Linden Lab‘s Sansar social VR world has launched a fashion market for user-created avatar clothing.
The move opens entrepreneurial and creative opportunities for users, much like happened with Linden Lab’s predecessor world, Second Life. In addition, Sansar has launched an integration with Marvelous Designer, the fashion design software by Clo Virtual Fashion, which is used by numerous mainstream brands and independent fashion designers in the real world.
Fashions created with Marvelous Designer can now be exported directly to Sansar, where users can take advantage of realistic cloth simulation as they customize the fit and style on their avatars. That will make clothing in VR look more realistic, improving the immersiveness of the overall experience.
Fashion is already a big part of the $500 million user-to-user economy in Second Life, where designers have earned millions of dollars from virtual fashion businesses. Linden Lab wants to do the same thing for its social VR world of Sansar, which launched in open beta in July.
Above: Sansar’s virtual clothing will have a realistic feel.
Sansar users can customize their avatars, bringing a measure of individuality and personality to the social interactions for both VR and PC users on the platform.
“Our experience operating Second Life has shown how important and valuable user-created avatar fashions are, and with Sansar, we’re taking it to an exciting new level,” said Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab, in a statement. “Our integration with Marvelous Designer means that not only can you change what you wear, you can customize the fit and style to adjust how you wear it in Sansar. For example, you can roll up your sleeves, loosen your collar, and arrange your scarf just as you like it.”
For a limited time, an extended 60-day free trial of Marvelous Designer will be available exclusively to Sansar users.
“Innovative fashion companies, world-leading film and gaming studios, and creative hobbyists around the world are already using Marvelous Designer to create incredible virtual clothing designs,” said Jaden Oh, CEO at Clo Virtual Fashion, in a statement. “Our integration with Sansar is the first of its kind, and it makes it easy for our users to sell their creations in this new market.”
Linden Lab was founded in 1999, and it launched Second Life in 2003. Sansar is available on the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Windows PCs.
This post by Dean Takahashi originally appeared on VentureBeat.
