vFlects

Overview

A vFlect is a 3D-animated robot: an avatar you can turn a full 360 degrees and watch move through a range of animations, rather than a portrait that happens to be yours. Every new account starts with one for free, and from there the same character becomes collectible — limited editions varying by rarity and design, tradeable on the marketplace. It is the piece of this body of work that travelled furthest, and Big Immersive's biggest IP.

Challenges

The avatar had to be two things that usually pull apart. It is the free default handed to every account on sign-up, so it has to be cheap to produce at volume and light enough to render anywhere in the world. It is also a scarce collectible with rarity tiers and a resale market, so each edition has to be distinct enough to be worth owning. On top of that, partner collections had to appear as vFlects and stay recognisable as themselves — a Hashmask or a Bored Ape has to read as that character while still animating like every other robot on the platform.

Solution

One rig, many costumes. The robot stays constant — the same skeleton, the same animation set, the same turntable presentation — and the partner IP is worn rather than rebuilt. That is why the Hashmasks editions pair a vFlect with the Hashmask it is visually wearing, and why the Bored Ape editions model each ape's features and personality onto the robot instead of converting flat artwork into a new 3D character. Holding the rig fixed is what makes a new edition an art job rather than an engineering job, and it is what lets the free avatar and the scarce collectible be the same object underneath.

Results

• The IP was introduced in 2019 and has sold 42,000 units on the Virtua marketplace.
• The first Hashmasks edition — 73 pieces — launched on 30 April 2021 and sold out in under five minutes, the fastest sale on the platform's marketplace at the time.
• Hashmasks shipped on a rolling-royalty arrangement, with proceeds from vFlect Hashmask sales flowing back to Hashmask owners.
• Five limited-edition Bored Ape vFlects followed on 8 November 2021 at 0.08 ETH each, modelling each ape's features and personality in vFlect form.
• Every new account is issued a free, non-NFT vFlect to use as its avatar, so the same rig serves both the free tier and the collectible line.
• Officially licensed editions were produced with outside rights-holders alongside the original models, on the same rig.
• The characters went on to headline their own title — vFlects: Battle for Virtua Prime, a squad strategy game in Unreal Engine, announced November 2022 and made with Stainless Games.

Conclusion

The reason vFlects outlived the collections they were made for is that the robot was designed as a system, not as a drop. A rig that can wear anything turns each partnership into a costume rather than a rebuild — which is why the line could keep absorbing new IP, and why it is still the most valuable thing to come out of this body of work.