The Discovery Release. Credit: Linden Lab. Location; Colossus Rising
On Wednesday, October 4th, Linden Lab updated Sansar with the Discovery release, the September / October end of month / start of month major release for the platform. I’ve had a quick opportunity to try things out, and the majority of this article is intended to provide an overview of the key features of the release.
Sansar Store Policy Update
Before getting down to the details of the update, the release notes came with some announcements and reminders, including a pointer to the recently updated Store Listing Guidelines and policy, which came into effect on Monday, October 2nd.
However, there has been some negative feedback on the policy change around the requirement for creators to have payment information on file with the Lab (e.g. a credit / debit card). As such, the policy announcement was updated on Monday, October 2nd, to read:
Following helpful feedback from Sansar’s creator community, we will not be enforcing the credit card requirement at this time.
Requiring sellers to have payment information on file will help us to combat undesirable behaviour in the Store, but we understand that creators around the world may not have a credit card for a variety of reasons.
We are working to support other payment methods, such as PayPal, and plan to revisit this requirement for sellers once we have more available options.
Atlas Updates
The Atlas in both the client and on the web has been updated.
The Client Atlas now has a new Featured tab, and the ability to search experiences (the latter matching the web Atlas). Search allows users to search by full or partial experience name, creator name, etc. As with the web Atlas, results are ranked in order of closest matching (so for, example, searching “Maxwell Graf” will return a list of Maxwell Graf’s experiences, followed by experiences /creators with partially matching names).
The Client Atlas with the new Featured tab (arrowed) and Search option (circled)
Te Featured tab lists all those experiences selected by the Sansar editorial team, again in the same way as the web Atlas.
The Web Atlas similarly gains a Featured tab, which sits alongside the All and Sansar Studio tabs in the top left corner of the Atlas, which now has a cleaner look and feel.
Desktop Mode Object Interactions
Desktop users can now interact with objects in an experience. Simply move the mouse pointer in an area where there might be objects available for interaction. Any objects you can “pick up”, will be highlighted in blue. Left click on an object you want to “pick up” and it will move to float in front of you.
Desktop Mode object interaction: hover the mouse pointer over objects. Any object highlighted in blue – like the pith helmet here – can be “picked up” with a left mouse button click. The object will jump to float in front of you (shown with the book in the inset image). Left click again to drop the item, or left-click / hold to throw it – the longer you hold, the further you’ll toss it
As you walk and turn, the object will move with you. To stop “holding” the object, LEFT click it again. A quick click will “drop” it, but if you press and hold the left button, you can throw the object – the longer you hold the button, the further you’ll throw the object. See the Sansar Keyboard Shortcuts documentation for more.
There is still some work to be done on this – avatars will eventually be able to hold objects they pick up, so this is only an initial step in interaction. However, I would request the Lab do something about the direction sharp, pointy things float – as shown below, “health and safety” didn’t exactly spring to mind 😉 .
“Is this a machete that floats before me, the sharp bit towards my throat?” The Desktop mode interaction is only in its first iteration, and will have features added. However, it can raise eyebrows over health and safety! 🙂 (With apologies to W. Shakespeare esq, for the misquote.)
The following notes are taken from the Sansar Product Meetings held on Friday, September 22nd. These meetings are held every Friday at 9:30am PDT and 4:00pm PDT, and are open to all. There is no set agenda (currently), and the meetings are a mix of voice and text, and the official meeting notes are published in the week following each pair of meetings. Venues change on a weekly basis, and are announced in the Meet-up Announcements.
The September 22nd meeting took place at Starry Stars & Stuff, an experience built by Jenn from the Lab, demonstrating what can be done by someone who does not create original mesh can do in Sansar just through a little terraforming and by buying items through the Store (and with a little scripting help from Gindipple!).
Cara from the Product Team attended the morning meeting, and Carolyn attended the afternoon meeting.
Discovery Release
The Discovery Release is now scheduled for week #40 (commencing Monday, October 2nd). Highlights include:
Client-Side Atlas: ability to search the Atlas, matching the capability already in the web Atlas; a new Featured tab for featured experiences.
