New World Notes

Oculus Quest's Total 2019 Sales: 705K, According to SuperData, Far Short of Firm's Original Forecast -- Not Good News for Half-Life: Alyx

As promised last week, Nielsen game analytics firm SuperData just put out its summary of VR headset sales for 2019, starting with the most positive numbers:

Valve sold 149K Index headsets in 2019. Sales more than doubled from Q3 to Q4 (103K) thanks to anticipation for Half-Life: Alyx, which was announced in November and is slated to arrive in March. The Index sold more units than any other PC VR headset during the quarter despite a steep price of up to $1000. It would have sold even more if not for inventory issues (the device is currently sold out worldwide).

... The Oculus Quest sold 705K units during 2019, more than the Oculus Go and Oculus Rift S combined. 

Emphasis mine, as it bears emphasizing. Almost exactly a year ago (January 24, 2019), SuperData's Quest forecast was much sunnier than this ultimate count:

Market intelligence company SuperData released its latest extended reality (XR) findings on Thursday. It believes Oculus will sell 1.3 million units of its anticipated Quest headset this year, and annual XR revenue will reach $11.5 billion.

So the Quest came up roughly 600,000 units short of that forecast. If that's accurate, I'm surprised (and wrong) myself, because back last August, I said the Quest looked likely to break 1 million sales. I've asked SuperData for its own interpretation of this shortcoming, and will update this post if I get it. Ironically, this happens just as (see infographic above), the Quest is starting to sell almost as well as market leader PSVR. (At least over last Q4 holiday season.)

Speaking of Half-Life: Alyx, the widely-anticipated, VR-only Half-Life sequel that many in games see as virtual reality's likeliest killer app, these overall HMD sales sadly point to a bearish picture:

Casja's Choices: How Sunset Theas Turns SL Screenshots Into Amazing Images

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Sunset Theas’ spectacular images provoked some wondering of the “How did he do that?” kind, so after the article last week, I thought I would ask him about a few of his pictures. The first I asked about was “Rolling on Caramelized Sugar” (above). He had a hard time explaining, because when he started editing the photo, he didn’t have a clear finished product in mind: “I just start adding some light effects and then playing with filters, contrast, blur, and stuff like that.” Once he liked what he saw, he used the free online editor Pixlr to add texture. “After four years on Flickr everything is quite natural, I just start and then I stop when I see something I like and somehow I feel it has a sense.”

It was easier for him to explain how he did this untitled picture below, which used more Second Life-based features, to create the final effect:

Immersive Power of Mouth Tracking in Social VR (Comment of the Week)

Many readers were seriously impressed by NeosVR's new mouth tracking feature, and longtime metaverse developer Max Graf expressed its value in a social VR context:

I have to say, out of all the things that that Linden Lab tried to accomplish with Sansar, one of the things they actually got exactly right (and even pushed the boundaries of the technology in general) was the VR voice and facial symmetry they developed, very similar to what Neos has done here.

I only got to experience it a few times in there with an actual VR rig on, but when I did this was one of the things I specifically wanted to check out, knowing how much they put into it. It was not just the mouth moving when sound was present, it adapted to variations in phonetics, volume and emphasis to change the facial mesh in a very accurate way.

This is definitely among the several features that Sansar really innovated on, and I hope something can be done to this technology, notwithstanding Sansar's current limbo state. Max says the overall effect was transformative:

Hax Tips: How to Create Amazing Machinima Shots in Second Life

I told you recently about Huckleberry Hax's highly ambitious, feature-length SL machinima project (coming soon to a YouTube stream near you), but you might not know Mr. Hax has a blog series where he's explaining in great helpful detail all the tools of his trade. For instance, here's how to capture a dramatic shot in Firestorm where the camera is dollying back as your avatar walks forward:

Top 6 Posts Last Week Including: A Farewell Address for the Second Life Community And a Mixed Reality Mirror World for Oculus Quest

