1

A hello, First impressions, and hopefully not a goodbye..

Amazon Lily

August 06, 2017 22:17

None

Follow

 Hello,

I thought i'd give sansar a try since it went open beta a few days ago, and a few things made me ask myself a pretty bad question for any product..

So i create my account, select my avatar.. and oh god.. that's some Linden AVI design here ^^ we all look indian, with hands twice too big.. well, hopefully, content creators will have human looking choices soon.

Downloading the app with an annoying music i can't stop

Updating the app with a music i can't stop

Starting the app and getting to the Atlas, with a music i can't stop..

I look for an options screen, nothing at all.. I decide to mute Sansar from the windows mixer for the time being and load an experience (it was the Apollo 11 museum).

I have a 24mb DSL and this took me about 10 minutes to load.. that's just crazy long after spending 20 minutes just for the install, but what the heck, it's beta, i move along..

I finally arrive in the experience, and there either, no options screen.. So typing all the keys to figure out things. Turns out i can't switch to azerty layout, so WASD is out and i use the arrows (i later found the online documentation, but having a simple options screen and guide IN the app would be better).

First thing that renders the whole thing totally unuseable is that crazy camera jitter !!!

Whenever i turn in 3rd person, the camera bounces left to right like it's mounted on springs or something! i end up walking like a wino trying to go straight!

After adapting to the crap factor of the camera i started to ask myself that bad question... but.. maybe that experience is to blame.. so i go back to the atlas and load a pretty one with a garden, little house, plants, trees.. it was smaller, "only" 5 minutes to load..

while it loaded i grabbed my Xbox controller and gave it a try. turns out there is a short range teleport that kind of compensate for the extremely slow walk and lack of run or jump features.

One person appears then two, we start to talk and an annoying bug comes up.

Whenever the chat is active, the camera controls on the xbox controller stop working. I have to click away from the chat to have the camera work (with that jitter again.. god..)..

Visited another experience after that, and, besides the changed scene.. it's pretty much the same.. walk about, and go back to the atlas.

I know Sansar is not SL2, i was not coming with Secondlife in mind but to see what sansar was about.. and that's the bad question i was asking myself since the beginning :

What.. is.. Sansar ?

All the experiences i tried.. you wait.. walk.. chat if someone is here.. with a different background to visit.

There are no interactions i can see with anything besides bumping on objects. VR users may be able to manipulate a box or a ball maybe, but i could not find anything to do besides talking to the occasional visitor.

It seems Sansar is just a glorified 3D chat since that's all you can do.

I looked in the website. There are wikis, help sections, minimum requirements, controls, this forum etc etc.. but not anything telling what Sansar is, or is aiming to be.

If experience creators can only make (very pretty) chat rooms, then the comparison with SL will always be made by visitors coming from SL.

Why invest in a better computer, buy expensive VR glasses, and put on yourself insanely long loading times to do less than you could do in SL or in any 3D game or app, namely walk and chat? Simply put : What is Sansar meant to be? what is the idea behind it?

 

 

106 comments

• 3
  
  Chris Jackson August 07, 2017 09:28

  Two major factors are at play here...

  1) This is BETA. Many who come here have too high expectations because they simply do not understand the game development process.

  2) Many who are building in Sansar are not familiar with game development so they build in a very heavy inefficient way, and that makes their exp load slower than it could be. They don't understand how to test things before they implement, then they stand back and complain it doesn't work like magic.

  Bottom Line...The party here has not started yet. We are still decorating at this point. The early guests that have arrived shouldn't expect the place to be fully decorated. 

  Content...One thing to keep in mind concerning load times...many are using models for terrain, which is NOT the way to do it, but they are impatient wanting nice looking dirt yesterday. For now its a trade off till they implement the terrain editor.

  It does appear from my testing that having large models with large surface areas can cause slower load times. For instance, having one large plane for the terrain is not as fast as breaking it up into sections and only using it where you must. But that is temporary till the editor. Learning how to use occlusion is an art form all its own.

  Users...be patient with us creators, we are getting there. If you cannot be patient, learn this stuff for yourself and have at it.

  Creators...learn to build more efficiently. and no matter what TEST, TEST, TEST.

