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Second Life Mobile 2023 - First Look

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davidventer

davidventer

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I hope that the mobile viewer will support most (or all) of the default desktop viewer functionality. 

There are really awesome 3D design apps on iPad such as Shapr3D and Nomad Sculpt. Nomad Sculpt can do PBR painting and export GLTF files. How awesome would it be if we can create content on iPad and take it directly into Second Life from iPad - no need for a desktop viewer? This is already possible in other virtual worlds such as Spatial, so it should be doable in Second Life as well. Hopefully, it will be, eventually. 

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Linden Lab
Linden Lab

Learn more about Second Life on mobile, and other upcoming features, changes, and our roadmap for 2023 on Lab Gab. In this episode our VP of Engineering Mojo Linden shared that a beta version of Secon

davidventer
davidventer

This comment reeks of petty ignorance and self-importance.  Just because YOU don't have a valid reason doesn't mean you need to dismiss others' needs or preferences. This doesn't affect you in an

Sid Nagy
Sid Nagy

I would go for handing out the alpha version to people who have time and skills to find bugs and flaws and suggest improvements. But no, it is all about to lure people into premium plus to make some

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Trinity Blakewell

Trinity Blakewell

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On 5/21/2023 at 8:09 AM, davidventer said:

There are really awesome 3D design apps on iPad such as Shapr3D and Nomad Sculpt. Nomad Sculpt can do PBR painting and export GLTF files. How awesome would it be if we can create content on iPad and take it directly into Second Life from iPad - no need for a desktop viewer? This is already possible in other virtual worlds such as Spatial, so it should be doable in Second Life as well. Hopefully, it will be, eventually. 

I didn't know about Spatial, so I tried it out. Other than shadows, the visual quality is like Second Life a few years after it began. And it keeps crashing on my iPad, which is only about a year old. They do have a very open approach to world-building (which is great) and it runs in the browser on computers. I think that Second Life Mobile will blow it out of the water, though, because of the rich amount of content, the better quality (especially with avatars) and the established micro currency based economy.

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davidventer

davidventer

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11 hours ago, Trinity Blakewell said:

I think that Second Life Mobile will blow it out of the water, though, because of the rich amount of content, the better quality (especially with avatars) and the established micro currency based economy.

Yes! This is why the Second Life mobile viewer can’t come soon enough! I believe Spatial is also using Unity so that tells me that content upload is possible via mobile, so it can be done in Second Life as well, and hopefully it will be possible, and it’ll be SO MUCH better! 
 

Honestly, the only reason I really use Spatial now is because I can’t get onto Second Life from my iPad, and I need my virtual world fix, so to speak. Well, I can get on, with Speedlight, but Speedlight is not so great for exploring Second Life in 3D, unfortunately. 

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Glaznah Gassner

Glaznah Gassner

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I'm waiting for a mobile release (at least beta) too. The most interesting question for me is how the new mobile viewer maintains an online status.

Regular SL viewer requires PC to be turned on to stay online (if your PC goes to sleep, avatar disconnects). At SpeedLight we use servers to keep avatars online. This allows turning off phone and even switching between devices. On the other hand this makes the whole system a bit more expensive.

I'm curious how LL got around this important problem. Users got used to stay online without keeping a device screen turned on.

On 5/29/2023 at 8:02 AM, Nae Mayo said:

Finally. I have waited so long for the mobile hardware to catch up. And also a mobile viewer on IOS.

SpeedLight has an iOS version, please take a look. I appreciate a feedback.

 

BTW iOS is even more strict killing background apps (speaking of staying online).

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Wulfie Reanimator

Wulfie Reanimator

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12 minutes ago, Glaznah Gassner said:

The most interesting question for me is how the new mobile viewer maintains an online status.

I imagine that they haven't -- at least nothing indicates that they did, right?

It would be really cool and useful if LL made it possible for agents to stay connected without avatar presence (or at least the ability to send/receive messages without presence, like we can with email).

Edited by Wulfie Reanimator
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Glaznah Gassner

Glaznah Gassner

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3 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

It would be really cool and useful if LL made it possible for agents to stay connected without avatar presence (or at least the ability to send/receive messages without presence, like we can with email).

The mobile SL app announced by LL about 3 years ago (it was never launched as far as I know) was working exactly this way: agent connected to the network without an avatar presence on any sim. Basically, it would be a simple IM client.

From my experience with SpeedLight viewer nobody wants a bare IM/chat client. At the very beginning of SpeedLight it was a business-targeted chat client without 3D world support. We had to develop a full-scale 3D engine.

3D is essential (including SL business owners). 3D allows user to actually feel the presence in a virtual world: walk, stand, pay to in-world objects, feel people wandering around.

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Wulfie Reanimator

Wulfie Reanimator

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43 minutes ago, Glaznah Gassner said:

The mobile SL app announced by LL about 3 years ago (it was never launched as far as I know) was working exactly this way: agent connected to the network without an avatar presence on any sim. Basically, it would be a simple IM client.

From my experience with SpeedLight viewer nobody wants a bare IM/chat client. At the very beginning of SpeedLight it was a business-targeted chat client without 3D world support. We had to develop a full-scale 3D engine.

