IMVU

I have been to many different sites, today I will talk a little about a place I have been on since 2006, it is called IMVU. you can find it at http://www.imvu.com

It was a bad time in my life, and since a child I had always escaped through, art back in the 80’s, tv shows, singing, and writing, yet I always felt one day there would be a place where I would meet, other dreamers like me, who knew that there must be another world out there, where we can express ourselves, be who we wanted to be even if it was only in screen. So one fateful day back in April 18, 2006 I found IMVU.com,  while trying to decorate my myspace page.

These were the good days, it was very fun, I had more fun than I ever had before, I was amazed by the site…… being that I had never been on a 3D site before. But there is a downside to everything…

I like to break things down to pros and cons

Please keep in mind these are based on my personal experience:

Wrath and Varda of IMVU.com

Pros:

1.)Easy to be a developer:

IMVU has meshes and a great working previewer once separate, now, an in client system. It means you log on and then you make your stuff from there. In order to become a developer you pay a small fee of 14.99 for your name and then walla join the creator program your a developer.

creating can be very easy to do.. You just log onto your client (The little icon that is shown, and put in your user name and password) Your character or avatar appears then then to create you simply click the create button, and then find what you want to create. Now this part is a little confusing.. when you see a product you want to remake let says you see a room you really like BUT, it is the wrong color. You got two options..

1. you can ask the person who made it to make it in the color of your choice.. which some are very amiable and will jump to make you happy, or they are extremely busy and cannot.

2. You derive it yourself.. how you do this, I will explain, you look to the right on the product page there should be derived from link. The reason I say this will be covered in cons..Make sure you derive from the Original creator of the product, not any one else. It will save you money.. Then once you are on the correct page, and are sure, you scroll down, and then click on derive form product, it is small blue link, it will open up the editor tab on the product you want to derive from on your client your logged into, walla your product comes up and is ready to be derived from.

3. You will see small squares on the right hand side that have pictures, those are your textures, normally a texture is like 256×256, some are 128 x 128, that is the picture size you need I recommend if you don’t have a photo editor program or paint program you get one asap. also there are a lot of file sales groups that will have some ready made products for you to go right around and resell but changing colors in your editing program. You just have to invest a little money. Each picture represents one part of what we call the mesh,

A mesh is the “skeleton” or bones of an object, for example you have a simple table, and the table leg that represent one of the pictures is green and you want that in blue, check your size it will tell you if your not sure always go with 256 x 256, also check to see if there is an opacity map.

An opacity map is exactly what it sounds like, can you see through it? or is it different than the shape appears? A good example on this is if you want a window, a window usually is see through, if you have an opacity map you can see through it. Here are basic rules for opacity maps:

A. White equals solid

B. Grey or varying shades of grey equals see through or semi transparent

C. Black equals Invisible!

With that being said all you do lets say for simplicity sake for now , you just want to change the color of the leg and that picture has no opacity map you click on the picture and change it to the one you want, this will require some knowledge on textures.

3.That also can be found at various file sales groups, and if your a a starving dev, I and a couple the seasoned devs have provided in those groups links to free textures, to get you started. Here is the link to my group, simply join, then you will see where tutorials and freebies are at: http://www.imvu.com/groups/group/Virtually%2BDelicious%2521/

If you need to buy textures, here is another link to a new group I started to help new and older devs accomplish more through file sales! It’s a win win!

http://www.imvu.com/groups/group/Virtually%2BDelicious%2B-File%2BSales%2521/

Once your done you make sure you make yourself a picture about 100 x 80 then you click save and then submit, then you upload, you will then be charged a derivation fee, one thing about this is it lets you select how much profit you wish to make, so add on the profit you think your work is worth. Once your uploaded it will be added to your catalog

4. It is super easy to maneuver around, all you have to do is just click on a yellow dot and hop, we call it “node” hoping

5. The inventory is second to none, nope, no better inventory system out there guys amongst all the other sites I have seen, they should take some lessons from these guys…

6. The homepages are Second to.. NONE, no one else has tapped into this, it is like your avatar virtual myspace so well organized and personalized and with the ability to add HTML.. wake up other virtual places..