• 3
  
  Galen August 07, 2017 11:55

  I suspect you joined Second Life years after it was a mature product. When I joined in 2005, it was quite primitive, and that was already after about 5 years of development and nearly two years since it had opened as a public beta. Those who were there before me told me how it was pretty much a blank canvas that people walked around in with little to do but just chat. Sound familiar?

  Fast forward to today. There are two ways to look at Sansar's tech. You can either say, "boy, this sure is a step back," or, "boy, it's neat that they let us into it so early on." I favor the latter. They are purposely calling this a "creator beta" to distinguish it from a general beta. In LL's mind, Sansar is not at the point where users should expect to "do" much here. They know it's not ready.

  Among other things, LL's focus up until now has been on getting the graphics engine solid. You gotta admit it's pretty slick. But the back-end, which none of us directly sees yet which is critical, has been a key focus, too. Being able to dynamically load an experience onto a scene server within a couple seconds is pretty amazing, but we don't think much about that because we're used to sim servers being always on and wasting tons of expensive resources.

  As for what to "do" in Sansar, that's an odd question. You know, people not in SL ask the same of SL. What is there to do there? It's not a game. It's a platform for developing content. And a lot of people have over the years. Sansar is likewise a platform. What there is to do is entirely up to us. Yes, it's full of frustrating limits for now, but that's changing and will continue to.

  Believe me, we're all frustrated by Sansar's shortcomings. The same ones you've cited we've discussed repeatedly in the forums here and in private. But if you can't overlook them for now, I'd say you should probably set Sansar aside and come back in a couple years when it's more out of its beta phase. Sansar has a lot of maturing to do and it will.

• 3
  
  Chris Jackson August 07, 2017 18:22

  One main point they talk about is that VR was tried with SL, but the base structure to the software is not able to handle it. It was not designed for VR. There is no further development possible in SL in that sense. The software foundation won't allow for it. You cannot just "tweak it" and make things work in that scenario. You must have a new base structure to work from, and that is what Sansar is, a whole new platform from the digital ground up. This is not SL indeed.

  They make a real solid point with building their own engine. Like they said, if they used Unreal, etc, they would be at the mercy of those companies. Sansar is built in-house and it belongs to LL. THAT is a huge advantage from a development stand point.

  Edited by Chris Jackson August 07, 2017 18:25
• 3
  
  Chris Jackson August 08, 2017 15:28

  Granddad,

   

  They said they didn't want to go with Unreal or any other engine because they wouldn't be able to control what happens when updates come around. They would be at the mercy of Epic, and that is not good. Being another company's bitch is never good.

  With their own engine that is not an issue. Nothing will break when an update is released.

  Makes total sense and I applaud that thinking.

• 3
  
  Lat Lovenkraft August 09, 2017 04:08

  People either criticize SL for not keeping up or Sansar with being too advanced for the equipment availability. Eventually prices will come down as will the size of the equipment and in x years when Sansar matures, it won't all of a sudden be behind the times. They are trying to think forward from what i gather.  For those with crossed arms laying on the sofa saying "entertain me"...i agree this is not for them.

  My face is blue.

  This is a creators platform. Its not meant to be SL with prettier graphics. Its not meant to be a gaming platform. Its not another adult-content host. Its not a social gathering place.

  Granted the maturing flavor may incorporate flavors of some of those in due time but at the moment its for creators to create assets for non-creators to create with.  A lot of things, by an order of magnitude, are being undertaken for the 1st time.

  If it was just a fun place to hang out and socialize and interact with stuff, then they might have presented a different showcase. But that was not their stated intention. I have put on my long-term thinking hat. I see where its going. Have patience. Their progress will be faster than SL from Day 1, from what I've seen and heard.

  I am sure its harder, much harder than critics make it sound. So many critics have the 'magic bullet'. "It's simple...all you have to do is ...". I am surprised they don't have great minds working on this day and night for years cycling thru all the possible scenarios weighing pros and cons.

• 3
  
  Debi Baskerville June 03, 2018 12:23

  I love Sansar from both a creator's view and a visitor's view. Yes, there is more to do here if you are a creator but there's still lots to do if only "visiting'. 

