Pick of the Day: D20 Game System

I have a confession to make: I’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons. So I don’t quite understand everything I see in Tina Fayet’s work-in-progress Sansar experience, called D20 Game System.

D20 Game System 28 Oct 2017

You’re able to visit different parts of the experience, like the tavern (above), move the pieces, and even roll the dice. So I assume it’s a recreation of the board game. It looks like it would be fun to play with other players in-world, although obviously, I’d have to have someone who knows D&D explain all the rules to me.

D20 Game System 2 28 Oct 2017

I’m looking forward to seeing how Tina further develops this game!

What’s on the Roadmap: The Next Two Releases of the Sansar Software

rawpixel-com-211022

Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash

Jenn, the Lead Community Manager of Sansar, has posted to the official Sansar blog about what we can expect to see in the next couple of releases of the Sansar client software. Linden Lab usually adheres to a schedule of one new release per month, usually at the end of the month or the beginning of the next month. (Sometimes Linden Lab will issue a patch between major releases to fix bugs.)

In the next release, nicknamed the “Friends” release, scheduled for the end of October/beginning of November, we should be able to:

  • Search for an avatar by their name and add them to your Sansar friends list
  • Click on an avatar to find out their name in desktop mode (a similar version of this feature was already available in VR mode)
  • Look for events (meetups, concerts, etc.) in the web version of the Sansar Atlas page
  • Sort the Sansar Atlas entries by date of creation/last update, and alphabetically
  • Refer to a list of Sansar’s user controls in both VR and desktop mode
  • Publish your Sansar experiences with an improved workflow

The next release after that is the highly-anticipated “Fashion” release. Jenn says:

Get ready, because Sansar is getting a fashion market! Designers will be able to create and sell avatar outfits, and you can expand your virtual wardrobes with looks from the Store. An exciting new technology integration will enable designers to create and sell avatar clothing that moves and folds naturally.

sansar_fashion_poster_portrait_01
Promotional image for the Sansar fashion market, taken from the official Sansar blog

Other new features include:

  • The ability to restrict access to a Sansar experience to just the people on your Sansar friends list
  • An updated design for the Sansar Store (more branding options for creators as well as the ability for the Sansar team to present curated collections of selected sellers and items)
  • Improvements to full-body IK (inverse kinematics) for avatars
  • Support for importing terrain height maps
  • Audio materials for terrain

Stupid Pictures Promoting Virtual Reality

I know, this is off-topic, but I need to get this off my chest!

I swear I am going to create a blog just to showcase the incredibly stupid pictures that news organizations use to illustrate their stories on virtual reality! Here’s the latest one I found (from https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607956/virtual-realitys-missing-element-other-people/):

Stupid Pictures Promoting Virtual Reality

Like Madonna said: Strike a poseI have no idea what the guy in the back with the long hair is doing…

And then there’s this one. Who the hell puts bling on their VR headset?!?? (http://fortune.com/2017/09/29/mastercard-swarovski-virtual-reality/)

Bling on a VR headset.png

But my all-time favourite stupid VR photo is this one…. I keep seeing this same stock photo of a girl on a bicycle wearing a VR headset, over and over again on different news articles about virtual reality. Yes, let’s go for a bike ride while our vision is totally blocked by a VR headset! Talk about a set-up that will lead you straight to the hospital emergency room! (http://www.thedrum.com/…/chinas-retailers-lead-augmented-an…)

VR headset on a bicycle 12 Sept 2017.png

UPDATE 12:25 p.m.: I actually discovered the source of this last image, on the free photos website Pixabay!

….and all of this stupidity suddenly reminded me of my all-time-favourite stupid book cover of the past decade:

My vote for stupidest book cover of the decade.

Let me ask you: what so what does this woman think she’s doing in virtual reality? It doesn’t help that the book title is a not-so-subtle pun.