Desktop Mode Object Interaction:
This Will allow Desktop users to have a similar level of interaction with in-world objects as those using VR. Desktop user will be able to “pick up” objects, “hold” them, throw them, drop them.
Object selection will be via mouse selection.
Initially this will not include animations: clicking on an object will cause it to float over the avatar’s hand. However, future releases will support “holding” the selected object.
Sansar Store: masthead banners for branding; URLs are being improved to look more “store-like”.
Future Updates
Future improvements for the Atlas will include a Favourites / Bookmarks tab, an Events tab and the ability to sort listed experiences – some of these will be appearing in the Friends Release, due at the end of October / beginning of November.
The client-side Atlas uses a “gaze pointer” in VR mode, requiring people focus their eyes on items in the Atlas – entries, the scroll bar, etc. This is not proving particularly user-friendly for some, particularly with the size of the Atlas, so the plan is to replace this with a means to select, scroll, etc., using the hand controllers.
Work is in progress to improve:
The upload of some file types.
Collision handling within Sansar, including convex hull collision, particularly for multi-part objects.
Performance for full collision meshes
More specific details of some future updates and an overview of the Friends Release (October / November) can be found in these reports here and here.
The requirement that images for scripts listed on the Store “must focus on the script’s capabilities” has caused some concern due to the potential for confusion. How do you represent the sound of a gentle breeze in an image? Does an image of a carousel convey the idea of a rotation script to a consumer, or that the item on sale is a carousel – regardless of any accompanying description?
The Lab is looking at listings for audio and scripts with the idea of providing a set of icons creators can associate with their items when listing them on the store.
An audio preview capability is also being worked on, which will hopefully be available in the next couple of months.
The concerns expressed will be added to the feedback gained from the recent Store focus group meetings and carried forward to similar discussions at the Lab and in future focus group discussions – which Jenn will try to get a notice out about soon.
There is an acknowledgement that the announcement of the policy changes could have been handled better given meetings on the Store had been planned for the same week. Things came down to a matter of bad timing; Jenn has indicated LL will try to be more pre-emptive with meetings and announcements in future.
A suggestion was made about sharing ideas on policy, requirements, etc., via viewable documents and allowing feedback. This has – to a degree – worked with some of the technical work with Second Life (proposals for inventory updates and Windlight Environment Enhancements were made available through Google docs – although the latter was somewhat spoiled by pre-pubescent comments being left on the document).
Account Identification, Security, Etc
There are concerns about account verification, security, etc. Some of this is handled by the Lab’s subsidiary, Tilia Inc (Tilia Branch Ltd., in the UK), particularly with regards to payment information, payment processing, etc. Jenn is going to see if she can get input from the Tilia team on some of the issues.
Edit Mode Issues
The afternoon meeting focused in part on issues and pain points within the Edit mode. Items raised include:
Changing or deleting a script leading to the loss of parameters, etc., associated with another script (not clear is this is a copy of the same script used elsewhere).
The Gizmo used to manipulation objects can be hard to select and use.
The UI itself (issues with reading, etc.).
Lack of ability to:
Manage inventory – even described by the Lab as “desperately needed”. It is being worked on.
Easily return objects to inventory (with metadata for position, etc. saved?).
Customise options (mouse buttons, moving windows around, etc.).
Easily move and focus the camera, including better panning / rotation and flycamming type movements (this is something needed in the runtime mode for things like machinima)
A suggestion was made that it could be beneficial to split the Editor UI between Desktop Mode and VR, rather than trying to combine the two into a single UI, particularly given Desktop offers a full keyboard to use, whereas VR is obviously more limited.
Other Items
Edit Mode: Desktop or VR?
The morning session saw a straw poll taken of those attending on whether they used VR or Desktop mode in Edit mode. Some attending expressed surprise that editing in VR was possible.
