Sansar Fashion release overview

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Sansar Fashion release, with Marvelous Designer integration. Credit: Marvelous Designer

On Monday, December 18th, Linden Lab announced the Sansar Fashion release, the last major release to the platform for 2017. The title of the release is reflects the fact that the major aspect of the release is focused on clothing and fashion design in Sansar. However, the release covers a lot more than this, with improvements to the uploader, the UI, audio and media, and a host of over changes. I’ve had a quick run through the update, and release notes and the following is offered as an overview of the principle updates.

Avatar Update

The first thing users will notice with this update is that their avatars will need to be re-created – this is as a consequence of the fashion update, and the separating off of the clothing layers. This means facial sliders have to be re-set, but it also means users can experiment with removing /adding clothing.

  • Within in the Avatar App – now called LookBook rather than My Looks -, locate an article of clothing already work and click on it to remove it. Click another item of clothing to wear it.
  • Clothing is split between upper and lower body, and are limited to two layers apiece.
  • Note that the avatar’s underwear is still baked in place, and cannot be removed.
  • Hair can also be removed as well as styles changed.

Once your avatar is set to your satisfaction, save the changes via Done.

Fashion Updates

Clothing

The core of the Fashion updates can be summarised as new clothing support for Sansar. Designers can create their own rigged clothing for use in Sansar / sale through the Sansar Store.

In addition, Sansar offers integrations with Marvelous Designer. This is software that allows designers to create virtual clothing “from basic shirts to intricately pleated dresses and rugged uniforms”. It is able to replicate fabric textures and physical properties, drape garments on physical forms as well as providing the creator with a range of editing tools. It is used by games manufacturers such as EA Games and film effects studios such as Weta Digital.

A new exporter capability in Marvelous Designer allows creators to export their designs directly from the software into Sansar with ease. One in Sansar, clothing can be adjusted on the avatar within the Avatar App (LookBook). You can learn more here, and via the video below. Note: cloth physics for clothing are not currently available in Sansar’s runtime mode.

Sansar creator resources for Marvelous Designer can be found here.

Avatar Meshes

.FBX files for the Fashion update should have been made available, but none are referenced in the release notes, and I was unable to find any reference in the knowledge base outside of the .FBX files for accessories – which may or may not be suitable for clothing (male .fbx; female .fbx).

Hair

Creators and stylists can now create and sell hair styles for avatars. As noted above, avatars can also be bald.

Wearable Accessories

With the Fashion release, wearable accessories are no longer limited to a 1m x 1m x 1m size, instead, they must be within the Axis Aligned Bounding Box (AABB). with the knowledge base article on accessories noting that for import:

Avatar accessories must be close to the avatar. The entire accessory must be within the Axis Aligned Bounding Box (AABB) of the avatar. The AABB’s area is as follows: 0.8m left and right, 0.6m front and back, and 2.2m tall from the feet of the avatar, and 0.05m below the avatar (to account for shoes)**

Note: **Minimum (-0.8m, -0.6m, -0.05m) and Maximum (0.8m, 0.6m, 2.2m).

Atlas Update

The client atlas has been updated to include submitted events – which are now displayed on the right side, if there are any in the calendar. Each has a Visit button, which will load the experience.

The events section (right) in the updated client Atlas

The Web client now has a new Friends tab. This displays all experiences created by people on your Friends list. If they have created an experience exclusive for access by their friends, this is also where it will appear – it will not appear in the public (Home or All) listings of the Atlas.

Editing Updates

There are a range of editing updates with the Fashion release – for details, please refer to the release notes. These include:

  • A range of audio updates and improvements.
  • A revised upload tool for 3D models and has been relocated to the Scene tool bar – see Importing items to Sansar for more.
  • The ability to import custom heightmaps.
  • New control options to help control an animations – see Working with animated objects.
  • The ability to preview audio and video from within the scene editor.
  • Updates to Reflective interfaces.
  • New object APIs.
  • It is now possible to enable memory limits for scripts which is now capped at 32MB per scene. See Sansar.Script.Memory for more information.
  • Keyboard commands for scripts – subscribe to client “commands” with default keyboard bindings. See AgentPrivate.Client.SubscribeToCommand and the Command Example script in the client folder.

Edit Materials After Upload

This has proven to be a controversial change for some. It is now possible to add or edit materials after a model has been uploaded and placed in a scene.

  • This applies only to in-scene objects (both a creator’s own items and those purchased from the store).
  • Due to the lack of a permissions / licensing system, these changes cannot be saved back to inventory, and only persist as long as the object is in the scene / experience.
  • This capability does not apply to clothing / accessories.
  • Details on editing materials post-upload can be found in  Material editing and shaders.