  In the nine months since you've visited we've gotten clothing created by users. If you shop the store you'll find lots of free clothing and attachments to dress up your avatar. I agree that much is needed to improve the looks of the avatar, and that's coming. They are currently working on improving the avatar head with our being able to customize the face so we don't all look like brothers and sisters. 

  Perhaps dressing up your avatar isn't your cup of tea, so what else could you do? You can buy free items in the store or spend a little bit of money and buy some Sansar dollars and then purchase some non-free items. With those items you can use one of your three free experiences to build out a hang out place for you and invite your friends to open a free Sansar account and come over and see what you put together.

  If you want to see what you can do with things purchased from the store go visit my home experience. I only used items available in the store to put that entire experience together. You don't need to be a creator to have a wonderful home in Sansar for FREE! 

  Here's the link to my home experience. I used free and non-free items to build out my experience. 

  https://atlas.sansar.com/experiences/debibaskerville/serenity 

  I'm not sure why you are having issues with experiences loading for you. I have a normal connection and my computer barely meets the base requirements but I don't have any issues loading experiences.

  I'm a firm believer that life is what you make of it .. whether that life is physical or virtual. If you come to Sansar with the attitude that something or someone needs to prove that it's worth your time, I doubt you'll find satisfaction, but if you come here with the attitude of .. hey, something new to learn and figure out how to use it to it's best advantage and then share with my friends .. I think you'll be surprised.

  By the way, I am still active in Second Life. I don't see this as a choice between one or the other. I enjoy my time in both. Sansar just enhances what I was already doing with my time. I now have more choice than before I joined Sansar.

  Edited by Debi Baskerville June 03, 2018 12:26
• 2
  
  Neen August 07, 2017 11:03

  More specifically, it's a creator beta. Overall, there are so many essential features missing that Sansar definitely qualifies as an alpha product.

  Right now, the only user experience (if you're not creating) is walking around experiences and talking to people. LL has said that they'll improve on the social/interaction aspect in the future.

• 2
  
  Kallah August 07, 2017 13:02

  I would guess the "strong feeling of SL" comes from this being open creator beta, for whom the vast majority of creators are indeed from SL. I'm not sure why it seems to be a go for all to come and try (aside from maybe seeing how it does with more traffic) but I think the key word is "creator".

• 2
  
  Galen August 07, 2017 13:19

  After having read and listened to the many very careful statements by Linden Lab on this, I've come to the conclusion that they are telling the literal truth but implying something quite different to the casual listener.

  The truth (as I interpret their statements) is that Sansar is going to replace Second Life in the long term. Think "years" and not "months". They know full well it could not right now because most SL residents would need to upgrade their computers, high bandwidth Internet access must increase, the system is not yet feature-rich, and there is little content here. What's more, SL is still a cash cow that's paying for all of this, so it would not make sense to squeeze it dry by encouraging everyone to migrate right now.

  The implication of their statements to the careless listener (again, in my opinion) is that Sansar is a totally different animal and that it and SL can forever live side by side. I think that's a fiction. Sansar is already essentially the same as SL. There are many features left to add, but I have no doubt they will add them.

  Edited by Galen August 07, 2017 13:26
• 2
  
  Praline August 07, 2017 15:51

  @Galen, you said it so well!

  After three weeks, wandering in Sansar, reading the forum, documentation,etc, I came to the same thought. Sansar is the concrete vision of a future that SL could have been if it had been built on different bases. SL is still evolving. But making it evolve in the direction of better graphics, VR etc is not possible due to its basis. For sure between 5 and 10 years from now, SL will be really obsolete compared to what Sansar will be. For now, the both can live together ;)

  @Amazon Lily, your comments are so fresh, I like them and I think you got the good answer to your main question from Galen ;)  Your conclusion is great : "The cool thing is, having seen Sansar so early, seeing it evolve and mature will be pretty amazing" I share it ;)

  And I will add that for now Second Life, Opensimulator, Unity, etc are amazing worlds and experiences but Sansar is something to come with great promises, something in progress of which we do not yet mastered all the contours...

   

• 2
  
  Galen August 07, 2017 16:46

  @Gindipple: You shoot it?

  https://youtu.be/Qp2KCiyvz3c?t=48

  Just kidding. SL is still pretty amazing and it's got a solid life ahead of it, at least for the next few years.