3D is essential (including SL business owners). 3D allows user to actually feel the presence in a virtual world: walk, stand, pay to in-world objects, feel people wandering around.

Yeah, I vaguely remember the planned/canned text client.

And I absolutely agree that most SL users would want a 3D view. It's a very visual-oriented platform. The text-only option would still be great for battery life (and device heat), though. 😄 I wonder if they'd incorporate that into this version.

Edited by Wulfie Reanimator
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Love Zhaoying

Love Zhaoying

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3 hours ago, Glaznah Gassner said:

SpeedLight has an iOS version, please take a look. I appreciate a feedback.

it is much different than the web browser version? 

Note: I have not tried the web browser version in several months so do not know if there have been many changes or improvements since then.

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Glaznah Gassner

Glaznah Gassner

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Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

it is much different than the web browser version? 

The app uses the same assets as web version, so you can use both. App works slightly faster tho plus saves battery.

 

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Note: I have not tried the web browser version in several months so do not know if there have been many changes or improvements since then.

We significantly update SpeedLight every month so there's definitely a lot of changes. The most significant updates of last month are high-resolution 3D, support of all avatars rendering (by request tho, we don't load avatars by default), avatar animations. In-world object payments and typing notifications update was just released. Discord update channel: https://discord.com/channels/533240770728034305/652176470994845729

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Glaznah Gassner

Glaznah Gassner

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Just now, Nae Mayo said:

I'm using it. But graphic is really bad. Mesh don't render well.

Please check the latest version (released yesterday, will update automatically). It solves exactly your issue: meshes now load in high resolution.

image.png

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anitabush

anitabush

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On 5/21/2023 at 1:09 PM, davidventer said:

I hope that the mobile viewer will support most (or all) of the default desktop viewer functionality. 

There are really awesome 3D design apps on iPad such as Shapr3D and Nomad Sculpt. Nomad Sculpt can do PBR painting and export GLTF files. How awesome would it be if we can create content on iPad and take it directly into Second Life from iPad - no need for a desktop viewer? This is already possible in other virtual worlds such as Spatial, so it should be doable in Second Life as well. Hopefully, it will be, eventually. 

Nomad is fantastic and cosy blanket can do part of the optimisation work but we are missing a general purpose 3d app such as blender to create the LOD models. There’s also no good texturing apps yet. I agree it would be cool and hopefully those missing pieces will be available at some point in the future (looking at you Adobe)

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Glaznah Gassner

Glaznah Gassner

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2 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

I don't get it.

Please describe a single valid reason for anyone anywhere to ever want to need to use Second Life on a battery-powered handheld wi-fi device with a microscopic screen covered in greasy fingerprints.

Nope.

There's a bunch of various reasons actually: 

 

For me the reason is to :

  1. Access Second Life from anywhere (mostly IMs and payments, 3D from time to time)
  2. Access it really fast: without looking for PC, launching desktop client, logging in. Mobile app usually starts faster than a desktop SL viewer.
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davidventer

davidventer

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23 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

I don't get it.

Please describe a single valid reason for anyone anywhere to use Second Life on a battery-powered handheld wi-fi device with a microscopic screen covered in greasy fingerprints.

Nope.

This comment reeks of petty ignorance and self-importance. 

Just because YOU don't have a valid reason doesn't mean you need to dismiss others' needs or preferences. This doesn't affect you in any way. Providing access to a mobile viewer doesn't mean you'll stop having access to a desktop viewer.

But you wanted valid reasons? Here you go:

The main reason: Accessibility, especially for those with disabilities who aren't able to use keyboard and mouse input (the iPad does support touch, keyboard, mouse, Apple Pencil, voice, and game controller input). I personally know someone who is no longer on Second Life because a motor accident left them disabled. They're no longer able to use a keyboard and mouse but they now use an iPad and Apple Pencil to do everything they used to do on a desktop. They'll most probably return to Second Life once the mobile viewer is released. 

My reason: My iPad Pro M2 is a powerful beast, about 3x more powerful than my old iMac 4k. Since getting it, I've been using it as my main driver for pretty much everything because it's fun, it's portable, the battery lasts all day, and I'm not chained to a desk. I also experience frequent power cuts in my country and can't get much done on my desktop as a result, whereas a battery-powered device enables me to stay productive even during blackouts. The screen is anything but microscopic; sure it's not as large as an iMac or MacBook but surprisingly, that's not an issue. It's easy to hold and fun to use. I have been able to do almost everything on the 11-inch iPad that I'm used to doing on my 24" iMac, Second Life being the exception -  the screen size is a non-issue, and if I ever want a bigger screen, when the power is on, I can Airplay Mirror my iPad onto my massive TV and chill on my bed or on the couch rather than having to sit at a desk. 

Rather than proclaiming "Nope" on things that other people are excited about and have a valid need for, maybe try to allow others to enjoy things, even if you don't. Don't yuck someone else's yum. Live and let live. No one is forcing you to use a mobile viewer but many of us would love the option, and fortunately, Linden Lab is working on giving us the option. ✌️

Edited by davidventer
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