Day: September 5, 2019

Sansar Users!!! Are You Unhappy with the New, Default Avatar 2.0 Female Avatar? Market Forces to the Rescue!

Photo by Karine Germain on Unsplash

One of the things that I have noticed about virtual worlds with an in-world marketplace is that, quite often, market forces will solve a problem that has been created, or address an issue that is causing concern, without the company that made the platform having to do anything to fix it! The customers solve the problem themselves!

This has been demonstrated over and over again in Second Life. Creative content makers have, time and again, stepped up to the plate to fix a perceived problem, and reap some profits from their ingenuity. For example: do you hate the default duck walk on your Second Life avatar? Et voilà! Animation overrides were created, and they sell like hotcakes for literally dozens of animation vendors. (I’m still waiting for them to come to Sansar.)

Dislike the default Second Life system avatar? Crafty creators like Onyx LeShelle (who designed the ever-popular Maitreya Lara body) made a completely mesh body, mesh bodies become the new avatar standard, and Onyx and other mesh body creators take home money by the wheelbarrow! Witness market forces at work.

So, when Sansar released stylized, rather emaciated-looking default human avatars with their Avatar 2.0 rollout, many people (including me) complained. But Daisy Winthorpe, bless her heart, saw a business opportunity!

Daisy has just released new shapewear for the Avatar 2.0 female avatar (top and bottom) that you can add to your avatar before you put on clothes, to give you the Kim Kardashian shape of your dreams! Here’s Sansar Store links to the top and the bottom (they’re only S$25 each!):

How they work is simple but brilliant. You add the shapewear first, and adjust it as you like using the simulate button (they are made using Marvelous Designer so they are completely adjustable like any MD clothing). Then you freeze the simulation for the shapewear, then add the clothing you want to wear over top and simulate just that, then freeze your outfit and remove the shapewear! The curves remain!!!

Here’s a before-and-after demonstration. BEFORE (please click on each individual image to see it in a larger size):

And AFTER (again, just click on the image to see a larger size):

Here’s another comparison shot, before and after:

Not only has the shapewear made for a shapelier, “thicc” body, it’s also made the dress seem fuller and longer overall! (UPDATE: Whoops! I just realized that it’s not the shapewear that makes the dress look bigger; the dress looks bigger because I actually made it bigger using the new Transform Item button on the Worn Items window! You can now resize clothing to fit your personal style! Try doing that in Second Life!)

Yes, I will admit it’s a bit of a matronly look with this particular style of dress I chose, but at least I was able to get rid of that starving, hangry supermodel Barbie look! I absolutely freaking love it! Thank you, Daisy!

Now, if you do find that this is perhaps a little too shapely for your tastes, fear not! Daisy has made less Kardashian-curvy models of shapewear to please just about everybody! Hurray!

Here’s her store. Now, go and give her all your money!!!

Market forces strike again!!!

VRChat Raises Another US$10 Million in Venture Capital

Social VR platform VRChat, which has raised US$5.2 million in two previous rounds of venture capital funding, announced today that they have received an additional US$10 million in a Series C investment round:

According to a blogpost on their official blog:

The VRChat team is excited to announce that we have closed a $10m Series C investment round. This latest financing includes new investor Makers Fund, alongside existing investors HTC, Brightstone VC and GFR Fund. We welcome Makers Fund and are proud to have them on board!

As to where that new investment money is going, VRChat also shared a diagram of what they plan to work on next (the text on this is a bit small, so you might want to look at this picture over on their blogpost instead, where you can zoom in on it and read it clearly):

The VRChat Development Roadmap (from their blog)

There are a lot of references to something called “Udon” on this roadmap. According to their blogpost:

VRChat “Udon” is an in-development programming language designed specifically for VRChat. It utilizes a “node graph” graphical interface to permit both new and experienced users to create complex, interactive content for their VRChat worlds.

Udon will unlock a whole new class of creativity in VRChat by allowing content creators to build far more interactive worlds, games, and experiences. We expect Udon to be a big deal! We believe it will have a massive impact on the types of content the community can enjoy in VRChat once released. Udon is currently in internal testing, and planned for release in Q4 2019.

But what I find the most interesting thing about this roadmap is what is not on it: a virtual economy, currency, and an in-world marketplace for user-created content. As we already know, they are actively looking to hire someone to get that ball rolling. I guess that part of VRChat is still too far off in the future to add to the plan…

Reminder: Check Your Email for Your Sansar Dollar Refund

This is just a reminder that, if you spent any money on the Sansar Store for Avatar 1.0 avatars, or rigged hair and rigged clothing for Avatar 1.0 avatars, you should check the email associated with your account for a refund of the Sansar dollars you spent on those items:

Please note that this refund does not apply to clothing created using the Marvelous Designer software, as it can be adjusted to fit Avatar 2.0 avatars using the new Transform Item button on the Worn Items window (although it is a rather fiddly, finicky process).

If you can’t find the email from Linden Lab informing you of your refund, please check your spam folder (that’s where I found mine). Also, there may be a bit of delay; some people report that they haven’t received their email yet.

Sansar: Users Are Adapting to Avatar 2.0

Well, as expected, Sansar users are quick to respond to changes to the platform, and Avatar 2.0 is no exception. Longtime user Daisy Gator already has her new avatar look, created by Theanine:

And Solas NaGealai is, I believe, the first person to release new hair for female Avatar 2.0 avatars:

While Alfy is the first to release new hair for male Avatar 2.0 avatars:

And Lacie Linden posted the following funny video to the Sansar Discord, in response to the many complaints about the proportions of the Sansar female Avatar 2.0 (including my own):

So…. I figured out a unique workaround to make your avatar’s body rather ‘shapely’. Naturally, this meant that this had to be created. I shared it with a few of the other Sansar team members, but Ebbe thinks you all will also enjoy this. Without further ado… I present this smile-inducing “masterpiece”: