New World Notes

Fact-Checking the "MMO Meets 3D Editor Meets Social Network Meets TV Remote" Complexity of Second Life's User Interface

One fun thing about writing about Second Life for The Atlantic was going through a rigorous fact-checking process. Take this passage:

The utopian paradox even extends into how Second Life was developed by employees at Linden Lab. Under the idealistic direction of Rosedale and his CTO Cory Ondrejka, the startup operated with a no-managers, "choose your own work" policy, cheekily dubbed the Tao of Linden. Their creativity thus unleashed, Linden developers wound up adding a farrago of persnickety features to the product with little unifying direction that might create a seamless, user-friendly experience. To this day, the Second Life application resembles an MMO game welded to a 3D graphics editor duct-taped to a social network crammed into an ancient television remote with infinite buttons.

But the program’s very complexity became a kind of initiation rite. Some 99 percent of new users would quit, overwhelmed and aggravated, usually within their first hour in the virtual world. Those who did stay long enough to learn how to use the software—usually guided by a patient “oldie” community member—found themselves welcomed into a rare, exclusive club.

The Atlantic's fact checker highlighted the passage in bold and asked me to demonstrate that the SL viewer really was that complicated. So I actually launched the program, and tallied up the default onscreen UI options:

Crystal Frost Update: Customizable Avatars for SL-on-Unity 3D Project Coming Soon!

I mentioned the Unity-based mobile app for Second Life this week, so I should also mention the latest update to Crystal Frost, the crowdfunded project to convert Second Life to Unity for PC and VR.

"Provided I can figure out a few rigging issues, I should have the base Linden avatars and body shapes fully supported by August," lead dev Kallisti tells me. 

And yes, she adds, that means Crystal Frost will eventually support mesh bodies:

"Afterall, there's things that happen to the underlying [default] Ruth mesh that affect mesh avatars in general. Namely to the skeleton. Examples of skeleton changes are head size, arm length, leg length, etc. So when I get the Ruth avatars replicating correctly on screen, I can be certain that rigged/fitted/bento mesh avatars will line up too once they're implemented, since they use the same skeleton."

Join the official Discord server for more info and to chat with the creator, and consider joining the Patreon to get premium updates and accelerate development. And yes, I do mention Crystal Frost in the book:

BREAKING: New Second Life Mobile App Preview Shows Off Greatly Improved UI, Graphics & Avatar Rendering -- Aiming for Late 2023/Early 2024 Beta Release

Just posted by Linden Lab: This long-awaited update to the Unity-based Second Life app for smartphones project teased back in March. In all honesty that early preview seemed a bit pokey, but the current build being unveiled now is much more impressive.

"It looks like they're greatly limiting the texture resolution, which makes a lot of sense," expert developer Kallisti tells me, approvingly. "It looks like they have some very good framerates, much better than I expected for the amount of stuff they're showing, and I'm very happy that they're making the progress they are." (Kallisti, of course, is the dev behind Crystal Frost project, converting Second Life to Unity for PCs/VR, so knows from Unity.)

Some screengrabs below. Even more important to me than the graphics: Greatly simplified and much more intuitive user interface. When I talked to Philip for the book, he strongly suggested that an SL app for mobile should have most/all the features of the standard viewer, but this demo suggests they're going for simplicity.

In other words, this could be Second Life's first chance in a long time to actually grow its user base! The only drawback is Grumpity Linden suggests the Beta version won't be available until late this year/early next. It would be kinda ironic if VRChat's mobile viewer came out first.

Anyway, click for screenies!

Crystal Frost Update: Default Second Life Avatar Uploaded for Free Use in Unity-Based Projects & Games!

Here's a pretty major new update to Crystal Frost, the Patreon-funded project to port Second Life to Unity 3D: Not only has lead developer Berry Bunny (Kallisti#2038 in Discord) uploaded the default SL avatar to Unity, this month she's going to make that avatar freely available for other Unity projects.

"I'll be releasing it as a separate thing, entirely open source, for people to use Second Life Linden Lab avatars in Unity projects, under LGPL same as the avatar files themselves," she explains.

