Category: Exploring Sansar

Given my interest in space exploration, it really shouldn’t come as any surprise that my second Exploring Sansar article focuses on the LOOT Interactive NASA Apollo Museum, based on the Apollo Saturn Centre at the Kennedy Space Centre. However, there is another reason for my doing so: as the Sansar Creator Beta opened, it was – and remains as of the time of writing this piece – one of the most comprehensive demonstrations of Sansar’s potential for creating standalone, easily accessible educational / historical interactive virtual spaces.

As the name states, this experience is a celebration of America’s triumph in sending men to the Moon and returning them safely to the Earth at what was the dawn of the space age. As politically motivated as it may have been, Apollo was – despite the tragedies and near-disasters which marked it – a huge triumph of humankind’s determination and technical prowess.

Unsurprisingly, given this *is* a museum, the setting is that of a mammoth hanger-like structure dominated by the huge form of an Apollo Saturn V rocket lain upon its side. Visitors arrive in a presentation area at the “base” of the rocket where, facing the five F1 engine bells of the  S-IC first stage of the booster, is a huge video screen, used to present a film on the entire Apollo programme, from birth, through development and the horror of Apollo 1, through to the triumph of Apollo 11, and thence onwards through the remaining six missions to the Moon, together with the recovery of the near-loss of Apollo 13.

Flanking the Saturn V are two raised galleries featuring the Apollo missions with photos, mission logos and information boards. These start with the tragic loss of Apollo 1 and astronauts Grissom, White and Chaffee and run down either side of the rocket, progressing through the preparatory missions leading up to the first manned lunar landing, and thence on through Apollo 17.

Sitting either side of the nose of the Saturn V are the LEM and the CSM. These and the rocket are neatly labelled, and the Service Module is shown with a cutaway in roughly the area where the liquid oxygen tanks exploded on Apollo 13, crippling it and leading to the rescue flight around the Moon. In the well between these display areas, starting with a model of the Earth, are a pair of time lines for the Apollo 11 mission. The first covers the journey from the Earth to the Moon, with principal events indicated along the way by scale models and annotations / information panels. The other similarly documents Apollo 11’s return to Earth.

Also, on the floor of these time lines are a series of interactive circles. Stepping on these will play audio clips of conversations between Mission Control and Apollo 11, and commentary from NASA on the mission status. There are other audio elements to be discovered as you explore the museum: an extract from Kennedy’s famous speech at Rice University in September 1962, when he uttered those immortal word, “We choose to go to the Moon.” There’s also audio at the Saturn V display.

Beneath a model of the Moon which shows the landing areas of the six Apollo missions to reach its surface, sits a teleport disk. Simply step on it to be carried 384,400 km (240,250 mi) to Mare Tranquillitatis – the Sea of Tranquillity – and to where the Apollo LEM Eagle as it sits on the Moon. Pan / look up from here while you’re exploring, and you’ll get to see one of the most heart-catching sights a human can witness: looking back across the blackness of space to the beautiful, fragile marble of Earth.

Sansar’s current status does tend to limit what can be done interactively on the platform, and this in turn limits some of the effectiveness of experiences like this. For example, it would be nice of have a finer level of control over audio; right now, it is possible to end up with different audio elements confusingly overlapping one another (I have to admit I also found the clump-clump of shoes on solid floor is also a little off-putting when walking on the Moon). It would also be nice to have more interactive elements as well; as it is, the hanging information area above the Sea of Tranquillity setting is informative, but alignment with the appropriate elements can be difficult if you move.

Nevertheless, the NASA Apollo Museum is an engaging, informative and immersive experience, offering a promise of just where Sansar might lead us as features and capabilities are added.

Experience URLs

• NASA Apollo Museum
• Apollo 11 Sea of Tranquillity

Sansar: Secrets of the World Whale – click any image for full size

I’ve mentioned Secrets of the World Whale several times in my Sansar posts of late, so it seemed to be a good place to launch into my Exploring Sansar series.

Designed by Teager, of Breeder’s Choice and Teagle fame in Second Life, this is one of the more enchanting early Sansar experiences.  It is also one of the winners in the Lab’s Creator Challenge, winning Best Sound Design – although in my opinion, it could have just as easily been awarded Best Narrative and / or Best Visual Design.

Sansar: Secrets of the World Whale

A visit begins on a floating island hanging in a clouded sky, the Sun illuminating the scene as it shines from beyond a very near-looking full Moon. Other islands of rock float in the sky and, beyond them, a great blue-coloured humpback whale swims through the sky.  Beneath a tree close to where we stand sits an old rat, wrapped in a cloak and holding a walking stick in one paw.

“Look yonder! The World Whale passes!” he whispers hoarsely at our approach. “A creature as ancient as time itself, it wanders the sky, swallowing civilisations whole, leaving chaos in its wake.  It is said that buried deep in the beast’s belly is an untold treasure, lost to man some thousand years. Perhaps, if we act quickly, we might discover it before the whale is lost to us again!”

Sansar: Secrets of the World Whale

Just beyond him, a tumble of rocks offer a way down to the island’s lower level as the rat tells us of the whale’s passing, and music drifts through the air. We encounter him again as he stands near the edge of the island, as he points outwards. “There! On that island!” he rat whispers once more, “An ancient doorway! But how to reach it?”

