About Me

ChicByTrinity

Dating No
Chatting No
Requests No

Resources

My Friends

MysticDesigner

Tips and Advice

Car driving room nodes

Many people don't know how to place a car onto the moving nodes in IMVU rooms that have animated driving built in.

First and most important: Do not use Ctrl while moving the car! Do not slide or turn it! Do not do anything except moving the car from the yellow furniture placement dots to next dots until you have placed the car on the marked dots (nodes). Then (not before) type the driving trigger (usually drive or drive1, check the product page for the actual triggers) and the car should move. After that you may slide or rotate the car any way you like as long as it stays on a driving node and doesn't jump to any other node (it can happen if you accidentally move it with the Move tool).

If you mess up and the car still won't move, then reset or delete the car, use the stop trigger to reset the driving spots, and start over.

 

P.S:

I have this one room called The Giga World which doesn't have any markers on the road so you will have to find the nodes with the help of the product page (see the pictures there). The nodes do work, it's just trickier to get the item onto them. The instructions above apply as well.

 

Product theft and stolen products

Many IMVU users and creators need to be educated about shopping and product creation. There are two main problems, the second one is probably the worst.

Many people (especially new IMVU users) don't know about Zero Change Derivations (ZCD) that have higher price than necessary.
I will explain it soon, read on.

Secondly, lots of people buy stolen products without knowing about it, and lots of so called creators are actual thieves, although some of them are victims of stolen files they may have downloaded or purchased without knowing about their origin.

 

Shopping

Always check the derivation chain! It's not recommended to buy Zero Change Derivation (ZCD) products because you can get the exact same product cheaper AND it loads a bit better in IMVU client.

How to detect a ZCD? You have to go to a product page on IMVU website. Then look to the right, below "Add to cart" and "Buy now" buttons. There should be "Derived from: [product name] | Derivation tree". Click on "Derivation tree" and look what is the first product after IMVU's own base product. If it's the same product you are interested in, then it can be much cheaper than the one you were looking at before.

Example: A user X creates a product that costs 660 credits. Now a user Y derives from it, changes nothing and uploads to their catalog with the price, say, 800 credits. There's no reason to buy from the user Y and spend 140 more credits if you can get the exact same product for 660 credits from the user X.

* I'm not referring to any actual creator here.

 

Stolen products

If you want to support real creators NOT thieves, then you should pay attention and keep your eyes open. The following is not always 100% like that, there can be exceptions which happens rarely, though.

Reminder: Zero Change Derivation (ZCD) is NOT considered a stolen product. It's not a good thing, but it's also not considered theft.

Also check the creator's homepage if you suspect anything; more information below. Read on.

 

  1. Stolen skins.

    1. Often very similar (or the same) to some other skins made by the original creators, but they have poor texture quality because they have been illegally uploaded and downloaded on a blog or some other website.
    2. The creator has only a few skins in the catalog.
    3. Several different types of skins in the same catalog.
    4. Someone uploading dozens of skins very fast, in a few days.
    5. The original skin creators never sell their textures so anyone else having the same skins in their catalogs can easily be thieves. However, they can be the alternate account(s) of the original creator. Either way it wouldn't hurt to send a message to the original creator and tell them about it.
      * There are a few creators selling skin templates, but I'd be extremely careful.
    6. Nice skins are never derivable! If you derive from a nice looking skin, then you take a risk of getting a copyrignt infringement notice in which case you will lose the product you derived + you might get disabled!

  2. Stolen rooms and furniture.

    1. Very low price. How can a room full of poses and furniture cost only about 600-700 credits? It is suspicious. Anshe has generally low prices, but not that low.
    2. Furniture with textures and poses, prices lower than 500-600. No UV maps provided if it's a derivable item.
    3. An exception: Anshe never provides any maps or textures.

  3. Stolen clothes and clothing meshes.

    1. It's similar to skins above when it comes to textures.
    2. Stolen clothing derivables have no UV maps and textures provided. Although, some honest creators also don't provide any textures or UV maps.

  4. AVOID FILE SALES if you can!

    1. Lots of file sales groups and forums are selling stolen textures or pieces of them, they even sell stolen meshes. With or without knowing it. Some people sell stolen work and they know what they are doing. Buyers will get in trouble when they use that stuff!
    2. Buy only from people who you can fully trust, and ask for proof.
    3. If they show you a PSD file with a few layers, and one layer is a whole texture -- that is NOT a proof. The original PSD must have many layers of hand painted stuff, no textures that look like a finished IMVU texture.
      For example: CHIC skin body PSD has more than 200 layers, the texture has been put together piece by piece without using any texture from any source. Several pieces have been taken from real photos.
    4. Do not upload or create products using textures (or meshes) your friend sent/sold you. You don't know where they got the files from (no matter what they say!), unless they can prove that they created the files in question (see #3. above).

  5. Private homepages and self reviews.

    1. Real thieves usually have set their home pages private, and they also have set their messages to "Buddies only" so they won't receive angry messages from real creators.
    2. Many thieves review their own products saying something like "Good" or "Very nice". Real creators don't do that.
      Some creators comment "The product has passed peer review" or something like that on their own products -- this is usually not a thief alert.

  6. Other things to consider.

    1. Thieves don't often have actual product images on their catalog pages. Usually just badly done icons.
    2. Many thieves have ugly avatars, that also reflects in their icons. They have teeny weeny head and enormous thighs and huge ass. I'm not saying that all IMVU users that have these features are thieves.
      Many decent creators do have huge ass, but they tend to have a normal head instead of a microscopic bump between the shoulders.
    3. DMCA badge means nothing. Your original creation is automatically protected UNLESS you state otherwise. Lots of thieves use DMCA badges which makes them look even more ridiculous and pathetic.


If you think that anything should be changed or updated, please feel free to contact me.

HERE is our "thief database" -- a large list of discovered thieves or creators who have used stolen files. Anyone can add to that list, those creators are not always added by me.


Resources

Members

Username:

Password:


The Site



Web Hosting