"I figure it'll make a great resource for small time indie devs. I mean, the mesh isn't the best. We all know that. It's why almost everybody covers it up with something more modern like a Maitreya or a Jake or something else. But it's very mobile friendly and extremely flexible.

"Also it would be hilarious if someone used the package to replicate the Ruth avatar that's in the SL library in the inventory and raided VR Chat with it." ("Ruth", of course, is the SL community's nickname for the ancient female avatar model that usually resides deep beneath many layers of mesh enhancements, like in that giant mutant fly hidden beneath a layer of Jeff Goldblum.)

"But anyway with the flexibility of the asset, small, independent developers could easily churn up unique characters for their Unity games." 

I suspect this could be a big boon for indie devs in need of a basic avatar model. It could even become a way for SLers to "export" (kinda sorta) their avatar into other Unity-based worlds:

Crystal Frost, Second Life on Unity Project, Focuses on PC/VR Viewer While Linden Lab Works on Mobile Version

In case you missed it amid last week's hoopla over Linden Lab's announcement that they are (finally) developing a native mobile for Second Life built on Unity, there already is a user-run project to bring Second Life to Unity.

It's called Crystal Frost, and it's still going full-guns. 

pai

"It's not going to change," as lead dev Berry Bunny (Kallisti#2038 on Discord) tells me today. "Linden Lab is taking it in a different direction, and they're unlikely to use it for their desktop viewer. If anything it just means I won't have to worry about making a mobile version."

In other words, the era of Second Life on Unity is here.

Berry's original idea is to create a version of Second Life that's optimized to run in PCs and VR, and that remains the goal. Yes, Second Life in VR, with hands-on prim-based creation, a version of SL that can compete with VRChat.

"I'll have the 2D user interface pop up as a holographic display in front of you and can be pulled up with a customizable gesture," Berry explains. "If possible I will be tapping in to the puppetry system that Linden Lab is developing, and barring that I'll be using an LSL bridge to transmit IK targets for hand and full body tracking."

As for Linden Lab's SL on Unity/mobile project, Berry tells me from painful personal experience that they are going to hit some huge challenges:

BREAKING: Official Second Life iOS/Android Mobile App on Unity Revealed "With Joy & Trepidation", Starting With Avatars & World Display. UPDATE: Community-Driven Crystal Frost Unity Viewer Project Will Continue

UPDATE, 9:00PM PT: Updated for weekend viewing fun!

BREAKING NOW: A prediction of mine that's coming true this year sooner than I expected -- an official native Second Life app for iOS and Android mobile devices.

Watch the announcement above, made "with joy and trepidation"! The latter probably because the project has been in the works for years and was unexpectedly postponed last year.

Curiously, an earlier version of this project was going to focus on chat and other utility functions, but now Linden Lab is focusing on avatar and beautiful scene rendering. (Though on this video, at least, the world's draw distance appears quite low, and textures are similarly low res.)

However, Linden Lab says they intend for the mobile version to have "pretty much" all the functionality of the desktop version -- eventually.

"Last half of this year" is the target release date for a limited beta which will also have avatar chat.

As regular readers know, Linden Lab's SL viewer for Unity is actually the second one to be announced. For the last couple months, community creator Berry Bunny has been showing off her Crystal Frost project running on Unity. (I even wonder if Crystal Frost put a fire under Linden's own project!)

In any case, Berry tells me, Crystal Frost development will continue:

How Second Life on Unity Can Improve the Virtual World's User Interface as Well Its Graphics (Comments of the Week)

Above: Current version of Chat/IM user interface on Crystal Frost

Many SLers are excited about Berry Bunny's Crystal Frost, the Second Life-on-Unity project, because of graphics enhancements like physics- enabled water. In Comments, veteran metaverse developer Gwyneth Llewelyn notes how this will also enable the community to improve the user interface:

By pushing the rendering part out of Linden Lab's code, Bunny is also able to tackle the interface part of it — and work on both as separate projects, something which currently cannot be done in the existing codebase.

