It will be able to take advantage of DirectX on Windows and Metal on Mac. No mention of OpenGL.

Ebbe thinks a mirror in VR would be great. Think of dressing in First Person VR and looking to see what you look like in a mirror rather than an out-of-body view.

pause thé

01:10:00 – How will content infringement and copyright protection be handled in Sansar? Ebbe says they will build in a core process that makes it easy to take down content and communicate with the involved parties.

01:12:00 – How is the Lab working to take the present SL users and developers to Sansar? Basically they plan to make it easier to use Sansar than any of the competing worlds. The actual Ebbe answer is much longer.

01:14:45 – In taking creators from SL to Sansar will they get some help? The Lab is thinking they may offer discounts on land if your are also in SL. The idea is to let one get their Sansar business going. So, Ebbe says, yes.

01:16:45 – Voice to text and text to voice – Will it be in Sansar? Ebbe says the Lab is not going to write one. But, when current third part services get cheap enough they will add the service.

01:18:20 – How will communities be served in Sansar? How do you belong? Mange? Build a community? Lots of possibilities. There will be a social fabric in Sansar.

01:20:45 – Will Sansar alt’s be able to login at the same time? Think having two avatars under your control for a photo shoot or machinima. This question surprised Ebbe. Ebbe is unsure. He’ll have to ask staff.

Ebbe describes how and why the experience developer will have more control over your avatar appearance. This means if it is an outer space experience, you can’t come in wearing a swimsuit. But, managing your appearances and avatars/personas is going to be much easier. One won’t have to log out and back in to change.

01:23:20 – Will there be support for Google Cardboard and similar devices for SL and Sansar? Ebbe says it is a main focus for Sansar, primarily Oculus. Mobile gets complicated. Mobile VR is very difficult. Lots more detail in the audio.

For a Gear VR device the limit is currently about 150,000 polygons. Similar for Cardboard. This means many places in SL would horribly degrade performance for these devices. Think big time simulator sickness.

The challenge is getting developers to understand what devices their experience can run on. So, the Sansar Viewer or something in the build process will tell a developer their experience can only run on a PC, or will run well for Oculus, or even with Cardboard.

Ebbe thinks  (01:29:00) thinks it will take years for a large number of users to adopt VR of some type. I know I plan to put off getting a HMD until I see a second generation of the headsets. But, I might update to a Samsung 6 and go with Cardboard for quick looks at VR.

01:31:00 – Closing comments start.

My Take

I think some of the differences between Second Life and Project Sansar are starting to show. I also think it is becoming clear why the Lab will continue to support Second Life. Sansar is just not going to be for all SL residents.

It is also clear that it is going to take 2016 and probably most of 2017 for Sansar to catch up with SL. Until then SL will have massively more content. Provided the Lab can build a strong cash flow from Sansar, I expect to see the cost of SL steadily decrease. That could well mean for certain applications SL will be the platform of choice. I think the reason they are working to make it as easy as possible to move between Sansar and SL has a much stronger from-Sansar-to-SL component than I have thought.

What if a SL region only cost US$10/month? What if regions in Sansar and SL were about the same cost? What if the cheap land and transaction tax model is wildly successful? Wouldn’t it move to SL too? I think it might.

Of course until the Lab can build a cash flow from Sansar changes in the SL financial model will be slow to come.

Ebbe sees a problem with SL in that experience builders like MadPea have had a difficult time making their games/experiences successful. Many of our regions are owned by merchants. We don’t have many successful Disneyland-like places.

I think we have good reason to think the Lab will pull this off. They could of course screw it up. They could get blindsided by some unforeseen tech change or competitor. But, for now it looks good.