How indeed. There is a gulf of empty air between the island on which we stand and the smaller one on which the glowing portal stands. But, there are other islands as well. Perhaps, by using the personal teleport capability (CTRL+mouse + left click) we can jump one to the next with teleport hops. Take care as you do so, as the wind will howl around you, and a misplaced step could see you fall into the abyss – and back to the start of the experience.

Sansar: Secrets of the World Whale

Stepping through the glimmering portal will carry you to the whale, where your companion rat is again waiting to guide you onwards to where a garden and ruins awaits. Paths run around and over the gardens, but it is one in particular you need to seek: the one that leads down inside the whale itself. Once you find it, you’ll find yourself in a cavern-like world, where great stalagmites rise and stalactites descend, and a rough road leads you onwards. It many take a second or two to realise the formations are teeth and the road is the whale’s tongue.  Two portals await you – one leads back to the garden above, and the other – well, you’ll have to visit the world whale in its mysterious flight and find out for yourself.

Secrets of the World Whale is an engaging experience, combining strong visuals with a rich ambient sound scape and music, with a narrative track to follow. There are a couple of small hiccups, potentially down to Sansar’s state of play – stay too close to the rat for too long while he’s speaking, for example, and his words can end up in an overlapping series of loops – just keep walking to the edge of the audio fall-off to avoid it. However, none of this detracts from the central attraction of the experience.

Experience URL

• https://atlas.sansar.com/experiences/teager/secrets-of-the-worldwhale

Prior to the public Creator Beta opening, Linden Lab issued a challenge to those creators who were a part of the Creator Preview and who helped to move Sansar to a point where the Lab felt they could open the platform to a wider audience.

On offer in the competition, which closed on July 24th, were a series of cash prizes to be awarded to creators who, “create an experience with Sansar that takes the tools currently available and pushes them to their limits”, offered across a range of categories: Best Overall; Best Gaming Experience; Best Media Experience; Best use of Physics; Best use of Scripting; Best Visual Design; Best Sound Design;  and Best Narrative Design.

On Wednesday, August 16th, Linden Lab announced the winners of the challenge, together with honourable mentions, and I was pleased to see that some of the places I’ve personally enjoyed the most whilst exploring Sansar from a user’s perspective are among those listed, together with some I’ve been planning to write about.

The Best Overall award has been given to Kayle Matzerath’s Garden of Dreams. This is a recreation of the region with the same name in Second Life, and it also gained the Best Gaming Experience award. As one might expect from Kayle, this is an experience rich in vibrant colour, and offers much to explore and discover.

The primary gaming mechanism can be found in the Dungeon of Dis Pear. Given the current status of Sansar’s development, it is somewhat rudimentary when compared to what can be achieved in Second Life, but can be played with or without a VR headset. Reached via one of the teleport platform at the experience landing point, the game comprises of making your way through three levels of challenges to claim a “prize”. None of them are particularly difficult, although the second level may take a minute or two to work out, as even an initial wrong step or two can see you teleported back to the start point even before you appear to have made progress. However, they do demonstrate some of the basic capabilities available in Sansar to good effect (e.g. automatic teleport back to a level’s starting point on being “killed”,  a capability familiar to many SL experience users).

Other games can also be found near the dance gazebo, but these do require the use of a VR headset and controller, limiting their use somewhat.  Garden of Dreams is a pleasant experience, full of Kayle’s motifs SL users will find familiar and sits alongside his recreation of the Village of Breeze as two places I like to visit and just wander.

The award for the Best Sound Design went to another of the experiences I love – Teager’s Secrets of the World Whale. This a beautifully put together environment, complete with the plaintive cries of the whale. It’s also one I also mentioned in my Sansar tips and picks article as worthy of a visit as it also introduces various capabilities in Sansar, including the need to use the personal teleporting option. It remains a featured destination in the Atlas, and will be a place I’ll be returning to soon in my upcoming Exploring Sansar travelogue series – as well Maxwell Graf’s LagNMoor (again a name which may be familiar to long-standing explorers of Second Life, having once been a region Max held alongside of his Rustica), which took the prize for Best Media Experience.

Jasmine’s Through the Waterfall: Enter Another World claimed the prize for the Best Narrative Experience. This is something of an adventure narrative, opening with the line Without dreams, we can never become more than that which we already are… and an invitation to jump down from the desk on which we sit and seek the keys which will take us through the story, a scene – or chapter – at a time, starting with the aftermath of a tragic car crash. It’s not an entirely happy tale, but the use of media, music and sounds to craft a story makes this a worthwhile visit.

With seven prize winners and a further 12 honourable mentions, the competition list makes for a set of interesting visits, some of which people may well find easier to get into than others (Ria and Draxtor’s 114 Harvest remains a place – the only place I’ve yet tried, in fact –  which persistently outlasts my patience in terms of load time and has me going elsewhere); but all are well worth a visit in some measure, demonstrating both what can be done in Sansar and – in all fairness – how much further along the road the platform needs to travel. In this latter regard, it’ll be interesting to see how they compare to experiences that are being offered in a few months time, as things continue to develop.

To visit any of the experiences mentioned here or in the competition blog post, click on the experience names in the text, or in the image captions.