7. The group pages are AMAZING! I love love love love love…. the group pages, They are so much fun! they give avatars like myself the opportunity to interact with people we might never have the chance to interact with, to learn together, platy together and even share info. I love building little story empires and that is one of the main reasons I love IMVU besides the easiness to make products.

8. the developer program is very organized, they have tiers, and the regulate your standing, tells you how other than just how much money you make, your doing! I really like this, as it motivates me to continue to learn and make more content.

9. They have awesome music store, that lets you play your mix whenever wherever you want, and the options for streaming radio, no need to hire a DJ unless you want specialized music for your party. I really like that choice, it gives me the freedom to choose what I want but there is a con.

CONS:

1. They sell credits the money value is not much, if you plan to make a living being dev here.. look elsewhere the market is done example 10,000 credits equals 1,000 lindens or the equivalent of about 4.00 USD. The issues is you don’t make more on average than about 500 credits profit a sale if your LUCKY, so you make maybe in a week after all your hard work if your lucky. not enough to support a soda habit. One well known dev I know maybe makes enough get groceries a month, not bad if that what your after.

2. All you can do is node hop, no running, walking, flying, jumping, it pretty cut and dried, you hop node everywhere, and about all you can do is dance virtually to sit.. or do the hundreds of cuddle poses

3. If your an adult it is not the place for you.. SEX IS A DIRTY WORD TO IMVU. You are a mesher don’t bother making any adult items the right way on imvu… IMVU will UFI (unfit for imvu) you then ban or disable your account, the reason is they saturated their market w people under 18 this makes it very hard for adults, I even stopped making AP products (access pass for adult products) because the corruption was so thick because adults were so fed up. One classic example a good friend of mine and a Pro Dev, got his account suspended for making “impaling sticks…” Ridiculous….

4. IMVU is NOT for kids AT ALL EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER… if you got kids on there get them off PLEASE???? It is a very very bad place for them they let predators run free and do nothing to stop them. I’m serious what can they do, one i know send messages threatening you to call his cell phone or he’ll call the cops if your a little kid your going to be scared and do just that IMVU declares he is NOT breaking TOS (terms of Service) doing this .. SHAMEFUL… IMVU supports predators I know this for a FACT and I can give you proof just ask me and Ill provide it. They harbor sex predators, criminals and the mentally violently unstable, they do nothing to stop them, besides slapping them on the hands, even when they are caught RED HANDED endangering minors..

5. IMVU is a meat market, it is all about the cyber baby.. and they ban adult products, it has not stopped the black market… the black market is rich in all the adult products industry, IMVU makes a NICE Profit but will bever openly admit it, the issue is Adults have to hide these products, which you can find for FREE on most other sites, in having yo hide them they are forced to make them GA, (general audience) to bypass imvu staff, and this makes easy access for molesters to their GA audience AKA MINORS!

6. IMVU and VIP subscription fees, to get more access you have to pay 9.99 to get it, this adds up every month, not worth it really, but Im still researching it.

7. NON EXISTENT CUSTOMER SERVICE -WORST in ALL the Virtual Companies beside Nuvera.com

8. They don’t treat devs very well on the financial end nor do they protect them, they let mesh, and texture thieves run rampant, they do not honor their word on mostly everything they say, especially when it comes to protecting your copyright, they close help tickets before ever answering them, they show little or no regard for your hard work, and are liable to delete you on a whim, keeping ALL your content for themselves.. and profit..Also they let any dev take your hard earned work on your mesh and set it to derivable, this gets them up in tier quickly, which is in my book wrong since they didn’t do the work, and it also screws over the other devs who unwittingly derive from it, since they have to pay more if they had just gone back through the original creator.. on IMVU there are way to many tier 6 and 7 devs who just slap on any texture to another devs product and call it there, and too many super talented devs who are not yet PRO..

so right now that my take on imvu, pros and cons, you be the judge, and try it if you have not, if you got kids there get them out right now. In a rating of 1 to 10 Stars 10 being the best, I give IMVU 5 They seriously need to work on CUSTOMER SERVICE…