  Edited by Galen August 07, 2017 16:47
• 2
  
  Chris Jackson August 07, 2017 17:22

  Those new to Sansar really need to read this...straight from the horses mouth you might say

  https://modemworld.me/2017/08/05/bjorn-and-widely-linden-discuss-sansar/

• 2
  
  Chris Jackson August 07, 2017 17:30

  I honestly believe once Sansar is up and fully running and has a little time for the population to settle in, people will start to wonder why they stay in SL.

  SL is technologically at its limits, and those limits are really outdated. Sansar will hit it's limits in several more years and the next gen of technology will step in. It's the result of Moore's Law.

  Sansar however is JUST getting started technologically. Imagine when Sansar is 15 years old! Think long term folks, its the future.

  Anybody see the tv show "Year Million"? The mindset behind Sansar is made clear as to how they see the future.

  Think beyond Sansar and you will see SL is just one step in the journey. Sansar is the next step.

• 2
  
  Gindipple August 08, 2017 13:47

  Don't be fooled by 4km x 4km. If the resources like memory and clock cycles crumble at 64m x 64m with avg. item and script density, then that's your effective region size.

   

   

  Static mesh is great if all you want is a display, interactivity however cost.

  Visuals = attraction

  Interactivity = retention

  Understandably they have focused on the first half so far, now let's see what they can do on the second part.

   

• 2
  
  Theanine August 09, 2017 04:16

  Well said, Lat.

  People just need to have some patience.

  I'm personally very optimistic about the platform, because in their public statements,like in that modemworld interview, Linden Lab has pretty much  laid to rest every concern I had. Every feature I want that is currently missing (like LODs, non-humanoid avatars, etc), will be coming, eventually. They are either hard at work at them already, or have at least planned them for the future.

  If you don't want to wait until then, Second Life is still there, it's not going away! Sansar is not a replacement for SL.

• 2
  
  Debi Baskerville June 09, 2018 11:39

  There have been many changes to the UI since your first post back in August. To list a very few of those that should be readily noticeable to casual visitors are -> We can move and resize windows. We have more ways of selecting things in the Atlas by way of additional tabs. Those new tabs are events and favorites among others. We have additional buttons to the right of the screen that will let you set the volume of voices and sound in an experience. There are other tools there as well. Probably the biggest difference a casual user will see is how the lookbook works and the method to clothe your avatar. We can search by name for our friends and send them messages directly once they accept our friendship request. You can see which of your friends are in game. 

  Perhaps you forget but back in August we couldn't even run, we couldn't dance or sit. So those are huge changes. It doesn't take hours to test those things. It take minutes .. maybe five minutes. Those of us who use desktop couldn't interact with objects. We can now pick things up and move them. 

  Perhaps the reason you don't perceive a change is that you are looking for certain things and because those things haven't changed or have not been added yet, you come to the conclusion that nothing has changed. Is that fair?

  I will totally agree that things are moving much slower than I'd like, but to be fair, I'm not a developer. I don't begin to know what it takes to make things happen. I have to give myself a stern lecture from time to time to be more patient. 

• 1
  
  VR Architect August 06, 2017 23:15

  My load times for new experiences are about 1-2 minutes. I run HTC Vive with no lag nor performance issues unless there are about 40 avatars in an experience at the same time. 

• 1
  
  gfcprogramer August 07, 2017 02:58

  Can I comment too? I love Sansar, but I agree with you!

  I agree with you, just  Xbox controller, is better on early stages in relation to the old SL, because they never really worked with them on the fly, (pc controllers is terrible there)  it have been 14 years already without good control, and no way to play on the couch until now without , so I would love to see they fix such minor issues with controller and camera as they open up a stages, as game developer I know is not that much of a bug... Is all because they give it very low priority here.

  But of course with that athletic movements, jumps, we can only imagine they would never care so much about control :).

  "It seems Sansar is just a glorified 3D chat since that's all you can do."

  Yes... but is not even that. I cannot sit, lay or choose my own avatar beside their own taste, how can I talk?
  May I jump and run on some hills like Goku?
  No They are reeeeeeally slow, and we have some scripts they can have on some stages but is not the same.

