Magic Leap introduces Avatar Chat and it is stupid.

Tags

avatar chat, magic leap, sansar, vrchat

Ok, I know I’m just a bitter old woman who doesn’t understand happy hip young trendy people but seriously?
Magic Leap has just introduced ‘Avatar Chat’ and just like with Facebook’s VRchat, they think it is appealing to make it look like a game for 5 year olds.
While we in Second Life have had pretty decent looking avatars for quite a few years, both VRchat and now Avatar Chat think we’re ok with cartoon characters.

And of course, maybe that is exactly what young urban professionals want who use VR to share healthy exciting cooking recipes… because yeah, that’s what we all would use VR for right?

Look at this;

Just ignoring the very ugly Magic Leap logo, which also looks like a failed character by a dodgy Chinese company trying to be like Disney, I’m immediately annoyed by the controller.
It is 2018 and we’re still using controllers in VR?
Are we still waiting for the gloves or other wearables to hit the market?

Yeah I just want to make a call, so lets point this thing around and click a trigger 3246 billion times in stead of just pointing with my vinger or you know, give a voice command…

Our hip young trendy friends in their groovy fancy expensive homes apparently have the mental age of a child.
They give each other “high fives” that for some reason make flamingo firework appear, make silly sounds and send heart pictures because they like a picture of a meal…
Someone makes an astronaut appear for no reason and it is time for a “fist bump”, again with firework.
If I was in this VR chat with them, I’d be bumping my fist into their faces by now.

But it seems like that’s all they wanted to do, some silly stuff and then they go back to their busy professional lives…

Maybe it is just me being grumpy, cynical and old and I do realise that young hip people in general are pretty stupid these days, but this video is really quite underwhelming, to put it mildly.

Now the last time I checked Sansar didn’t have some of the things both these VR chat services offer but they are already looking a LOT better.
Of course I have no idea about how much work is involved in programming any of this, but looking at this, I reckon it wouldn’t be that much of an effort for the Sansar team to create a VR chat demo that would blow these videos out of the water.

Ebbe Altberg interview about SL & Sansar which is going public next January.

Tags

"second life", ebbe altberg, ebbe linden, media, podcast, project sansar, sansar

Donnie SC Lygonis, Swedish business coach, currently working in Silicon Valley, recently interviewed Ebbe Altberg (AKA Ebbe Linden, CEO of Linden Lab) for his podcast on spreaker.com.

Ebbe talks about his career, how he ended up with LL, he brags a little about how awesome Second Life is, talks about the new Project Sansar, how users can create experiences there and the future of VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented Reality) and MR (Mixed reality).

Nothing really new or earth shattering is said, but Ebbe did mention that only a few months ago people who tested Sansar gave it a fairly high ‘discomfort rating’, probably based on how dizzy they felt using a headset in this Virtual World, but that today this rating is very low after fine-tuning the speed of walking, tweaking the teleporting, etc.

Ebbe repeated that this August, more users (by invitation only) will be invited to come test Sansar, it already is August, so lets hope those invitations are about to be send!
Close to 5000 people have signed up to be allowed to become part of the August test wave, I am one of them and my virtual suitcase is packed.

My plan for Sansar is to first build an embassy for Virtual Time Travellers, nothing fancy, nothing big, just a place where people interested in using VR for historical purposes (education, entertainment, etc) can hang out, chat, make plans and wonder how long it will take before I can build 1920s Berlin there.

Ebbe also mentions that Sansar will open “to the world” in January 2017.
We’ve been told that Sansar would go public in 2017, even early 2017, but as far as I know, this is the first time an actual month is mentioned and January is quite soon.

Most important of all though is the mentioning of The 1920s Berlin Project at 43:10 🙂

I love that Mr. Lygonis mentions how annoying it is that with all the experience we have in SL, it must be a bit annoying to have all these people re-inventing the wheel when they pitch something as original, unique and new… while we’ve been doing it in SL for over a decade.
Ebbe answers politely but I prefer to imagine him running around Silicon Valley screaming; “SL has been doing that for over a decade, and that, and that!”

After the interview Mr. Lygonis got to try Sansar and calls it “to date; the most interesting virtual reality environment”.

You can listen to the complete podcast by clicking here;
https://www.spreaker.com/user/constantinnovation/episode-7-ebbe-altberg-virtual-reality-s_1

First 360 degrees video recorded within Second Life

Tags

"second life", 360, 360 degree camera, 360 degrees, Arduenn Schwartzman, draxtor despres, Electric Shepherd, The 1920s Berlin Project, vimagine, virtual reality

Imagine being able to bring your 360 degrees camera into Virtual Reality, just set it up in the club, house, park or city that you’ve build yourself in Second Life, record it and then share it online with people from all over the world.

Let them get a taste of where you live in VR, let them look around and even give them the feeling they’re actually there by looking at it with their VR headset.

This is now possible!
Yesterday Electric Shepherd from Vimagine (who also worked on the ‘Virtualize it’ documentary for ‘Der Spiegel’) and Draxtor Despres came to 1920s Berlin to test out an amazing 360 degrees camera to film the, as far as I know, first 360 degrees video shot Live in Second Life in real time.

The camera rig was made by Arduenn Schwartzman (of Warbug fame), it has audio and video syncing capabilities and all recorded tracks are then aligned in post production.Even though this is still just an early test, it is already very impressive.

I can imagine short clips like these made in sims all over Second Life being used to show outsiders what life in our virtual world is like and the things that they can experience there.
Because these can also record busy events with lots of people and with many things happening at the same time!

Not only are these just fun videos on youtube, but they are very impressive when viewed through the Gear VR, the Cardboard VR or other headsets.
And not just that, it will also allow me to show off my sim in a whole new way to people who may not have tried Second Life, don’t know how SL works or who don’t have a computer that can handle SL.

And imagine making a full length machinima with this technology!
We could be making 360 films while people in RL have only just experimenting with it.
Once more the people in SL are groundbreaking.

You can see this pioneering footage here;
(not all browsers support 360 degrees video)

Some technical details send in by Draxtor;

• We are simulating a goPro Rig of 6 cameras, filming each with 1080 by 1080 (which is already too low = SL can handle more but we need the screens for FRAPS to capture it that high, working on it!!)
• I filmed this test myself so there is no syncing which means the Zeppelin dissapears into the cloud at one point: to do live action in SL we need to film at same time.
• Syncing is no prob: we have an automated system made by Arduenn Schwartzmann which syncs the six cameras with sound and a visual cue. But again = we need to figure out higher resolution = who has the computers to make it happen, are the colors in sync as well, is the SL lag an issue when aligning the cameras later on (f.e. a dance or fast car race or airship battle etc).
•  I am working with spatial audio on a RL project so next step will also involve inserting some sounds and dialogue which is spatialized.
• All in all the workflow we have is SUPER FAST = plop down the virtual camera rig in SL and shoot, export, stitch, correct = DONE = faster than RL 360 !!!!!!
• Big benefits of SL for this = inserting virtual sequences into a RL 360 video = much faster and easier than constructing it via other CGI options because you can film it in REAL TIME and the assets are all there. Yes maybe render engine less able than Unity or Unreal but a LOT easier and ultimately not worse than RL 360 at this point in the game!

And this article wouldn’t be complete without this earlier 360 degrees video in VR experiment by Zuza Ritt;

Linden Lab removes Oculus Rift Project Viewer and may not release another one

Tags

"second life", HMD's, oculus rift, virtual reality

When Linden Lab released a new Oculus ready viewer, one that worked with DK2 and CV1, the reactions were, to put it mildly, not enthusiastic.
I wrote about it in my previous blog post that you can read by clicking here.

Today Linden Lab announced they have removed the Oculus Rift viewer from its alternate viewers page.

The Oculus headset picture and link to more information  about using it in SL seems to have also been removed from the main page on the official SL website, at least I no longer see it.

In this discussion on one of the official blogs the following comment was posted by Linden Lab;

Thank you for experimenting with our Oculus Rift Project Viewer and offering your feedback. Unfortunately, the Project Viewer that we recently made available didn’t meet our standards for quality, and so we’ve now removed it from the Alternate Viewers page.

By definition, Project Viewers aren’t ready for primetime. The purpose of these experimental Viewers is to share with you the earliest possible version of what we’re working on, so that you can see what we’re up to, help discover problems, and provide feedback. In this case, though, we’re not ready for that, as those of you who tried it have seen.

We can’t say at this point when or even if we may release another Project Viewer for experimenting with the Oculus Rift in SL.

We want to prioritize our development efforts around initiatives that we know will improve the virtual world and bring more value to SL Residents, and due to some inherent limitations with SL, it may well not be possible to achieve the performance needed for a good VR experience. (In fact, this is one reason why we’re creating Project Sansar a new, separate platform optimized for VR).

We greatly appreciate the interest in trying SL with the Oculus Rift and are grateful that several of you took the time to try the Project Viewer. We regret that the quality was not up to our standards, and we will of course keep the community posted if we release a new Project Viewer for VR in the future.

