Sansar Youtube channel opens with impressive new video

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channel, draxtor despres, loz hyde, sansar, youtube

Today the official Sansar youtube channel was officially opened with a brand new video made by Draxtor Despres.

The video shows Loz Hyde (of Meshworx fame) who was invited to join Sansar before its official opening and who has been working on a location he calls The Grand Hall.
And grand it is!

 

I’ve seen probably all the Sansar footage Linden Lab released, what was leaked here and there and all the screenshots I could find but to be honest, so far most of it didn’t look that different from what you could see in Second Life.

But with this video, for me at least, this all changes.
What we see is stunning.
The building is not new, not specifically made for Sansar, it also exists in Second Life
This means that we can actually go inworld to check it out and then compare it to what it looks like in Sansar.
You can find the building inworld by clicking here for a slurl.
I think it looks a lot better in Sansar, the light, the textures, the reflections, the effects, it is all absolutely amazing.
Of course much of that is thanks to the talents of Mr. Hyde, but you can see that the technology of Sansar is clearly superior to that of Second Life and pretty much any virtual world out there at the moment.

I’m the first to admit I’m a little behind on what is going on in the gaming world (the joys of owning a MacBook) but I would even say that the way Sansar looks in this video comes very close to the kind of big commercial games people are playing today.

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In short, for a first official Sansar video, they’ve done rather well and placed something online that is rather impressive.

Drax told me this is the first of a series of Sansar videos he’s making so watch this space.

You can see the video here;

 

First 360 degrees video recorded within Second Life

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"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;

New Drax Files World Makers Episode 30: Maylee Oh

Tags

drax files, draxtor despres

Another splendid Drax Files episode has been released today, as usual Draxtor Despres managed to make an impressive and wonderful short documentary about one of Second Life’s creative and talented inhabitants.

Enjoy and share!

Drax writes;

Paris, France based Maylee Oh makes a living by designing female apparel for avatars who live in the virtual world of Second Life.

“I can run my own business the way I like in terms of product and customer service!” says the 28-year old who worked for the better part of 8 years to establish her brand “The Secret Store”.

She is using a mix of creative tools such as Blender and Photoshop to arrive at a a unique and simple style that is quite popular among the millions of avatars from all around the world roaming the vast digital universe.

And even being a freelance designer does not mean being lonely in front of a computer because Maylee’s international collaborators share a virtual workspace in Second Life, they work indeed side by side and can productively socialize as if they were together in the physical realm.

The concept of virtual goods and services as a means of income may still be esoteric for many says Maylee but she adds: “…when skeptical friends say it is a waste to spend money on dressing up an avatar I usually reply that they are buying my time, my idea of style that they can make their own. It is not a waste. A lot of thought and work went into this. Everyone including me wants to make their avatar look good, because clothing is personal expression! What is wrong with that?”

Quite so!

For more information about Maylee check out http://www.thesecretstoresl.com/

Big thanks to Marianne McCann and all the great extra actors who participated in making this episode. Special thanks to Maylee’s
office colleagues – sorry to keep you from working during this production!

All animated images by Maylee Oh.