Day: December 2, 2018

Sansar 2018 Product Meetings #48: Steam and release 28

Posted on by Inara Pey
LOOT Interactive NASA Apollo Museum

The following notes were taken from the Sansar Community Feedback hour held on Thursday, November 29th. A video of the meeting is available on the official Sansar Twitch channel, and timestamps referencing that video are provided in the text below.

Note that the entire discussion is not summarised here – general questions from the 47 minute point onwards are not included – please refer to the video for these. The focus of this article is the upcoming availability of Sansar on Steam and the the December R28 release.

Sansar On Steam

[3:00-5:44] If all goes according to plan, Sansar will be available on Steam from the end of week #49 (week commencing Monday, December 3rd). The platform has already gained initial approval from Steam, and should gain final approval during the early part of the week.

As I’ve previously noted, Sansar will be on Steam as an Early Access programme. As well as the client being available, there will be a dedicated forum and group on Steam.

Reminder: SandeX Closing

A reminder that as a part of making Sansar available on Steam, the SandeX will be closing on Tuesday, December 4th, 2018, and S$ to USD conversions will move to a fixed conversion rate model.

Please refer to Sansar extends to Steam; Lab to end SandeX for more on this.

“Sokoban” Puzzle Challenge

[5:48-8:40] To mark December, the Sansar team is going to be running a series of challenges through the month. These are intended to be fun items, rather than anything to be taken too seriously, and the first up is the Ugly Christmas Sweater Challenge. As the make implies, this is for clothing creators to make an ugly Christmas sweater and upload it to the Sansar Store. For those who can’t make clothing, some sweater templates may be placed on the Sansar Store that can be obtained, textured and used as entries.

Some of the Ugly Christmas Sweater challenge entries

[9:31-12:00] The second challenge is the Sokoban Puzzle Challenge.

Sokoban (“warehouse keeper”) is a puzzle video game in which the player pushes boxes or crates around in a warehouse, trying to get them to storage locations. An experience based on the game has already been created in Sansar, and users are being asked to create and submit their own levels t add to the experience – read Make A Sokoban Challenge for full details, including how to design and submit levels.

Upcoming Features for the R28 (December) Release

The following updates should be part of the R28 Sansar release, which is currently scheduled for some time between the 10th and 13th December 2018 – so it will be available after the Steam launch.

Teleport to a Friend

[15:59-17:35] This is being updated so that it will not work when trying to teleport to a friend in an unpublished experience, and will not show the experience name if you are in an unpublished experience and someone tries to teleport to you.  These fixes are temporary in nature, as they will not scale, so the Lab will be looking to make further changes to Teleport to a Friend in the future to prevent stalking.

Remember, this feature will teleport your avatar to the spawn point of the same experience as a friend, not directly to that friend.

Chat Updates

[17:39-19:00]

  • Nearby Chat and direct messaging (IMs) will have timestamps with the next release.
  • It will be possible to start a direct message (IM) with a friend from the Chat App without having to open the People App.
  • Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian and more will also be supported when typing.

[19:03-19:35] Some in VR have noticed the Chat App panel is “too far away” for them to comfortably reach and grab, forcing them to lean forward when trying to manipulate it.

Home Spaces

[22:24-23:35] The room in which avatars are placed when entering Look Book is to become a Home Space, and will include some light customisation options. The Home Space option will be developed over time to present users with a friendlier environment than the Atlas.

The Look Book “room” is set to become more of a Home Space environment with the next Sansar release, with some initial light customisation options

New User Experience

[24:09-25:28]  The next release will include some client UI “tutorialisation” for new users. This will include various call-outs identifying various parts of the client UI, but these will also be visible to established users the first time the client is run after the release has been deployed.

For the rest of on-boarding, new users will be dropped into the Home Space in the default grey avatar, and will have a list of recommended experiences (based on population within the experiences) they can be sent to.

Continue reading “Sansar 2018 Product Meetings #48: Steam and release 28” →

La Robbiani and Wintergeist at Club LA and Gallery

Posted on by Inara Pey
Club LA and Gallery: La Robbiani

Now open at Club LA and Gallery, curated by Fuyuko ‘冬子’ Amano (Wintergeist), are two small exhibitions by Eviana (eviana Robbiani) – under the name La Robbinani – and Wintergeist herself.

For her exhibition, La Robbiani uses the theme of Shoshin (初心) – the idea of separating yourself from all preconceptions when studying a subject -, and of being open to all ideas in an attempt to avoid becoming trapped in a closed loop of thinking and missing everything a lesson my have to teach us.

It’s a concept that has its basis in Zen Buddhism and Japanese martial arts – although it can be applied to almost any subject. For her exhibition, La Robbiani uses it to encourage the observer to come to each of the six images she displays with fresh eyes and to avoid any preconceptions about their nature clouding our ability to see them as they are.

Club LA and Gallery: La Robbiani

This actually makes reviewing this exhibition, beautifully presented within and Oriental structure (perhaps more Chinese than Japanese), a little hard: anything I say here is liable to result n readers visiting the exhibit to enter it with at least some preconception. But – that’s why it is important to keep the idea of Shoshin at the forefront of any thoughts about the exhibition on entering.

What I will say is that each of the six studies are beautifully presented, each with its own theme – but again more Chinese in nature that Japanese. A couple of them should perhaps be considered as NSFW as they contain a degree of nudity, but all six should be considered both individually and in the context of its title.

Club LA and Gallery: Wintergeist

Also located on the ground floor of the gallery is Wintergeist’s own exhibition.

Comprising twelve images, both easels and wall mounted,  this is an exhibition that demonstrates the full beauty of her work; they cover landscape images and avatar studies presented in both colour and black and white. Some have admittedly been previously exhibited, but this doesn’t lessen the fact that all of them speak to the art and craft of a gifted photographer and artist.

Taken with the exhibition by oYo (Oyona), which continues on the gallery’s mezzanine level (and which you can read about here), these make for a further engaging visit to Club LA and Gallery.

SLurl Details