• Dolly Parton Challenge Meme: VRChat Edition
• Why Black Dragon's In-Viewer Poser Is Better Than Any HUD For Taking SL Avatar Photos
• Best SuperData AR/VR Datapoints For 2019: Pokémon GO Is The AR Market, Standalone VR Games Earned $171 Million Last Year
• Watch: NEOS Social VR Adds Highly Detailed Mouth Tracking With Reported Latency Under 100 Milliseconds
• Xiola Linden's Farewell Address To The Second Life Community: Be Open To Change, Be Informed, Be Welcoming
• Watch: Oculus Quest Demo Virtually Recreates Developer's Apartment At 1:1 Scale, Adds Interactive Surfaces

Abranimations, Famed Virtual World Animation Brand, Opens Shop in Sinespace -- Get Our Free Gold Offer to Start Dancing!

Great scoop by Ryan Schultz: Legendary avatar animations brand Abranimations has expanded from Second Life, IMVU, and Sansar to open a shop in Sinespace (a proud NWN partner).

Many dozens of animations are now available, most selling for 50 Gold (i.e. 50 cents) and some on sale for 5,000 Silver (Sinespace's promotional currency) in Abranimations Sinespace's shop here.

Speaking of Gold, New World Notes still has some 500 Gold giveaway codes -- redemption details after the break. But first, here's Abranimations' Jim Clark (i.e. Abramelin Wolfe) telling Ryan how he creates his amazingly detailed dances:

"I first decide what animation I want to make. This could be a specific dance or something else. I’ll research and refine a shot list and then hire a dancer or actor that is able to perform the motions. In the studio we suit them up in a black lycra suit with reflective markers stuck to it and record them with special mocap cameras. The mocap system records the markers as dots moving in 3D space and the software processes this to generate a moving skeleton from it. The resulting data tends to need a lot of post-shoot work to fix various problems. Once the optical data is clean I export it from the system and import it into MotionBuilder for further cleanup and processing of the skeletal data."

Dolly Parton Challenge Meme: VRChat Edition

Cajsa's Friday Fashion Blog Pick: Stylish SL Shopping Ideas from Amuloretta

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and style

Self-described fledgling blogger Amu Loretta has 915 posts in her fully-fledged blog Look of the Day in Second Life (LOTDiSL). I like how well her blog pictures capture a slice-of-life moment. For example, this picture from post number 913, shows a woman waiting for a subway. She’s relaxed, confident, and takes no prisoners. Her coat is open and relaxed and she’s chill. I love her confidence and that slouching coat with the hands in the pocket is a real find.

Housewives Drama Cat Meme Now Available as Avatar Pose in Second Life (Animesh Cat Included)

In keeping with the Second Life community's fine tradition of swallowing up the Internet and regurgitating it as 3D content, I present to you the Housewives drama cat meme now available as an avatar pose for L$299 (i.e. less than 2 damn dollars):

Let the sarcasm begin! Our Salad Cat set includes Table Setting, Animesh Cat and Avatar Poses; everything you need to create your own SL trending meme! Instant fun, just add imagination!

Brought to you by HEXtraordinary - Fine Magical Goods. SLer Jaesu Volki‎ has already put it to good use with an SL meme on top the original meme:

Why Black Dragon's In-Viewer Poser is Better Than Any HUD for Taking SL Avatar Photos

This is a fun livestream of beloved SL YouTuber Cassie posing her avatar through Black Dragon, the third party Second Life viewer with a cult following for its high end graphics features. Among those features is what Cassie is showing here -- an ability to pose and photograph your avatar with an extremely high degree of complexity. The end result is only viewable (and photographable) by the end user, but seeing as most SL fashion shoots are already a solo avatar affair, that's a minor consideration. (It can also be used for couple poses if you launch it in a couple animation -- though again, only viewable/photographable by the individual user.)

Black Dragon creator NiranV tells me his poser enables adjustments over 300 avatar points with 1000 adjustment options each. His motivation for creating such a complex viewer-only poser? As he puts it to me in his usual blunt way:

"Get rid of people selling shitty, overpriced HUDs to people to pose themselves."

And then explains what he means by that: