Express Yourself Release - July 18, 2018

New Features

Client

• Upload your own avatar bodies - Create a new unique look for yourself or for others! You can now upload your own avatar bodies using Sansar's skeletons available here. Creators can also list their avatar creations to share or sell on the store. See Importing custom avatars for more information.
• Better people search - The people app search tool has been upgraded. Previously, you can only find users by typing their complete Avatar ID. Now, you can also find other users even if you type their Avatar Name or even type their names partially.
• Comfort zone settings - You can now set the distance at which the comfort zone in first person triggers for both friends and non-friends! For more information, see Settings.
• Audio Device settings - You can now set your input and output audio devices from within Sansar! For more information, see Settings.
• Chat improvements - New keyboard shortcut, CTRL+T, that allows you to open the chat app! FBIK improvements - Ikenema has been improved to improve avatar movement in VR. The improvements include better handling of forearm twist bones, better clavicle motion and less droopiness in clavicles, and better constraint handling in shoulders.
• New avatar assets - Enjoy some free new outfits from the look book inventory!
  • Lolita outfit (Female) - For a full look, pair the lolita hair, full outfit and shoes!
  • Punk outfit (Female) - Full clothing outfit and shoes
  • Goth outfit (Male) - Full clothing outfit and shoes
  • Adventurer outfit (Male) - Full clothing outfit and shoes
• Events update - You can now duplicate events so you can easily host the same event more than once. See here for more details.
• Standardize geometry option - By default, all objects uploaded into Sansar will go through an optimization process that makes objects more efficient. This option allows you to forgo the optimization process on the upload window. See here for more details.
• Animated materials update - You can now specify which textures in the material will be subject to the scrolling effect. This affects the following shaders:
  • Standard + Emissive + UV animation
  • Standard + Alpha MAsk - UV animation
• Overall client improvements
  • Log out, not exit - Now you can log out of Sansar without having to exit or close the App completely. When you log out, you will be brought back to the log in page so you don’t always have to restart Sansar from scratch whenever you want to go back.
  • Panel persistence - The placement of your panels are now remembered between sessions. This means that if you move the chat app panel from one place to another, it will always load to that new place you added the panel to.
• Other editing mode improvements
  • View the total triangle count of objects when the object is selected in the scene in Edit mode.
  • The properties panel now works when multiple objects are selected. You can also change the value of a property and apply it across multiple items simultaneously.
  • Position/rotation property values update live as you drag the gizmo.
  • Rotation values no longer flip 180 degrees as you enter values
  • Scene settings no longer close the properties panel and vice versa. They can now be displayed at the same time.
• Scripting
  • New HTTP API that allows data to be read by external services. As a key note, the data that will be shared may contain personal data such as:
    • Avatar name
    • A user's unique avatar identifier
    • When an avatar visits the experience
    • When an avatar leaves the experience
    • Where in the experience 3D space the avatar exists whilst in the experience
    • Public chat of avatars whilst in the experience
  • Multiple new simple scripts to play with right from the inventory:
    • SimpleInteractions - Send events when the object is clicked/touched
    • SimpleCollisions - Send events on collisions.
    • SimpleLight - Set the light to one of two modes.
    • SimpleHotkey - Send events when particular keyboard keys are pressed.
    • SimpleAnimation - Play an object's animation, or parts of its animation. Use multiple copies of this script to control more than two ranges of animation.
    • SimpleTimer - Send events at regular intervals.
    • SimpleTeleport - Teleports the person who triggered the event either locally within the scene or to another scene.
    • SimpleDebugger - Turn on debugging for other simple scripts.
    • SimpleSound - Play a sound in response to events. Requires an AudioComponent on the object to have the sound follow the object, but will work without an AudioComponent to play at the position or the object or not spatialized.
    • SimplePrompt - Shows a two button prompt to a user as a response to an event, and sends events based on the user's response to the prompt. SimpleMover
    • SimpleVisitors - Send events when users join or leave your experience.
    • Matching script properties are no longer reset when you select a different script or import a new one.
    • Fbx files containing multiple animation clips can be imported.
    • For more information, see Script API updates.
• Behavior changes
  • Networking local authority - The networking model has been changed to make user interactions with their avatars and the world more responsive regardless of network latency. The change improves user input and interactions with dynamic bodies, which changes how some interactions work in Sansar. This is the first iteration towards this change and we will continue to improve it for even more responsive interactions.
    • Implications on Physics - Interacting with dynamic bodies will be completely responsive. However, multiple users interacting with the same body will lead to "pops" as multiple user interactions are reconciled on the server. This means that the dynamic bodies will move instantaneously form one position to another.
    • Implications on Scripting - There are no changes on server-side scripting. However, now that inputs are applied immediately on the client, server interactions may feel more lagged as scripting interactions still round trip to the server.
  • Rendering of tinted emissive materials - We are introducing new changes that will affect the rendering of emissive materials. The Tint attribute, which affects the color of a surface, now affects emissive surfaces. Previously, Tint attribute only affected non-emissive surfaces. This means that emissive textures (e.g. a light bulb) can now be colored via “Tint”. However, these changes may affect existing content where the Tint value had been changed from the default value.

Web

• Merchant dashboard - Sellers on the Sansar Store can now see stats about their store sales.
• Sansar Dollar Balance - Have you ever wondered if there could be a quicker way to buy Sansar dollars? Check out our new Sansar dollar bundles, which is easily accessible at any time! For more information, see Buying Sansar dollars.
• Events update - You can now add an event to your personal calendars. We currently support saving events to your Sansar calendar, Google calendar, Apple iCalendar, Yahoo calendar, and Outlook calendar. See how here.

Documentation

New Articles

• Buying Sansar dollars
• Importing custom avatars
• Sansar skeleton and skinning details
• Optimizing 3D model geometry
• Object info toolbar
• Simple Scripts user guide
• Simple Chat Command
• Simple Collisions
• Simple Hotkey
• Simple Interaction
• Simple Prompt
• Simple Timer
• Simple Visitors
• Simple Animation
• Simple Chat
• Simple Debugger
• Simple Light
• Simple Mover
• Simple Sound
• Simple Teleport
• World-space adjustment

Updated Articles

• Avatar attachments (accessories)
• Importing clothing
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Materials editing and shaders
• Settings
• Upcoming Events in Sansar

Note: For updates on the Script API documentation, see Script API updates.

Known Issues

Resolved known issues from previous releases

• Animations paused with JumpToFrame() do not resume from the paused frame if Play() is called immediately afterwards.
• Script functions to set RigidBody position, orientation, and velocity on static objects are reported as a success, despite failing to move static objects. As a note, static objects cannot be moved by scripts.
• Unlinked scenes could not be linked to new experiences. This fix should now resolve the issue reported here. 
• Avatars cannot run while the mouse cursor is hovering over an interactive object.
• No pagination on All Events and My Events tabs in the Events app.
• More Options button can steal focus from the X icon in the People app from the scene editor.
• Some client login screen link labels are cropped when resolution is low.
• Medium length event titles are cut off by the right edge of the Atlas in the client.
• Thumbnails in profiles will initially appear offset before correcting themselves when using the People app.
• View Profile tooltip text still appears after the profile has been opened from the People app.
  Avatars appear to have slouching shoulders after calibrating height in VR.
• Sansar will crash when toggling out of VR while the user avatar is loading.
• Falloff for Audio shapes happens way outside the bounds of the visible shapes, when previewed in the Scene Editor.
• Avatar wrists have IK candy wrapping issues when turning them inward and outward in VR.
• Custom color tints made in the material editor at upload do not remain the same tint after the asset is uploaded.
• Uneven reduction of some high poly meshes.
  Users are not being informed well enough when an upload fails due to unsupported textures.
• Rigid body volumes with VolumeType box can be set to impossible scales in editor UI, leading to crashes.
• Right click context menu lock states do not update as expected.
• An app icon overlay can cover up the properties panel which will prevent input on the panel, even if the gradient overly isn't visibly active.
• Editor panels do not remain where the user placed them.
• Camera speed values are not saved and stored between sessions.
• Script properties revert back to default values when uploading a script while the properties panel is open.
• Spam-deleting scene assets crashes Sansar..
• The object floating panel does not track a select assets gizmo when first selected.
• Lock stats is not always respected when selecting an asset or its components.
• Cancelling a build can take just as long as letting the build finish.
• Focusing on an asset while the user cam is pointing up or down causes the orbit cam to orbit from far away.
• Shader texture dropdowns can appear to run into other texture fields.
• Avatars fall unnaturally in experiences with low gravity.
• Avatars will move forward on their own after running.
• Dynamic objects have nonzero velocity after falling off world edge and respawning.
• Repeated alpha textures shadows do not match the repeated texture.

Known issues for this release

You can view the full known issues list from previous releases here.