Day: February 18, 2018

Sinespace: A Brief Introduction

Sinespace is a new virtual world created by a company called Sine Wave Entertainment, whose CEO is Adam Frisby. Adam is a well-known figure in virtual worlds. Before joining Sine Wave Entertainment, he founded the Azure Islands, a community with a peak of 400 regions in Second Life, and DeepThink, a leading virtual world development company. He was also one of the founding developers of OpenSimulator, the popular open source platform used by countless virtual worlds. (I also believe that Sine Wave is the same company which sells avatar animations in Second Life, although I need to confirm this with Adam.)

Sinespace is based on Unity, which is a cross-platform game engine used to develop both three-dimensional and two-dimensional video games and simulations. This is a different approach from Sansar, which is building its own engine from scratch.

Here’s a few things you might not know about Sinespace:

  • Sinespace already has cloth physics! Yes, you can wear a skirt which moves as your avatar does. Here’s a short video demonstrating this feature:
  • Sinespace has an experimental VR viewer! Adam let me try it out. Unfortunately, I can’t get it to work properly yet with my Oculus Rift headset. But virtual reality support for Sinespace is coming soon.
  • Like Sansar, Sinespace regions can be quite large. Adam gifted me a dune buggy and I drove endlessly through their Grand Canyon sim! (They also have great vehicle physics.)
  • Sinespace is home to a speaker series called The Delphi Talks, which consist of live interviews and discussions about art, games and stories. Here’s a YouTube playlist of recent Delphi Talks.
    Screenshot 2018-2-18-08-54-45
    The site of the Delphi Talks in Sinespace

    To learn more about Sinespace, here’s their user forums, their Facebook, their Twitter, and their Google+ group. Go explore!

Sansar Pick of the Day: Orphanage of Angels

Orphanage of Angels is a new horror Sansar experience created by Sergio Delacruz.

In his description, Sergio sets the scene:

In 1961, in the St. Croce orphanage (Italy) twelve children and five sisters disappeared. Research continued in the institute and surrounding territories for two years, with no results until 1970, when, in a niche of a basement, were found several children’s bones. For that reason, the institute was renamed “Orphanage of Angels”. What happened there?

You start off in a small urban apartment in the present day. There’s a bulletin board on the wall, with old news clippings and photographs of the orphanage. As you approach the door of the apartment, it automatically opens onto a hallway leading to a glowing entrance portal. As you cross it, you are transported to the Orphanage of Angels.

Orphanage of Angels 1 18 Feb 2018

There is a truly creepy atmosphere in this experience, as you explore the abandoned orphanage, trying to figure out what happened here. The orphanage is dimly lit, and there is a thunderstorm raging outside. Occasionally a lightning flash illuminates the interior.

Orphanage of Angels 2 18 Feb 2018.png

One feature that I saw here, that I haven’t yet seen in any other experience, is the clever use of pop-up messages which appear on your screen (or in your VR headset) at certain locations:

Orphanage of Angels 3 18 Feb 2018

I won’t spoil the experience by giving too much away. Be sure to explore every part of this orphanage, and don’t forget the basement! This is a very well-done, atmospheric experience and Sergio is to be commended for this work in pulling all this together. The question is: are your nerves up for Orphanage of Angels?