Overall the choice appears to be being increasingly task-driven for those with HMDs rather than a clear either / or split. There are some aspects of scene building which are intuitively better in Desktop mode (initial design and placement, scripting, etc), while some are far easier in VR mode (e.g. relocating objects and their associated elements adjusting positions, etc.), and several of the creators at the meeting indicated they are now naturally moving between to the two modes, depending on what they are doing.
Experiences Dropping from the Featured Category When Updated
This is a pain point for both experience creators and the Lab. When an experience tagged as a Featured Experience in the Atlas is updated, the tag denoting it as featured in the Atlas is lost. A fix for this is being looked into. In the interim, those who are updating their experiences and finding they get dropped as Featured in the Atlas can drop a line to Jenn who will pass it on to the Product team.
Experience Loading Information
Suggestions have been made to carry over the experience description from the Atlas to the load screen on an experience, so that users entering the experience can be more informed (where descriptions are provided).
A request was made for some kind of progress bar to be displayed in experience load screens. This has been looked at by the Lab, but because experiences are coming via AWS, it is apparently harder to implement than may appear to be the case. Instead, the Lab is looking at alternative approaches, such as keeping frequently visited experiences cached for faster access and reducing the amount of data requiring download.
Linden Lab has announced the first Sansar virtual tourism / history event, which will take place on Wednesday, October 4th., between 10:00 – 11:00 PDT on Wednesday, October 4th.
Presented in partnership with the Institute for Study and Implementation of Graphical Heritage Techniques (INSIGHT, also referred to as Insight Digital), Voyages Live: Egypt offers those registering for the event the opportunity to join with Egyptologist, author, and INSIGHT co-founder, Dr. Philippe Martinez for an interactive guided tours of select Egyptian heritage sites which have been recreated in Sansar with a high degree of fidelity.
The cenotaph at Gebel el-Silsila as modelled in Sanar
These sites, which are inaccessible to the public, have been recreated as a part of a joint project between INSIGHT, the Sorbonne University, and the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities. The project has used LiDAR (or LIDAR – Light Detection and Ranging – a surveying method that measures distance to a target by illuminating it with a pulsed laser light and measuring the reflected pulses) and photogrammetry (the science of making measurements from photographs) to produce models of sites of antiquity in Egypt. Some of these models have been optimised by Linden Lab and presented in Sansar in exacting “you are there” detail.
One such model in particular, that of the entrance to the tomb of Nakhtamon (“TT341”), was optimised from a model of some 50 million polygons to produce a 40,000 polygon Sansar experience used extensively in promoting the platform in the run-up to the Creator Preview and Creator Beta programmes. This experience is linked to the Voyages Live: Egypt experience, which also allows visitors to travel to what appears to be a work-in-process of the Ramesseum “Coronation Wall”, and to the cenotaph at Gebel el-Silsila.
Dr. Phillipe Martinez, Lead Archaeologist for INSIGHT, and who will be leading the Sansar tour on October 4th, 2017, pictured at Gebel el-Silsila
As the co-founder and Lead Archaeologist for the INSIGHT programme, Dr. Martinez is well-placed to talk about the INSIGHT work in the digital preservation of sites of historical import in Egypt and on Egyptology in general. Thus, Voyages Live: Egypt offers a potentially fascinating field trip. However, it is only open to a limited number of participants, so those interested are advised to register sooner rather than later in order to secure a place on the tour. Detailed information on the event will be sent via e-mail to all successful applicants in due course.
Linden Lab has announced forthcoming changes to their Sansar Store policies. Specifically, the changes comprise updates to the listing guidelines, together with new eligibility requirements for those listing goods on the Store.
To quote the blog post specifically on the eligibility requirements:
As of October 2, 2017, you’ll need to have a credit card on file for your account in order to sell in the Sansar Store. Adding one is easy – just follow the steps here.
Free account holders will be able to sell up to 50 items at a time. Subscribers at the Creator level or above will have no limits on the number of active listings they can have in the Store. Note: if you have more than 50 listings in the Store when this change goes into effect on October 2, 2017, your items may be de-listed, so please take a moment to review your items to avoid the inconvenience of having to re-list them.
