A portal connects one realm to another. Portals are what make the Gargantisphere a single navigable space rather than a set of isolated worlds — they are the Gargantisphere’s analogue of the hyperlink.
Kinds of portal#
- Obvious portal — a visible boundary or gateway the visitor knowingly steps through (a door, a gate, a marked threshold).
- Seamless portal — no visible boundary. If the two realms share physics and continuous geometry, a visitor may cross without being aware of it. A single virtual space can therefore be composed of multiple seamlessly-joined realms; this is also a scaling technique, since each joined realm runs its own game loop and can be served by different peers.
Mechanics#
A portal references the target realm by a content-addressed identifier resolved through Helia / IPFS. Crossing a portal means the node subscribes to the target realm’s streams (via the Scene Composition Protocol) and hands off the visitor’s persona — no central server mediates the transition.