  The camera is forbidden to get into walls, very cute but not practical.
  Force cameras to do not come out of wall is a mistake most programmers do. Is like to make a movie without possibility to see the whole scene from outside. Its very very unwise, if not stupid, just hide the black stage behind the scenes, no one really cares to see if this stop the camera from jumping in places you never desire to be.

  They are not slow because of dsl low connection, but because of grafics, they seem to be irreductible at this point, to not be able to lower graphics settings for lower pc configurations, no one seems to care about this anymore.

  A Slower computers is not for sansar... Sad but true.

  Sansar is really for fortunated ones, many experiences will not run at all on my pc.

  I'm making my own levels taking care it runs well on my pc.
  My pc is a low profile on USA, but a very good one for my country standards, Brasil. I'm glad some experiences run on my pc, even having a lower configuration than prescribed in minimum requirements.

  Maybe is the way to go, let Sansar force you upgrade a pc, or get out..
  I don't think is very smart. But they have some good points.
  Let they give to us their sincere point on this.
  If they force things now, is not that they don't have competition this time.

  They should say. Is that, I cannot agree, but I cannot do anything about. 

  As programmer I can only expect to my experience reach the most people out there in the world, I can only hope they do the effort like many games to, to lower settings.

  Afraid to have not a good picture of their game on media will not affect the overall image, because they would never be so ugly like SL grafics that have a with a very artificial light.

  Sansar have physically based and shaded materials can be very well implemented on very low profile pc's even today..

  But it seems they don't even care about beating SL... 

  Well lets see "what is" or "what will be" Sansar.

   

   

   

   

  Edited by gfcprogramer August 07, 2017 03:00
• 1
  
  Gindipple August 07, 2017 16:12

  "For sure between 5 and 10 years from now, SL will be really obsolete compared to what Sansar will be."

  And what do you do with an old car on this path?

  Why you sell it before it's scrap metal of course.

   

• 1
  
  Galen August 07, 2017 16:57

  I actually think SL could be massively upgraded still.

  One simple proposal would be to give island sim owners a choice: do you want it always on (like now) or do you want it only on when someone is there? I'd bet that doing this, they could reduce land tier to 1/10th or even 1/100th the cost. Imagine $3 of tier instead of $300 of tier.

  Or at least to shift tier costs to sims with high utilization (think camping bots or popular clubs) so they pay $300 a month and everyone else pays less based on percentage on. A dead sim could cost LL $0 per month in sim server costs, so they could charge a nominal fee like $2 per month to maintain its existence.

  Beyond that huge cost savings, LL could surely keep improving the graphics. Are you telling me they could not add incremental computation of global illumination of a scene, for example, when a sim has a little downtime? Plus improvements in materials surfacing? Imagine avatars with skin that have subsurface scattering, creating that soft, lively sense.

  Is it really so hard to imagine LL adding support (back) for Oculus and other HMDs? Surely people with fast enough computers (which will eventually be everyone) would benefit.

  Don't think LL can improve SL's physics engine? They've already done it several times.

  Honestly, I think just about every innovation we've seen in Sansar could be replicated in Second Life. It may come with heavy baggage, compared with the leaner fresh-start that Sansar has, but it can be done.

  IMO, Sansar will only have significant benefits over SL so long as LL chooses to withhold upgrades in SL. We will see what LL chooses to do. I suspect they will purposely maintain a gap between the two systems.

  Edited by Galen August 07, 2017 17:00
• 1
  
  Galen August 07, 2017 17:36

  Actually, those who have been here all along would benefit from reading that, too. Thanks.

• 1
  
  Malakina August 07, 2017 18:20

  well the what is sansar question you could have known right from the start of development and its getting tedious to respond, because everyone want to go in here with low recource computer and NO VR.. which is fine, but it is designed for VR.. the camera controls you can have more smoothly with right mouse button btw. The experiences you have right now are limited to what we got. As you might noticed Sansars development differs from other VR worlds and will be more of interaction in the future, but primarily about getting an impression/experience of something.. put the creators mind into a scene and let others experience it. what YOU can expect from it right now is to be a creator, since its a creator beta... everything that you can do with Sansar IS Sansar. Like they say.. dont ask what you can get, ask what you can give. What you can give right now is creating rooms for social experiences, using a PBR workflow. Create showcases for your idea of Sansar. What you see right now is an Engine built from the ground up, created for easy development for and in VR.