Of course people were very unhappy with the new viewer and yes, it was not good enough for people to actually enjoy Second Life with.
But hearing that they may not release another one is very disappointing.

As imperfect as Second Life is for Head Mounted devices at the moment, I still was extremely impressed with my visit to 1920s Berlin wearing the DK1.
Regardless of lag and if the frame-rate was fast enough or not, I was exploring MY world, the place I build and loved.
I didn’t care about the imperfections, I was inside my Second Life.
Of course, if you can’t make it work, releasing (another) viewer is probably a good idea.
But it is going to be months, perhaps even years before most of us can start enjoying Sansar as a virtual world that is as interesting and has as much to offer as Second Life and it really would be nice if we could at least have some fun with the HMD’s in Second Life.
Even with the old Oculus Viewer and head set, I loved every minute I spend in SL with it.

So I hope that that we will see another HMD viewer for SL, regardless.

Ebbe talks Sansar at ZDNet & USA today

Tags

ebbe altberg, ebbe linden, project sansar

Today ZDNet (a business technology news website published by CBS Interactive) published an interview with Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab.

You can read the full article by clicking here, I quote a few bits I found extra interesting below;

“We’re very fortunate to have over a decade of experience regarding what people want to do when they immerse themselves in a digital world,” Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg said.

It is really good that Ebbe keeps telling people this, because that is without doubt the most valuable thing about our Virtual World; we have tons of people with years of experience spending time in VR and creating VR experiences while it seems that so many other people are just getting started… and are reinventing the wheel again and again but that is a story for another time.

With its new VR platform, Linden Lab is aiming to solve that. Called Project Sansar, the platform that will allow just about any user — regardless of technical skill — to build their own VR content at a very low cost. The platform is being billed as “the WordPress or the YouTube of VR.”

Although I’m not so sure yet if we won’t need much technical skill to build (in stead of create with stuff others build) their own VR experience, at least not for a while, I am glad to see it being promoted as the WordPress or Youtube of VR, I think that is a very good way to sell it and maybe the new name of the world should represent this.
Hello VRTube?

The platform is not open source, but it will be compatible with industry standard tools. For example, creators will be able to upload a variety of common 3D file formats (such as .fbx and .obj), and scripting will be done with C#, rather than a language unique to the platform.

No Collada (DAE)?

In Second Life, a person or business can spend nearly $300 a month to host a space (it’s half price for educators and nonprofits, but that’s still a hefty sum). Altberg promised that hosting a Sansar experience will cost in the “tens of dollars” per month.

Now that is good news.
We’ve already been told that “tier” will be a lot lower in Sansar but I think this is the first time we’ve been given a sort of number.
Of course we do not know how much land or “prims” we get for this but I like to think that this means I will be able to host something the size of 1920s Berlin (4 regions) with many more prims for less than $50 a month.

USA Today also published an article about Sansar that you can read by clicking here.
Again, I’ve quoted a few things that stood out for me;

“We’ve never referred to it as Second Life 2.0,“ says Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg of Project Sansar in an interview here. “We think we’re building what will be the easiest ways for users to create virtual reality experiences that are social.  And to make it easy for people to create, share and monetize these experiences.”

The writer is also invited to try Project Sansar and describes his experience;

Donning Oculus Rift headgear, my Sansar demo began on a virtual replica of Mars, before I was teleported to an ancient Egyptian tomb, where I could inspect the hieroglyphics on the walls up close. Soon, I found myself “inside” a 360 video and later spent time in a virtual reality toy room where I was encouraged to knock down a bridge and bat other objects around.

As for moving SL users to Sansar;

Altberg hopes to draw users from Second Life to Project Sansar, while acknowledging the likelihood of some cannibalization. “We obviously have the largest ready to roll audience…. But rather me than someone else,” he says.

Ebbe ends with;

“The luxury we have (in developing Sansar) is that we have already seen people successfully do all of the things I mentioned in Second Life. The true strength of VR will be social.”

 

Using cardboard VR headsets in Second Life

Tags

"second life", cardboard, headset, trinus, virtual reality, VR

A software company called Trinus VR has developed a platform that allows you to enjoy pretty much any game with android operated VR headsets, including the very cheap cardboard ones you can make yourself.
And by bringing the costs down dramatically, it could bring VR to a lot more people.

Simply connect a PC with an android device, slide the latter into one of those headsets and you’re ready to go.
The experience will probably not be as good as with the Vive for instance, but for a fraction of the price, you will be at least able to experiment VR from within your games and… virtual worlds!

