The most recent Sansar meeting was held at 114 Harvest by Draxtor and Ria.
During the July 21 Sansar office hours, machinima artist and podcaster Draxtor (of “The Drax Files” fame) gave attendees a walk-through of 114 Harvest. The experience, co-created with Ria, is described as “a quaint little town that harbors a dark secret.” The tour included a visit to a recreation of Drax’s former real-life residence in a small California town. Visitors were promptly guided to hang out in his basement, which includes a flat screen TV playing videos and some social games optimized for those who were in VR mode. In the corner of the basement, there is also a podcast studio that Drax plans to use for future episodes of “The Drax Files Radio Hour.”
Community members explore Drax’s basement at 114 Harvest.
THE NEXT RELEASE
A new Sansar release is coming this week! This is sooner than expected, as the release cycle has typically been at the beginning of each month. While details of the new release were not revealed, it was confirmed that the community can expect some new features and that it will not include the previously-announced Terrain Editor.
COMING SOON: DISCORD CHAT
During the meeting, it was announced that there will soon be official community and creator channels on the gaming chat platform Discord. Long-time creator preview users have had access to private Slack channels, but those will soon be transitioned. Stay tuned for more details.
Afternoon visitors explored Bowling Alley, a gaming lab experience by Gindipple.
COMMUNITY Q&A
As during all community meetings, there was a robust question-and-answer session that enabled participants to ask questions and provide feedback to the Sansar team. Here are some highlights from this week’s meetings:
Will Sansar be in the Oculus Store upon launch?
We want to be everywhere we can be, but no announcement has been made on whether we will be on the Oculus Store.
Will Sansar creators get access to the avatar skeleton so we can make our own avatars? Also, will we be able to create non-playable characters (NPCs)?
We’re not at the point yet where publishing the skeleton would be useful for anyone yet, according to Software Engineer Nyx. Characters will still have several fundamental changes to how they work so we don’t want to release anything publicly yet since things already made will have to be re-done a bit.
We do expect to support NPCs, but we need to get avatars working first. Once we get the underlying system ready, then we’ll move forward with support with NPC. Fundamentally, there’s not any reason why we can’t do NPCs.
Visitors found many four-legged friends during a tour of oYo Lounge by oYo Development Studio.
Is there a public place that we can find the Sansar roadmap?
No public roadmap has been shared, but members of the Sansar team are always available to address specific questions weekly in our open office hours. The community can also ask specific questions in the Sansar forums. Developers who are working on specific experiences for Sansar are encouraged to utilize these community outreach outlets.
Will there be a Level of Detail (LOD) system for Sansar?
An LOD system is on the roadmap.
Will the UI windows be resizeable and moveable?
That is being looked at by the development team, but we don’t have any specific timeline for availability.
Visitors also played matches of tic-tac-toe against an artificial intelligence opponent at Do Not Lose by wade665.
Can the default “safety bubble” be reduced a bit so that we have an easier time getting around people in narrow spaces?
The development and product teams will take a look to see how the current setting is impacting mobility in various experiences and scenes.
What about running and sitting? Will those be available soon?
We are looking at both features and expect to have them available eventually. One consideration with running is how the fast motion might impact VR users (who can be negatively impacted by some sudden or fast movements).
Will we keep our experiences when we go live?
Yes! Stay tuned for specific information on how we'll recognize participants in our Creator Preview with the ability to keep a limited number of experiences active for free in Sansar. More details soon!
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