It'll be interesting to see what her approach will be. Unity, of course, can also handle all the interface bits — but then it's just really replacing one source of trouble with another.

We'll see if Bunny realizes that, and places the UI completely outside the viewer, running separately from it — possibly on a platform-neutral framework which strong support which can easily be expanded with the kind of tools that SL needs: its strong and solid inventory support (I mean, what kind of virtual world platform out there expects users to have hundreds of thousands of items in their inventory, with a complex permission systems on top of each and every one, multiplied by the million active users that SL still has?) but with terminally flawed UI.

The way groups, chats, objects and land management is closely tied together (with the permission system and the group roles!) — making Linden Lab opt to develop everything from scratch and giving us just the bare minimum (chat looks and feels like IRC from the late 1990s at best — I mean, we don't even get emojis and/or bold/italic!).

I actually think improving the UI/UX is even more important than updating the graphics, at least in terms of having any chance at growing SL's user base.

As for the launch of Crystal Frost last weekend, the viewer's Patreon now has over 40 members, and their reaction with the first Alpha is pretty positive, Berry tells me:

"People are amazed, but their expectations have also been pretty well tempered by my being transparent and communicating what to expect... a severe bug has been found but it's already been isolated and will be fixed by the next release." They're planning that release for March 17. 

As for Gwyn's thoughts on the UI, Berry's also replied in Comments, with some hints around how Crystal Frost might work as a mobile/tablet app:

It's Here: Crystal Frost, Second Life's First Viewer Running on Unity, Available Today in Early Alpha Featuring Live Chat/IM & Water Physics

Starting in a few hours, members of Crystal Frost's Patreon can finally get their hands on Second Life's first viewer running on Unity.

"The project is currently still in Alpha stage," lead creator Berry Bunny (Kallisti#2038 in Discord) warns, "so there are some performance issues, a number of bugs, and other issues. So anybody signing on to the Patreon for early access should know to temper their expectations." (Join at the Jacked In/Snowcrashed level of her Patreon for access to the download.)

That warning aside, this early Alpha comes with some features to play with now:

 

BREAKING: First Test Viewer of Crystal Frost, Unity-Based Second Life Viewer, Available for Patreon Members Starting March 3!

Above: Improved water physics and in-world chat

It's finally here: Next week Friday (March 3), people will get their first chance to try out Crystal Frost, the upcoming Second Life viewer that runs on Unity 3D. To be among the very first, become a "Jacked In" or "Snowcrashed" level member of the project's Patreon here.

After I wrote about it last week, Crystal Frost developer Berry Bunny (Kallisti#2038 on Discord) has added a number of enhancements that will be available in this test build:

"Being able to send chat, click objects, and display and respond to IMs."

Yes, she means IM and chat through Crystal Frost on the main grid.

"I'll try but don't think I'll have group chats ready. Also I have the display of adjacent sims turned off at this time. Crystal Frost is receiving data from other sims but currently discarding it until I figure out how I want to organize it. Sim border crossings are likewise untested. So patrons should only cross sim boundaries at their own risk."

And yes, it's very much an early test build: "It won't be anywhere near finished," as Ms. Bunny puts it but it'll give people something to make YouTube videos showing."

This is not just a "port" to Unity, because Crystal Frost actually includes enhancements to the existing Second Life experience, including what you see in this video below:

WATCH: Video Preview of Crystal Frost, Unity-Based SL Viewer -- Test Client Available in 2 Weeks!

Well this is exciting -- the first video preview of Crystal Frost, the upcoming third party viewer for Second Life that runs in Unity. Created by SLer and longtime developer Berry Bunny (Kallisti#2038 on Discord), the frame rate is a bit slow, but the graphic enhancements are pretty clear. And yes, the wandering cube is the avatar.

"Rendering avatars requires decoding rigging data from meshes," Kallisti tells me, "and I currently have not looked into how to do that just yet."

She tells me a playable version will be available "in a couple of weeks tops", first for people who are members of her Patreon.