Month: July 2017

So, in my last look at Sansar’s preview videos, I made mention of a desire to see something of a focus on creators from outside the Second Life catchment.

On Wednesday, July 26th, I got my wish, as the fifth Sansar preview video hit the airwaves with a look at the work of Unit 9, a London-based studio specialising in content creation in a range of mediums – film, digital, games, VR and “experiential”. They have an impressive list of global clients / partners including Google, Yamaha, 20th Century Fox, Samsung, Mercedes-Benz, Save The Children, Sprint, Delta, the UK’s Channel 4 TV, and so on.

Within Sansar, Unit 9 – under the leadership of Anrick, a director specialising in VR and promotional / marketing films working for clients like Saatchi & Saatchi  and Toyota – has built “Monkey Temple”. I’m not exaggerating when I say this is quite possibly one of the most immersive environments I’ve seen thus far in Sansar – and I’m still sans a headset!

In building Monkey Temple, Anrick and his team have attempted to incorporate many of Sansar’s abilities as they are currently available – and it is fair to say they have succeeded. This is a rich environment, beautifully lit with a creative (if tightly looped) sound scape with a lot to see and a few things to do (providing you have the headset and accompanying controllers!).

Whether by accident or design (far more likely the former), this piece is pretty much exemplifies the thrust of my thoughts in writing about the fourth preview video: that while leaning towards a Second Life audience as the first four videos in the series have done, Linden Lab needs to look beyond the shores of SL and the cadre of SL creators working in Sansar if they want to reach the markets they’ve indicated as being of interest to them.

As a director and creator, Anrick offers precise and clear insight into the sheer power of world-building as enabled by Sansar, – and for professionals like him, there is little doubt that Sansar could be a tool / environment of enormous potential. While Monkey Temple itself might initially come across as little more than a visually impressive place with nice sounds and things to do, it actually goes far beyond this, pointing the way to how studio houses such as Unit 9 could leverage a platform for delivering immersive visual and interactive environments which help their own clients entice and engage their desired audience – all  potentially on a fraction of the budget which might otherwise be required.

In this, marketing and promotion is one of the obvious verticals where VR could – and is starting to – play a noticeable role. We’ve already seen very high-tech VR experiences offered to the public alongside new films, etc. With Sansar and roadshows at events, there is potential for companies to offer captive audiences a VR experience focused on a product, service or entertainment. It doesn’t necessarily have to be all rock’n’roll and high-tech thrills; many promotional opportunities at shows and conferences could be much lower-key and simply involve the expertise of studios like Unit 9, a good Internet connection and a booth-like environment with PCs and headsets supplied.

One could argue that more of this needs to perhaps be explained in the video, but I’d disagree; anyone involved in the sectors Unit 9 operates within would more than likely pick-up the message loud and clear. One might also argue that building in Sansar really isn’t as simple as this (and the other videos) portray; the Sansar marketplace notwithstanding, truly original content requires 3D modelling skills which not everyone has. But again, where this video is concerned, that’s perhaps not the point.

Should an organisation want an immersive environment designed and built – be it for marketing, training, or whatever – and they don’t have the requisite design skills in-house, this video sends the message that the expertise they might need is already engaged on the platform, and has a track record of content delivery. In this, everyone is potentially a winner: the client gets what they want, the studio is hired for its expertise and Sansar provides the delivery mechanism, with the revenue from doing so passing to Linden Lab.

Obviously, this isn’t going to happen overnight, or even in the short-term as Sansar opens its doors; but over time, the potential is certainly there.

The fourth Sansar preview video arrived on Wednesday, July 19th, and is the shortest to date. Focusing on SL creator Blueberry (aka Mishi), the 79 second video takes us into one of the experiences she’s developed in Sansar – Blueberry Town – and gives some further brief glimpses of the platform’s tools – notably the Atlas as seen when using a VR headset.

When viewing this video it’s important to remember that Sansar isn’t primarily intended for the Second Life audience; as such some of the statements made should be treated as such. But that said, given the fact these videos focus on “Second Life creators”, they also tend to come across as speaking directly to the existing Second Life audience, and I’m not entirely sure that’s a positive move.

If nothing else, statements that Sansar presents an environment to do things that are “not even possible anywhere else” are liable to have SL users at least hiking an eyebrow or two, if not rolling their eyes across the floor, given what is being shown in Sansar is more-or-less precisely what SL users have been doing for the last 14 years; just because it cannot offer the same depth of immersion as Sansar will actually doesn’t change this point.

Some of the promotional videos released to date have already been critiqued on precisely this ground. While there have been some good insights in to Sansar – such as with the preview featuring Maxwell Graf (which I reviewed here), the repeated focus on Second Life creators like this does appear to carry with it the risk of a greater degree of negative feedback about the platform than seems necessary.

At the most basic level, statements that Sansar allows people to do things that “are not even possible anywhere else” may not only cause much eye rolling among SL users, they also run the risk of hyping Sansar well beyond what can actually be achieved within the platform at this point in time. As the Lab has tried to make known: when the doors open, this won’t be a final, finished product – it will take time for capabilities to be added and to mature. Nevertheless, there’s a risk people will see the gap between promotional hype and current capability as a negative to be repeatedly pointed out.  This negative response could be increased by Second Life users when, despite the repeated statements from the Lab that it will be some time before Sansar matches many of the capabilities taken for granted in Second Life, they are confronted by the realities of that fact.

Now, in fairness to the Lab, the lion’s share of applications to the Creator Preview have come from Second Life creators, so a focus on their work is understandable when promoting Sansar (they’re also likely to be the most amenable to being the focus of these videos). But it has also been indicated that applications have come from elsewhere. Further, the Lab has also repeatedly indicated a hope that Sansar will be adopted by those market sectors where there is a clear potential doe VR – education, design, architecture, training, simulation, healthcare. So I’m actually surprised there isn’t more of a visible push to directly engage with these sectors; particularly as some are starting to get excited by Sansar’s potential.

On July 22nd, for example, Steve Bambury, writing in his VirtualiTeach blog waxed lyrical about Sansar’s potential in education (and as an aside, it prompted one SL blogger to have the realisation Sansar isn’t “about SL users”). So putting together promotional information on how those in education could practically leverage Sansar – as well as some of the other markets the Lab has pointed at – would seem to be in order.

Of course, this might be happening under the covers, or it might be that the technical wherewithal of Sansar at this point in time causes the Lab to be wary of promising more than can be delivered when the doors open, or it might simply be that those partners from these specific market sectors don’t want their experiments in Sansar highlighted. But this doesn’t stop the Lab crafting suitable messages.

Take their collaborations in using LiDAR mappings of an Egyptian tomb to recreate the entrance of the the tomb in Sansar, and in building a model of the Villa Ortli excavation in the Crimea, or the LOOT Interactive Sansar Apollo Museum. All of these could form the bedrock for helping to visually promote Sansar’s potential through video whilst helping to reach beyond what can appear to be a Second Life audience focus.

It may yet come that we see these videos cast their net a little wider; I’d just like to see it happen a little sooner than later, and see more meat put on the plate of Sansar’s potential.