And this is where it gets interesting for us.
The technology isn’t that new, Trinus VR has been around for about a year, but now someone has tried it with Second Life!
Of course the experience will probably not be as good as with the fancy pansy whoop dee doc headsets but it will allow you to go into Second Life with VR support without having to wait for the next LL viewer or buy an expensive Oculus or Vive or one of the other headsets.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
Sadly, I don’t have a mobile phone, so I can’t try it out.

Unfortunately there are no plans (yet) for Mac Support.

ESA report; 40% of US gamers likely to buy VR headset within next year

Tags

2016, entertainment software association, ESA, essential facts, gaming, report, women

Every year The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) publishes a report called ‘Essential facts about the Computer and Video Game Industry’.
In it they share some of their facts, figures and findings on computer gaming in the USA.

It is quite interesting to read and made easy for us modern folks by rather nice ‘infographics’ and easy to understand charts.

For those of us who are involved with virtual worlds, VR in general and gaming, pretty much everything in it is interesting but I’ll share a few details in particular just because they relate to me.
And for the record, I’m a 43 year old resident and creator of the virtual reality world Second Life and have been a gamer since ‘Pong’.

In the US women are 41% of all gamers, still the minority.
I think that the main reason women are still behind on the men is because they are still catching up.
When I was a little girl gaming was a bit more of a boys thing, that never stopped me, I was always one of those girls who did whatever she wanted, who played war with the kids next door, set stuff on fire, fell out of trees and got into fights.
But I am glad that the number of women gamers is going up.

48% of the most frequent gamers play social games.
This might be a good bit of info for Ebbe to mention in a next interview, Second Life and Sansar could, I guess, be seen as “social games” and being part of something that is almost half the entire game market sounds good.

This one is very interesting.
40% of all US gamers say they will likely purchase “VR” within the next year.
This is of course a silly state ment as you can’t really buy VR, so they obviously mean VR headsets.
There are about 117 million households in the US, 63% of these are home to at least one person who plays video games regularly (3 hours or more per week).
That means that roughly 23.5 million people in the US alone are planning to purchase a VR headset.
There are still some people out there who are sceptical and think all this will be a phase and that VR will fail again, but everything seems to be pointing in the opposite direction.
Disclaimer; I can’t do math.

If you want to read the entire report you can find it by clicking here.

 

I will not buy an Oculus Rift any time soon

Tags

headset, oculus rift, virtual reality

So, the Oculus rift is finally going to be commercially available.

They are now available for pre-order  and will start shipping from March 28th onwards.

But… and here comes the sting… it is going to cost $599.

That is just too much.
And here in the Netherlands you’ll even be paying $750.
This does not even include their special controllers.

And that while Palmer Luckey himself only a few months ago answered a question by Road to VR about if the consumer Oculus Rift price would come in around that $350 ballpark target with;

You know, I’m going to be perfectly honest with you. We’re roughly in that ballpark… but it’s going to cost more than that.

Must be nice to live in a world where $599 is roughly in the same ballpark s $350.

Either way, it seems they are selling them, lots of them.

But as excited as I am about all the new tech that is coming, I am not willing (or able) to spend this much on a headset.
Especially as I’ll also need to buy a new computer to handle VR properly as it doesn’t even work on my MacBook.

So even though I’m grateful to Oculus for sort of kickstart the VR renaissance, I also think they messed up.
Not only because of the high price they are asking for it but also because I think they missed the boat.
All this has taken them so long, that the competition has been developing other headsets as well, cheaper ones.
The Oculus will not be as much a seller as it would/could have been at half the price.
I think this may even slow down the spread of VR.

If even someone like me, who is crazy about VR and wants a good headset so badly, thinks that the Oculus headset is too expensive and will just not buy one, imagine what the average gamer or potential VR user will think
And let’s not even think about .general gamers, museums, schools and regular folks will think about this ‘toy.
While they should have brought us a good but cheap Rift that everyone would have wanted to buy and thus make sure that VR headsets end up in as many households as possible.

Do they really think we all want or need those special headphones, a game, a remote and an x box controller?
Because we pay extra for those, maybe not much, but it adds up.
Did they really have to spend so much time to develop all these extra things and their special new controllers?
I personally think they should have sold a basic Rift before Christmas and then sell all that other stuff separately for those who want them.
Now they missed the holiday sales and ended up with a very expensive toy.

But Palmer explains;

To reiterate, we are not making money on Rift hardware. High end VR is expensive, but Rift is obscenely cheap for what it is.

— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) January 6, 2016

I think and hope that the competition will now step up and offer us a good VR headset for at least half the price.
Oculus may have just ruined the opportunity of a life time.

