{"id":7047,"date":"2022-12-22T18:37:52","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T00:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.zoha-islands.com\/?p=7047"},"modified":"2022-12-22T18:37:52","modified_gmt":"2022-12-23T00:37:52","slug":"2022-second-life-year-in-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/2022-second-life-year-in-review\/","title":{"rendered":"2022 Second Life Year In Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

2022 – Second Life Year In Review <\/span><\/h1>\n
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A Return to Our Roots\u2026and a New Vision for the Future<\/h2>\n

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As 2022 comes to a close, it is time for our annual look back at some of the year\u2019s most notable developments and accomplishments in Second Life. The year 2022 began with a bang as original founder Philip Rosedale returned to Second Life<\/a> as a strategic advisor. Philip\u2019s pioneering vision for the now-mainstream concepts of virtual economies, cultures, and communities played a crucial role in the launch and subsequent success of Second Life since its inception almost two decades ago – and we are excited to work closely with him once again to shape our future direction.<\/p>\n

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One of the newest Second Life initiatives championed by Philip has been the long-awaited Preview Grid availability of “Puppetry<\/a>“, which adds avatar \u201cexpressiveness\u201d either via camera-based movement or connecting the viewer to motion-based capture hardware for a whole new level of interaction and connectedness. Our announcement of this work was among the most-shared posts on our social channels for the year, and we\u2019ve opened up the development of this feature to community contributions.<\/p>\n

The introduction of Event Regions<\/a> makes it easier to hold large-scale events with expanded capacity for more concurrent visitors – owners and renters of Event Regions can host up to 175 avatars and get a 20% script performance boost along with other benefits.<\/p>\n

Second Life membership got a power-up too, with the introduction of Premium Plus<\/a>, which rolled out to a steaming hot reception this summer. The introduction of the Plus membership tier later in the year has allowed residents to dip their toes into the waters of SL membership and mainland ownership. Everyone can find a level<\/a> that fits their Second Life needs at the moment, and we hope the expanded offerings will continue to serve you well.<\/p>\n

This year, Residents spent nearly 320 million hours inworld, and we hope that you were having a blast the whole time!<\/p>\n

2023 Roadmap<\/h2>\n

Want a sneak peek at the shape of things to come in 2023? \u00a0Here\u2019s a look at what\u2019s already in the works for the new year and beyond:<\/p>\n

In 2022 we started working on a number of graphical improvements including physical based rendering (PBR), GLTF adoption, and reflection probes – with the intent of shipping our first iteration of these features early in the coming year.<\/p>\n

Creators will be able to use tools like Substance Painter to generate GLTF materials to import into Second Life. PBR will leverage the new material types and sample from reflection probes for environment reflections and lighting. Second Life is about to get a lot more shiny.<\/p>\n

All the reflection probes work set us up nicely for a much requested feature. Yes, Planar mirrors are also on our roadmap for 2023!<\/p>\n

Also in the works for 2023:<\/strong><\/p>\n