New polices and requirements are being introduced for the Sansar Store
There has been a degree of negative feedback on these points in particular, and a part of the meet-up on Wednesday, September 27th – which was to discuss ideas and feedback for the Sansar Market – initially focused on the announcement. During that part of the meeting, the Lab sought to clarify a few things:
The overall number of creators using the store affected by the 50 item limit is regarded as “super low”.
Those who were invited into the Creator Preview with a free account will be able to continue with their current levels of listing (if over 50) through until the end of October 2017. The October 2nd change only applies to those joining from the Creator Beta launch onwards.
The 50 listing limit includes free items.
The move for having payment information on file is intended to help deter fraudulent activity within the Store from the outset (e.g. the legal selling of goods through an unverified account – something which has been / is an issue with the SL Marketplace).
This is only the first iteration of Store policies. The Lab is listening to feedback, so ideas and alternatives might be fed into things as time goes on.
One area of confusion lies with the term “credit card” – which actually covers the likes of debit cards which have Mastercard / Visa verification – although there is concern not everyone has access to these as well.
Some creators expressed a preference for a PayPal option to be implemented (PayPal is currently only available when cashing-up Sansar Dollars). This is coming, but no confirmed time line could be given. In addition, a suggestion was made for people to be able to offer alternative forms of identification for verification. This is something the Lab has done for SL merchants cashing-out from that platform, and hasn’t been entirely without its own problems.
Further feedback and discussion on this and other topics can be found on the official Sansar Discord channel.
The Discovery Release. Credit: Linden Lab. Location; Colossus Rising
Wednesday, September 27th also saw the Lab issue some information on the next couple of major releases for Sansar. These are:
The Discovery release: due at the end of September / beginning of October, this release will include an improved Atlas for the Sansar client, and object interaction for Desktop mode users. You can read more about this release in advance in my Product Update.
The Friends release: (presumably following the Discovery release at the end of October / beginning of November), this update will see the improvements to the Atlas continue, make it easier to connect with other Sansar users, and will also include changes to make it even easier for people to publish their experiences.
I’ll hopefully be following both releases as they happen, and have updates on them in these pages.
Digital Arts Gallery: from left to right – Natalie Shau, Ben Heine, Keith Webber Jr (far wall), Grégoire A. Meyer, and Martina Stipan
While it is still gaining form, Sansar is already attracting both artists and those with an interest in art, and I’m slowly working my way through the art-related experiences currently available in the Atlas and dropping into whatever catches my eye. Places such as the Digital Arts Gallery, designed and curated by Mad Max, and which focuses on the work of digital artists from around the globe – which I admit piqued my curiosity for a very specific reason when I saw the Altas entry.
The setting is well conceived and executed. Visitors arrive in a small lobby area with windows to three sides offering a view of a late evening sky – it’s as if we’re high in a skyscraper somewhere, about to enter an exclusive gallery space. A larger hall opens off this foyer space, neatly dissected by a central display area of alcoves, and which offers choice of routes through the gallery: right and through the Featured Artist display, or left through the “collected artists” section.
The Featured Artist at the time of my visit was Adam Martinakis. It was seeing his name in the Atlas entry for the experience that caught my eye; I first encountered his digital sculptures in 2012 through a piece written for Don’t Panic. I was immediately struck by the depth of his work: digital it might be, but it carries with it a realism and texture which truly makes it physical and tangible. It’s hard not to look at them and feel you’re looking at a 3D creation, one which if you could touch them, would reward you with the feel of cut stone or slick paint finish beneath your finger tips; there is a marvellous quality to the filigree elements of Golden Boy (featured in this exhibition and seen above left) which is so beautifully rendered it presents a wonderful sense of it own existence in the physical world.
The images selected for this exhibition span Martinakis’ work from 2011 through to the present. Alongside of Golden Boy, and among his more established works offered here are Love for Light, The Departure of Innocense [sic] and The Remains of a Memory. His more recent work is also represented, and I found myself strongly drawn to Adam, rich in substance and metaphor, while Last Kiss is simply mesmerising. I do admit to hoping to see Baptised by Fire – Prometheus or The Divisions of Pleasure offered here, but only because both pieces made such an impression on me when seeing them for the first time five years ago. However, their absence in no way detracts from the exhibition.