Avatar Animations

This Fashion release also sees the Desktop mode default avatar animation updated. Rather than just standing still, avatars will now occasionally turn and look over each shoulder, adding a small degree of naturalness to their actions as opposed to standing like planks.

The new avatar animation

Initial Access Controls

The Fashion release includes a first pass at experience access control, allowing experience creators to set their scenes for either public access, or limiting access to only the people on their Friends list.

Any experience set to “friends only” will not appear in the public Atlas. It will, however appear in a new tab – Friends, within the Web Atlas (see above) – for those able to access the experience.

Access controls will be expanded in future releases to include whitelists, ban lists, etc., and give more granular control to experience creators.

UI Updates

One of the annoyances of Sansar has been that windows and panels have all been of a fixed size. With the Fashion update, some in the Runtime and Edit modes have been made re-sizeable.

Some panels in Sansar can be resized (and also moved) – with each having a minimum size

The release notes do not provide a list of those windows and panels that can be moved and resized, but I understand that as well as the People and Chat panels in Runtime mode, they also include.the inventory, scene object and properties panels  in Edit mode.

Feedback

I’m not a fashion designer, and don’t have Marvelous Designer, so cannot comment on these updates – although the promo video (accidentally released by MD at the end of last week before being hastily withdrawn!) is impressive. The ability to design clothes has been eagerly awaited and within hours of the release being made, items were starting to appear on the (slightly revamped) Sansar Store.

The changes to avatar attachment sizes have also been something people have been looking forward to, although the ability to edit the materials of an item when in-scene has been more contentious (and perhaps somewhat overly so, given the restrictions in place around it).

For me, seeing the first steps in experience access control, resizing UI panels, etc., were welcome updates, and the integration of the events calendar into the client Atlas is very neatly done. Stumbling on to the revised avatar standing animations was also a nice surprise.

Published by Inara Pey

Eclectic virtual world blogger with a focus on Second Life, VR, virtual environments and technology.

11 thoughts on “Sansar Fashion release overview”

    1. Erp. I could have sworn I’d typed “December” – and even read it as that post-upload to the WP editor and checking / adding images…

      Liked by 1 person

  2. This was a brilliant move on the part of Sansar. I love Marvelous Designer. This is going to be a lot of fun! Soooo much easier than creating clothing for SL.

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    1. Hi, Ryan!

      I’ve no idea. I’ve not changed anything my end, and the WP Reblog button is definitely enabled still for other WordPress.com users, so if that isn’t showing on this post for you, I’m scratching my head as to why.

      IP

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  5. Marvelous Designer is kind of famous for producing really unoptimized meshes. I wonder how LL is helping deal with that for an environment that needs high framerates.

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    1. “Changes cannot be saved back to inventory, and only persist as long as the object is in the scene / experience.
      This capability does not apply to clothing / accessories.”

      Also, I hope LL changes that and makes you able to take items back into inventory after, as well as let you apply it to clothing and accessories. There’s no good reason not to. After I buy an item in real life I can modify it and keep it changed if I desire, even after picking it up and moving it somewhere else. I should be able to do the same in virtual worlds, limiting creativity by denying it is terrible.

      If someone wants an item to not be able to be modified, kept just as they designed it, then they shouldn’t be allowed to “sell” it. They should put it in a museum somewhere and let nobody touch it. They’re not truly selling it if the person that buys it doesn’t own the item.

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      1. The reason it’s been done this way is to give a half-way house between allowing a degree of modification of objects for those who want to (allowing for the lack of corresponding maps for objects), and the fact that right now there isn’t a permissions / licensing system in Sansar to protect creator’s preferred rights with their creations. Once this has been deployed, creators will be able to set permissions and licensing for their products – including clothing and accessories.

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        1. I see. Hopefully they don’t give creators the ability to restrict modification of sold items if they cannot be resold by the new owner. There is no good reason for it not to be modifiable and many creators have displayed that they will abuse the power, as the current market of SL displays.

          Creators do not own items that are sold, they shouldn’t be able to restrict what an owner does with it after the sale, so long as it does not allow for both copying and reselling of the item.

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          1. The intention is for Sansar to offer a different model to Second Life, operating along a supply chain basis – you can find out general details of this through my weekly product meeting updates – which should allow much more in the way of resellable goods.

            However, within that framework, it will will be down to the individual creator to determine whether they wish their goods to be modifiable or not, as with SL.

            As it is Sansar creators have already bee discussing how best to serve the “kitbashing” / modify market once permissions / licensing is in place – such as by being able to provide UV maps or .PSD files to enable people to better modify the materials used in the goods they sell, and / or through the sale of templates / kits people can modify and use in their own creations.

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