I am secretly looking towards the people at Apple.
We know they have been acquiring quite a few VR related patents and are working on something…
And at least if they build a headset it will work on my Mac…

Will you be getting an Oculus Rift?

Photo copyright; Oculus.

 

The Infinadeck, a truly omnidirectional treadmill

Tags

infinadeck, omnidirectional, treadmill

A year or so ago I saw a video showing the Infinadeck, an omnidirectional treadmill to be used for Virtual Reality.
I loved it and got excited about its potential.
A couple of days ago they released a video showing the new and improved version;

I know, I know, it is huge.
But it is a lot smaller than the previous version;

Once more it is the potential that is exciting, not (yet) the actual device.
Right now it looks great and seems useable in an arcade, laboratorium  or military HQ.
But too big for my room and probably too expensive, for now.

This will become interesting to us all once it gets even smaller and cheaper.
It has to fit in a regular room and be affordable.

But this is still early days, it is not important what the device looks like now but what does matter is how it has improved in the last year and how it actually works.
It is brilliant in its simplicity.
I once tried to think about how an omnidirectional treadmill would work and my brain exploded.
But their solution is so basic yet so sophisticated.
I think this might be the technique to go with.

Is this something we VR users want?
Yes and no.
I guess it depends on who you are and what you do in VR.
I personally love realism and would not mind at all being absolutely exhausted after a VR gunfight or having to actually walk everywhere in Second Life.
I think it will be fun but it will also finally give us a chance to actually get off our fat backsides and get some exercise without having to stop doing what we love.

The Teslasuit, a full haptic experience in VR

Tags

haptic, suit, tesla, teslasuit, virtual reality, VR

Even though I am generally promoting a VR experience that involves fewer wearables and not more, here is one gadget I might be tempted into wearing.

The Teslasuit allows you to undergo a wide array of sensations while exploring or gaming (or whatever else) in Virtual Reality.
From the expected bullet hits and punches, it also promises to let you experience wind, water, heat, cold and even something as subtle as a hug or stroke.
Yes, they really do promise that during your next visit to a VR beach, you’ll feel the water at your feet and the wind on your body.

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Incorporated within the suit is a mesh of sensors that pick up and translate actions in VR into electric impulses that you’ll experience as pressure.
It is called neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) and is generally used for exercise, physical therapy, etc.
You’ve probably seen it done with little patches stuck to the skin.

It comes close to the Haptic Suit we know from the bestseller book ‘Ready player one‘, soon to be made into a Spielberg movie.

 

Just like with most VR related gadgets and VR itself, it is hard to imagine or understand how well it works and how much an impact it makes until you’ve actually tried it.
So checking out some of the videos that show people wearing and testing the suit is what got me excited.
Have a look at some of them by clicking here.

It is still early days and like many other gadgets being developed for VR these days we know that it is only the beginning and things will continue to get better, cheaper, lighter, etc.

I can imagine a not too distant future where VR haptic suits become even lighter and thinner, much cheaper and will cover your entire body, including your face and hands.
And that they can also be used to send signals to VR, not just receive them and when you close your hand, your avatar will close her hand.
I think that giving us gloves that allow us to actually feel what our avatars are touching or holding, or at least create some sort of sensation when you push a button or open a door, will change a lot of things.
I think the Teslasuit guys are working on those as well, and perhaps next a haptic balaclava so you’ll feel it when I slap you in the face for telling a dirty joke in my virtual bar in 1920s Berlin in Second Life.

When we have the ultimate suit that does everything, we will no longer need to place sensors in our rooms or wave controllers about the place.
And maybe they’ll add heat and cold pads that will be able to actually make you feel colder or warmer.
Maybe one day we can get rid of all our gadgets and wearables and just wear the suit and the headset to do everything.
One suit to rule them all.

The benefits of these suits are obvious; VR experiences become more real, more complete.
In games you actually feel a hit when someone shoots you, when you go sailing you feel the wind and the water, when you are with someone you care about you feel their hand shake, their hug or their hand on your shoulder.
And yes, I am avoiding the obvious, I’m too much of an old fashioned prude to discuss VR hanky panky with you lot.
I’ll leave that to your dirty, dirty imagination 😉

The Kickstarter went live yesterday and they hope it will get developers on board who will start creating experiences for their suit.
Their goal is £250,000 and as I write this the total stands at £7,649 £9,758.
Check out their video below and the Kickstarter page by clicking here.

 

Personally I am very excited about this development, not specifically this suit, because right now I couldn’t even afford one and I think that this technology still has some way to go, but it is more the potential that I love, I can see what this will be used for in the future.
It is the possibilities that are most exciting.

All pictures copyright Tesla Studios & Kickstarter.