To the left of the entrance the gallery displays selected works by Keith Webber Jr., with a focus on his Abstract Fractal series, the remarkable and simple absorbing, Martina Stipan, who at just 19 years of age is already renowned for her digital landscapes, Natalie Shau,and the remarkable Ben Heine with a trio of his remarkable digital portraits. To the rear of the gallery is art from famous music albums and series of panels by Zoran Cvetkovic and Zdravko Girov, tracing the history of Skopje from earliest times to the 20th century.
Digital Arts Gallery is beautifully minimalist in approach, offering the perfect environment in which to showcase the work of these artists. The lighting is almost perfect, thanks to the considered use of emitters (“almost” because Ben Heine’s Marilyn Monroe was unlit at the time of my visit). Even the looped music track feels appropriate to the gallery (although I’m admittedly biased towards music with a new age Celtic leaning, particularly when a Bear McCreary like hint weaves through a part of the music, as it does here).
This is an exhibition which can be visited and appreciated with or without a VR headset. When visiting in Desktop mode, I would suggest moving to first-person mode (F3) and touring the gallery to more fully appreciate the art. If you’re adept with Sansar’s (still basic) camera controls, then F4 and flycamming offers another good way to appreciate the art here (in fact, I admit to spending a lot more time flycamming in Sansar than walking or running at the moment!).
Mad Max is open to feedback on the gallery, and to suggestions for future artists he might exhibit there. I have a couple of names I’ll endeavour to get to him for consideration. Should you visit and think of an artist you’d like to offer to Max, contact details are on the rear wall of the gallery.
The following notes are taken from the Sansar Product Meetings held on Friday, September 22nd. These meetings are held every Friday at 9:30am PDT and 4:00pm PDT, and are open to all. There is no set agenda (currently), and the meetings are a mix of voice and text, and the official meeting notes are published in the week following each pair of meetings. Venues change on a weekly basis, and are announced in the Meet-up Announcements. The September 22nd meeting took place at the Zen Garden by Sansar Studios.
Bjørn Laurin attended both meetings to talk about the upcoming September / October release, and the next couple of releases beyond that. As such, the discussions were lengthy, so I’ve attempted to bullet-point key aspects of the major topics below, and have included a number of audio extracts of Bjørn’s comments.
Again, for ease of reference, some of the audio extracts comprise comments made at different points in the conversations, which I’ve attempted to bring together to offer a cohesive flow of information. There is ambient background noise in the audio, as there is currently no way of disabling this in the Sansar client. Similarly, any sounds of background typing is due to others in the meeting leaving their microphone open while not speaking.
Discord Channel
The official Sansar Discord channel launched on Thursday, September 21st. 2017. The channel is designed to act as an extension to the Sansar user community, allowing them chat with one another, make friends, plan meet-ups in real-time, exchange ideas, etc. Discord works on the web, a desktop app, and a mobile app, allowing users to stay connected wherever they are.
The Sansar Discord FAQ provides full details on the channel. Joining is a case of following this link and the instructions provided. Those who do not already have a Discord account will have to create one as a part of the process.
Sansar Store Focus Group Meetings
There will be two sessions focusing on discussions and feedback on the Sansar Store in week #39. Guidelines on intent and scope of the meetings and their location(s), will be published on the Sansar blog ahead of the first meeting. However, the dates / times are:
Monday, September 25th, 15:00-16:00 PDT.
Wednesday, September 27th, 14:00-15:00 PDT.
Upcoming Releases Overview
The Lab is referring to the next release as the “Discovery release”, of which highlights include:
Easier discovery of experiences in the Atlas
Branded stores on the Sansar Store
The ability for users in Desktop mode to be able to interact with objects in an experience (picking things, up, throwing them, etc.).
