Sansar™, the world’s leading social VR platform, today opened its creator beta to the public. Sansar empowers individuals, communities, schools, studios, corporations, brands and others to easily create, share, and ultimately sell immersive 3D social experiences for consumers to enjoy on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Windows PCs. Developed by Linden Lab®, the company behind the groundbreaking virtual world Second Life®, Sansar is a brand new platform built from the ground up to enable everyone to become a creator.
At opening, Sansar’s Atlas directory already features hundreds of engaging virtual experiences, including multiplayer games, recreations of historic sites and landmarks, art installations, movie theaters, museums, narrative experiences, jungle temples, 360º video domes, sci-fi themed hangouts, and much more. Creators invited to the platform during a limited-access preview have published thousands of amazing public and private experiences, and with the opening of beta today, the world is now invited to join them.
"Sansar democratizes social VR," said Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab. "Until now, complexity and cost has limited who could create and publish in this medium, and Sansar dramatically changes that. It's been inspiring to see the thousands of virtual creations that have already published with Sansar during our limited preview, and I'm looking forward to the explosion of creativity we'll see now that we’ve opened the doors in beta.”
Simplified Creation & Cross-Device Distribution
Intuitive drag-and-drop editing makes it easy to create a scene with assets imported from common 3D modeling tools or purchased from the Sansar Store.
With the push of a button, creations become hosted multi-user experiences that can be enjoyed by consumers using VR head-mounted displays (HMDs) as well as in desktop mode on PCs. Every Sansar experience has a unique link that can be shared via Facebook, Twitter, email, blogs, and with whomever the creator wishes. Each instance of an experience is currently set to allow 35+ concurrent avatars, and automated instancing will enable creators to reach unlimited audiences.
Convincing Social Interactions
With detailed customizable avatars, Sansar provides rich social interactions, without requiring additional hardware like cameras and trackers. A unique integration with Speech Graphics’ technology provides accurate avatar lip-syncing and facial animations, driven in real time as users simply speak into the microphones on their HMDs or audio headsets. With the use of VR hand controllers, users’ hand and arm movements are accurately and realistically mirrored by their avatars, thanks to an integration of IKinema’s powerful RunTime middleware, the world’s leading full-body inverse kinematics (IK) technology.
Robust Marketplace & Earning Opportunities
With Sansar, creators can earn from their virtual creations by selling them in the Sansar Store. In the future, creators will also be able to sell, rent, or charge for access to their experiences. At the opening of beta, the Sansar Store features thousands of items for sale from creators around the world.
A relationship with TurboSquid provides creators with access to hundreds of additional high-quality 3D models in the Store today, with thousands more being added in the coming months. Planned integration with TurboSquid’s StemCell initiative will make it easy for TurboSquid’s community of 3D modelers to immediately upload and sell their creations in the Sansar Store, further augmenting the assets readily available to Sansar creators.
Pricing
Sansar is free to use, with additional capacity and customer support available to creators through paid subscriptions, starting at $9.99/month.
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About Linden Lab
Founded in 1999, Linden Lab developed Second Life, the largest-ever virtual world filled entirely by the creations of its users. In 2013, the company expanded its product portfolio with Blocksworld, a lighthearted build-and-play system for kids and grownups alike.
Linden Lab is currently developing Sansar, a new platform that empowers people to create, share, and ultimately sell their own social experiences that are accessible with VR headsets and via PCs. Sansar is free to use and available now in creator beta at Sansar.com.
For more about Linden Lab, its products, and career opportunities please visit LindenLab.com.