Regular VRFocus readers will likely know about Linden Lab and it’s social virtual reality (VR) platform Sansar that’s currently in development. Designed as a place that’ll enable everyone to create, share, and ultimately monetize social experiences for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, over the last few months the project has been in a creator preview with 2,000 developers building content. Today Linden Lab has announced the opening of the creator beta for Sansar, allowing anyone to dive in and create content.
Sansar is free to use for those with a compatible head-mounted display (HMD), with additional capacity and customer support available to creators through paid subscriptions, starting at $9.99 USD/month.
The studio has revealed several other details regarding Sansar’s open beta launch. As the platform is designed to bring people together, more than 50+ avatars can be within an experience in Sansar at any given time, and automated instancing allows creators to reach unlimited audiences.
“Sansar democratizes social VR,” said Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab in a statement. “Until now, complexity and cost has limited who could create and publish in this medium, and Sansar dramatically changes that. It’s been inspiring to see the thousands of virtual creations that have already published with Sansar during our limited preview, and I’m looking forward to the explosion of creativity we’ll see now that we’ve opened the doors in beta.”
As previously reported, Linden Lab has teamed up with IKinema to use its inverse kinematics tech allowing for avatars in Sansar to mirror users’ full-body movements. Linden Lab also partnered with Speech Graphics to enable the complex facial animation of the avatars to be synced to what is said in the mic.
To help creators advertise and share their creations each Sansar experience will have a unique link that can be shared across Facebook, Twitter, email, blogs, basically whomever the creator wishes. The platform will also enable users to earn money by selling, renting, or charging for access to their experiences through the Sansar Store for Sansar Dollars (S$). As development of Sansar continues, in the future Linden Lab will allow creators to be able to monetize entire experiences.
For the opening of the beta, the platform will host a week of launch activities so that users can experience what Sansar is all about. This will include an appearance by Buzz Aldrin in the Apollo Space museum, curated tours by Egyptologists of the lost Tombs of Tomanokin, and a free throw tournament with an NBA star.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Sansar, reporting back with the latest updates.
Sansar Pricing & Subscriptions
| Free | Creator | Super Creator | Professional | |
| Experiences | 3 | 5 | 10 | 20 |
| Customer Support | Email
48 hrs max response time within business hours |
Email
48 hrs max response time within business hours Live Web Chat |
Email
48 hrs max response time within business hours Live Web Chat Phone |
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| Price | Free | $9.99/mo | $29.99/mo | $99.99/mo |
via Mint VR