Sansar – Page 5 – Ciaran Laval

July 31, 2017

Linden Lab’s Sansar Goes Into Public Beta

Linden Lab have today announced The Metaverse’s Next Chapter : Sansar Opens To The Public In Creator Beta :

SAN FRANCISCO – July 31, 2017 – Sansar™, the world’s leading social VR platform, today opened its creator beta to the public. Sansar empowers individuals, communities, schools, studios, corporations, brands and others to easily create, share, and ultimately sell immersive 3D social experiences for consumers to enjoy on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Windows PCs. Developed by Linden Lab®, the company behind the groundbreaking virtual world Second Life®, Sansar is a brand new platform built from the ground up to enable everyone to become a creator.

At opening, Sansar’s Atlas directory already features hundreds of engaging virtual experiences, including multiplayer games, recreations of historic sites and landmarks, art installations, movie theaters, museums, narrative experiences, jungle temples, 360º video domes, sci-fi themed hangouts, and much more. Creators invited to the platform during a limited-access preview have published thousands of amazing public and private experiences, and with the opening of beta today, the world is now invited to join them.

“Sansar democratizes social VR,” said Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab. “Until now, complexity and cost has limited who could create and publish in this medium, and Sansar dramatically changes that. It’s been inspiring to see the thousands of virtual creations that have already published with Sansar during our limited preview, and I’m looking forward to the explosion of creativity we’ll see now that we’ve opened the doors in beta.”

What this all means is that if you have a PC capable of running Sansar, then you can go to the Sansar website now, register and get in to have a look around.

An important point to note is that of the system requirements, which can be found here. The specs differ depending upon whether you’re a VR user or a desktop only user, so pay close attention to those specs.

Continue reading “Linden Lab’s Sansar Goes Into Public Beta”

July 12, 2017

Release The Kraken!

Virtual reality experiences are coming slowly and seem to be getting a tad more affordable. Oculus are running a Summer of Rift promotion, where you can get an Oculus Rift + touch controller for around £399.00 in the UK, or around $399.00 in North America. That’s quite a significant drop on previous pricing.

High Fidelity is progressing in a way that demonstrates some very impressive potential for VR experiences, for example by partnering with Limitless to help users create NPC’s in High Fidelity.

Linden Lab’s Sansar is still in creator preview mode but we are hearing more about what is being developed, a recent article by Charlie Fink over at Forbes looked at art in VR – Artists Show Potential Of VR :

Virtual Reality galleries within the gallery were the subject of several exhibits. Notably, The Apollo Museum and the Harold Lloyd Stereoscopic Museum, were both built using Linden Labs new VR platform, Sansar. which is still in closed beta. Linden created and operates the insanely profitable 3D social world Second Life. Bjorn Laurin, VP of Linden Labs, told me Sansar will be the WordPress of VR, a simple world construction tool and platform that anyone can use to create their own VR world.

Ikinema recently announced – Linden Lab Integrates IKinema Tech for Natural Avatar Movements in Sansar :

IKINEMA, the leader in real-time inverse kinematics, today announces that Linden Lab has harnessed IKinema technology to bring full-body IK to SansarTM, the new platform for user-created social VR experiences.

Positive developments on different platforms and on top of that, a content creator who is pretty well known in Second Life circles has also been talking about Sansar.

Continue reading “Release The Kraken!”

June 23, 2017

Sansar Will Be Free To Access But Will Have Subscription Options

Cecilia D’Anastasio’s recent article for Kotaku regarding Linden Lab’s Sansar has certainly started some heated discussions and one point of major discussion has been regarding subscription pricing. Cecilia wrote :

Right now, only 2,000 select virtual artists, builders and designers have access to Sansar, but later this summer, Sansar will open its doors to everybody with its open beta. Users may pay a small subscription for access.

Hamlet Au over at New World Notes covered Cecilia’s post : Sansar May Launch With “Small Subscription” Fee, Kotaku Reports. with Hamlet pondering whether this would be a subscription model similar to that used by World of Warcraft.

The comments on the New World Notes article are lively, but into the fray stepped Gray of The Lab from San Francisco, AKA Peter Gray, senior director of global communications for Linden Lab.

Continue reading “Sansar Will Be Free To Access But Will Have Subscription Options”

April 13, 2017

Ebbe Altberg Talks to The Irish Times About Second Life and Sansar

Marie Boran of The Irish Times has been talking to Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg about Sansar and, inevitably, that also means talking of Second Life too.

The article is entitled Virtual reality is giving Second Life a second lease of life and although it starts off with some negative commentary around Second Life, the article actually goes on to make some positive points about Second Life.

The article also points out that Linden Lab do not consider Sansar to be a replacement for Second Life :

The idea is not to replace Second Life or even phase it out, says Altberg, who describes it as “a very healthy virtual world that will be very healthy for a long time to come”. It is celebrating its 14th birthday this summer and continues to have a dedicated team continually improving content and interaction experiences.

An interesting point is made regarding Second Life in terms of it not being easy to find what to do unless you’re inside Second Life and have familiarised yourself with the platform. Sansar will take a different approach, but let’s not forget that Second Life has also started to take a different approach, when Linden Lab announced that places pages are available to all land owners, the blog post also mentioned :

Many of these pages will also soon be discoverable via popular search engines, such as Google. This means that more people than ever have the potential to learn about your Second Life place!

Sansar sounds as if it will start with the aim of being more easily discoverable for people.

Continue reading “Ebbe Altberg Talks to The Irish Times About Second Life and Sansar”