• 1
  
  Amazon Lily August 07, 2017 20:04

  I have a pretty heavy duty machine and SL is slow on it. now divide that FPS by two and you got SL in VR.

  I know nothing about programming but it seems to me that SL's graphics engine just doesn't even use modern hardware for acceleration.

  Other more complicated 3D apps comfortably cap my main screen at 144 FPS, but i'd be hard pressed to have SL run that fast, unless i am alone in an empty skybox.

  I am currently at a shopping fair, 56 FPS in 2560*1440 with all graphics options maxed out (just no shadows).

  My CPU runs at 17% and the GPU never goes above 34%.. 

  It's like this thing only uses what was available when it was developped back when it came out.. it was not made for modern hardware at all, and certainly doesn't use it at all. the easiest way to make it faster would be to redo the entire graphics part, and that's partly what they did, it's called Sansar! lol

  So yea, imagine having SL render everything twice, for each VR eye, and you got a recipe for barf-inducing lag

   

  Edit: I have been TPed to a pretty busy party.. 15 FPS, GPU running at 22%, CPU at 18... the more you load it, the less it uses the GPU, who would have thought :)

  Why no VR in SL? because rendering is kinda slow ! haha

  Edited by Amazon Lily August 07, 2017 20:12
• 1
  
  Galen August 07, 2017 21:42

  @Amazon Lily: I can't dispute any of your points. They are good ones. And SL does come with baggage. But I maintain that it's not nearly at the end of its useful life and it can be upgraded a bunch.

  Sansar does represent a clean start. And a good move, IMO. I don't think it was necessary, but I think it will pay off in the long run. Big gamble, though.

  One small example benefit of the fresh start. Have you all noticed how much faster the Sansar client loads than the SL or Firestorm clients?

  Edited by Galen August 07, 2017 21:43
• 1
  
  Chris Jackson August 07, 2017 22:38

  Galen,

  Not my words. They talk about it in the interview. Yes, they got it to work, but it didn't perform nowhere near what they wanted.

• 1
  
  Malakina August 08, 2017 11:57

  Beta is not generous at all. the core is there and running stable, No interruption in voice chat, no hard lags. The rest is extra content adding to the core. Just because you dont have the tools you would want to have doesnt make it less beta XD You can already now link experences and each experience can have a size of 4x4km

  Edited by Malakina August 08, 2017 11:57
• 1
  
  Malakina August 08, 2017 12:09

  remember how Second Life started out.. no mesh, no sculpties. just primitives.Second Life people today dont even really know interactivity.. at least not without massive lag. Once we got NPC animations the world of sansar will already look a lot more lively than Second Life. It depends on the creators now to make the best out of whats possible and each itteration will add so much more

• 1
  
  Galen August 08, 2017 14:06

  Interactivity is coming down the pike pretty quickly. Sansar's scripting capabilities are limited, but we're creating products already to help modelers to create active and interactive experiences. Here are a couple of mine:

  • https://atlas.sansar.com/experiences/galen/clockworks-club-demo
  • https://atlas.sansar.com/experiences/galen/galen-s-demos

   

• 1
  
  GranddadGotMojo August 08, 2017 15:16

  I was in SL until about 2012 and then I left and got involved with Unreal Engine.  At this point, Sansar is very primitive as a game development platform.  There was some earlier discussion on that it was a good decision on LL's part to not go with a base game engine like UE4 or Unity.  I am a little confused at this direction.  Seems to me that if they would have adopted UE4 and built a series of plugins that implemented what they thought was important for a social game engine things would have gone a lot faster than they will with them building it from scratch.

  I started putting together my request list, but, the majority of the requests are things that are already available in UE4 and Unity.  I am planning on sticking with Sansar, but, I would really appreciate it if LL would have a roadmap in something like Trello or Jira that they would share with the public.  It is somewhat frustrating not knowing what will be coming and when.  

• 1
  
  Chris Jackson August 08, 2017 15:28

  stupid approval pending!