Currently, this release is scheduled for deployment on Thursday, September 28th, 2017, depending on final bug fixes / QA.
Bjørn also indicated that fashion and avatar customisation has risen closer to the top of the pile of upcoming features following the Discovery release. He specifically notes work on hair together with skin shaders for the hair and avatar skin; the upcoming fashion / clothing support releases, and coming options for experience owners to be able to monetise their experiences (e.g. ticketed access, etc.).
Desktop Mode Object Interaction
In the Discovery release.
Will allow those running Sansar on the desktop to have a similar level of interaction with in-world objects as those using VR. Desktop user will be able to pick up objects, “hold” them, throw them, drop them.
Objects around an avatar with interaction will highlight on a mouse-click, allowing the user to select which one they want to pick up.
Initially will not include animations: clicking on an object will cause it to float over the avatar’s hand. However, future releases will support “holding” objects (and eventually “picking up” objects see more on animations below).
There is some debate within the Sansar team in giving creators an explicit means of differentiating between users in VR mode and users in Desktop mode, or in allowing the platform to handle it internally.
Games designers see the ability to differentiate as “critical” to allow better design of control options, and which can be used by players in either mode, and Bjørn leans more towards this approach.
Atlas Improvements
The Discovery release includes a search option in the client version of the Atlas and a new Featured tab for featured experiences.
Future improvements for the Atlas will include a Favourites / Bookmarks tab, an Events tab and the ability to sort listed experiences.
Store Branding
Will be part of the Discovery release.
Comprises the ability to add a masthead logo to creator’s items. Details of masthead sizes available on the Discord channel.
People gather at the Zen Garden for the Friday, September 22nd meet-up
Beyond The Discovery Release
Avatar Identification in Desktop Mode
Possibly appearing in the October / November release.
This will most likely offer the same capabilities as VR mode currently has: click on an avatar and see their name, offer friendship, mute them.
Fashion and Clothing
For the most part, fashion and clothing will be handled as a single release rather than a series of iterative releases over time adding essential capabilities.
The exception to this will be handling clothing layers which will be handled in two parts: separation of the current clothing bakes from the avatar and then the rest of the capabilities.
The separation of the bakes will see clothing initially defined as either a single, complete layer (e.g. socks, underwear, pants / skirt, blouse / shirt, jacket all-in-one), or possibly as a “top” layer (e.g. undershirt, shirt, jacket) and a “bottom” layer (e.g pants, underwear, socks, skirt).
Further division of individual clothing layers will come in the future, but is seen as a more complicated task.
Clothing will naturally fold, flow and fall like real clothing and cloth from the initial release.
The Sansar Store will also be updated with the “main” fashion update is released to more fully support clothing.
Bjørn’s hope for the “main” fashion release is December 2017.
Due to what is involved with support for fashion / clothing, there may be a requirement for creators to sign NDAs – Jenn will be reaching out to creators about this in due course.
Clothing Physics
Clothing physics will be part of the initial release.
It’s currently not clear whether cloth physics will have to be assigned prior to upload, or if it is something done from within Sansar (such as by right-clicking on an item in Edit mode and selecting a “make cloth” option).
Bjørn indicated that the process will not be complex but there will be two specific routes to achieve different sets of results for clothing.
There is vagueness around how things will work due to contractual obligations, but some may be familiar with the tools the Lab are using to making clothing in Sansar work.
Avatar Updates
The back-end avatar rigging will be changing over the next “one or two months”.
These changes will not be visible to the casual user, but the changes will facilitate clothing design and will allow designers to create their own clothing.
One consequence of this is that all current outfits will break – however Bjørn indicated that all broken outfits will be replaced.
Future avatar updates will include the ability to change the avatar shape – more body fat, less body fat, etc. However, these will not be in the Discovery release.
As part of the work on hair (noted towards the top of this article), it will be possible to blend hair styles with the face, and things like masks or facial tattoos with hair and facial features, so they all work naturally together, and masks / tattoos respond to facial movements.
Aside I: the individual working on the avatar design spent ten years on developing the characters in the Halo game series.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 