlike social 3D worlds, these Metaverse artworks are data that is permanently stored and open to interpretation. The licensing agreement permits the creative use of the artwork. ^[1][3]

Overview

Every individual Terraform has the potential to transform into an on-chain generative mini app paint program. Once a holder chooses to permanently integrate their drawing into the piece, it becomes an on-chain 1/1 artwork. When combined, the complete Terraforms collection creates a massive 3D hypercastle. ^[1]

Unlike social 3D worlds, these Metaverse artworks are permanently stored data and can be visually presented in a variety of ways, subject to interpretation. The licenses permit creative usage of the artworks. ^[1]

Terraforms offer various levels of engagement. At its core, each token features animated art rendered on a 32x32 grid of text characters, which is stored in an SVG file. The animated art is drawn on a web browser, utilizing javascript to modify colors and cycle characters from a custom-made font. ^[2]

Aside from being a 2D and 3D artwork, Terraforms also functions as a practical software tool that allows each token to transform into a drawing program capable of overwriting the existing Terrain artwork. The tokens feature three modes: Terrain, which displays the land art animation; Daydream, which enables users to draw on it; and Terraform, which commits the drawing back to the blockchain for others to view. ^[2]

Transitioning from Terrain to Daydream mode is a destructive process that cannot be undone, but a Terraform can be shifted from Daydream to Terraform and vice versa at will. This allows users to overwrite and commit new drawings to the chain. ^[2]

Architecture

Each token in this project, also known as a "parcel" or "plot" by the creators and community, is a distinctive generative artwork composed of a unique character set. The data and algorithms needed to produce the visuals are stored on the Ethereum blockchain, making this an entirely on-chain endeavor. ^[4]

• Zone: Each zone within the project is defined by a specific color palette, drawing inspiration from iconic color schemes found in popular culture.
• Biome: The character set displayed is defined by the biome. For this project, the team chose a diverse and peculiar set of Unicode characters.
• Chroma: The animation type is determined by the chroma. Although there isn't a great deal of diversity in this aspect alone, when considering the speed at which characters cycle, the animation speed, and the location of the animation, there is actually a significant amount of variation in animation.
• ???: This attribute plays a role in determining whether a cell undergoes character changes or cycles, thereby influencing the animation's motion. The value of this trait can be challenging to discern visually. The contract for this field's variable name is "resourceName," and the contract has functions to modify both the naming and contract address.
• Mode: This trait determines the state of the visual representation of the tokens. By default, the tokens are in "terrain" mode, but the owner has the ability to change them into "daydream" mode, which transforms the token into an interactive drawing canvas. Once in "daydream" mode, the owner can commit the drawing onto the blockchain, converting the token into "terraform" mode and altering the display. Although the modes can be interchanged, a token can never revert back to "terrain" mode once it has entered either "daydream" or "terraform" mode.

Launch

The public mint happened on December 17, 2022, at a price of 0.16 ETH each. 9,905 out of 11,104 were minted, with the rest held in reserve by the creators instead of an Opensea royalty.^[7]