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.
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"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:
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:
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:
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Posted on Monday, March 06, 2023 at 02:52 PM in Comment of the Week, SL viewer news | Permalink | Comments (3)
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