Project Sansar by Linden Lab, will allow you to easily create your own virtual worlds.
Linden Lab’s Second Life is one of the largest and most successful virtual world ecosystems. Since its initial release in 2003, Second Life has become an infinitely customisable virtual reality world where anything goes. Well, anything within reason, and within the technological scope of its graphics engine. Its creators, Linden Lab, still see Second Life as a vibrant virtual universe, but in the last few years, they’ve been quietly constructing a true virtual reality successor, Project Sansar.
Linden Lab is pitching Project Sansar as a 3D virtual world for Virtual Reality. Earmarked for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Many key details about the project are still under wraps, but Project Sansar will host a number of places designed by brands and hobbyists alike. Users will be able to explore the world, host meetings there and even play games.
One of the key differences to Second Life is that Project Sansar will be more scalable. In Second Life, a location could only be visited by a few dozen users at a time. Sansar on the other hand will essentially allow for replicas of a place to run in parallel. Meaning that a brand could build a virtual gallery that can be visited by thousands of users at the same time without ever feeling crowded.
Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg wants Project Sansar to signal the democratization of VR as a creative medium. Unlike its predecessor, Sansar will be optimized for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, but for PCs and mobile devices as well. The goal was to simplify the creation of VR experiences.
“Creating social VR experiences is too hard and expensive today, and that limits the value and growth of this incredible new medium. Creating your own VR experience shouldn’t require an engineering team, and Project Sansar will make that possible.” – Ebbe Altberg
Altberg stresses that Linden Lab doesn’t create Sansar’s content—users do. They are empowered to create, share and benefit from the virtual experiences they create. In that sense, it will be less of a cohesive singular “world” like Second Life.
Altberg says Sansar will be publically available toward the end of 2016. Right now a small group of creators testing the platform, and through its Creator Preview (which just opened applications), Linden Lab aims to bring in additional creators with 3D design experience to begin building a wider range of virtual experiences later this summer.