We may earn a commission when you buy through links in our articles. Learn more.

Second Life adds Oculus Rift support

Second Life Linden Lab

It’s been more than a year since Linden Lab first announced they were working to add Oculus Rift support to Second Life. Well, the first stage of that’s arrived.

The Project Viewer puts you in the head of your Second Life avatar. They’re still working on adapting the UI to a head-mounted display but this is a serious first step.

“Developments like the Oculus Rift hold great potential for Second Life, and we’re very excited to bring the virtual world into the future with new technologies and partners,” writes the studio. “A few weeks ago, we began a limited beta test of a version of the Second Life Viewer that makes it easy to use an Oculus Rift headset with Second Life for a fully immersive, VR experience.

“Today we’re pleased to announce that our Oculus Rift integration is now available as a Project Viewer, the first step toward becoming a part of the default Second Life Viewer.”

The Project Viewer features:

  • Full Oculus Rift Hardware Support – includes automatic hardware detection and display calibration for quick and easy setup.

  • Full UI Support – users can access the entire Second Life UI and HUDs while in Oculus Rift mode, so there are no limitations on what a user can do inworld while using the headset.

  • Customizable UI – users can tailor the settings for Oculus Rift mode that work best for their needs.

  • Avatar Head Motion – Oculus Rift head-tracking data is mapped to the avatar, so users’ avatars look where they do.

  • New First-Person View – allows users to enjoy the immersion previously available with mouselook mode, but thanks to the Oculus Rift, the mouse is free again to control the cursor, allowing for interaction with the UI and objects inworld.

  • “Align to Look” – allows users to quickly start moving the direction they are looking.

  • “Action Key” – interact with objects by pressing a key, works great in mouselook mode.

Linden have released a video showing off how to get the Oculus working with Second Life:

This is a big step for Oculus support. Hopefully it won’t be another year till we see it updated.