🌌 My Universe

My Universe is a real-time, multiplayer virtual space where users interact, collaborate, and move freely as unique avatars. Leveraging scalable design, advanced WebRTC video, and instant proximity-based networking, it’s built to handle both creativity and community—at scale.

🚀 Features

Live Multiplayer World: Effortlessly connect with others in a shared digital universe, with instant audio/video chat based on proximity.

• Real-Time Movement & Interaction: Explore, move, and join conversations seamlessly—just approach any group or individual on the map.

• Blazing Fast Proximity Detection: Experience near-instant connection/disconnection as you move, powered by intelligent spatial lookup.

• Future-Proof: Built with the latest web technology stack (Spring Boot, WebRTC, Web Sockets).

⚡ Performance: From O(n²) to O(1) Proximity Lookups

Large multiplayer environments typically struggle with player proximity detection. The naive way checks every player against every other player (O(n^2))—which grinds to a halt as the universe grows.

My Universe uses a clever solution:

Geohashing for Fast Spatial Indexing

What is Geohashing?

• Geohashing encodes two-dimensional coordinates (x, y) into short, unique strings—the geohashes.
• The space is divided into a grid, and each cell gets a code. Players within the same or adjacent geohash are spatially near each other.
• Nearby players are located by comparing geohashes—much faster than comparing all coordinates directly.

How it Works in My Universe

1. Grid Encoding:

   • Every player’s position is transformed into a geohash at a chosen precision (grid size).

2. Instant Lookup:

   • To find all players within a certain proximity, the system only needs to look at players sharing the same geohash (and in neighboring geohashes for boundaries).
   • Instead of “find my neighbors by scanning everyone” (O(n)), it’s a direct lookup (O(1)).

3. Efficient Updates: On every player movement:

   • If the geohash changes, connections/disconnections are recalculated just for their own and neighboring cells.
   • Massively reduces CPU and network load, letting the universe scale to hundreds or thousands of simultaneous users.

4. Result:

   • Dramatic reduction in server and network computation, enabling real real-time interaction, even at massive scale!

Visualization Example

• Old way:

  • Player A moves → check every player: “Am I near A?”
  • Expensive as user count grows.

• Geohash way:

  • Player A moves → “Which cell am I in now? Who’s in this/neighboring cell?”
  • Direct, tiny, constant-time lookup.

🛠️ Tech Stack

Backend: Spring Boot, Websockets

Real-Time video: OpenVidu / WebRTC

Frontend: Vanilla JS, WebSockets

Storage: MySQL

🌟 Future Work

• AI-Generated Avatars: Personalized avatars using generative AI! Users will soon create a unique virtual presence with automatically styled characters—no two the same.
• Rich World Customization: More creative tools for world-building and avatar interaction.
• Scalable architecture: