Preview vehicles

A lot of vehicle creators out there have their vehicles on display, but don't allow a preview of the vehicle, even though it would be pretty simple to make a preview vehicle that dies on unsit or after 5-10 minutes and rez a copy of itself in place of the old vehicle. Although I've seen a few vehicles that allow preview like this, they're far between. I can't really see a good reason for this, so I'm wondering why it's like this?

Mainly because you can rez it on no script land, take out the script and add your own.. Free vehicle shape..

Not if you build-in checks in the main vehicle script, or just put the code in the main vehicle script. I put lots of checks in to make sure that someone only got a certain amount of usable time with my touring hot air balloon when it was a sold product.

But lets say from a car or motorcycle, you could take out ALL scripts and replace them with one of the free ones.. The touring balloon however is unique, and altho there might be normal balloon scripts going about, it doesn't compare

That assumes you get a copy of the vehicle. Whoever makes the vehicle may instead make a vehicle that you could use for a limited amount of time but is still owned by the creator.

Yeah. Rez demo vehicle, with open driving perms, set a timer with llDie(), done.

Ahh yes, but that would mean having a copy rezzed (takes up prims), and probably enough to have to, so when someone drives off, it will spawn another copy AND a box/example to actually buy to recieve it. More scripting.

But I do see your point, if you've got the prims, it would be great...

For those who don't have the prims, I'd think that it could be made temp_on_rez, it would be a short preview but a preview nonetheless.

2 Minutes.. I think.. Hmmm.. Let me find the wiki..



Good idea..

Yeah vehicle sellers! why?!

As long as an av is attached, the temp-on-rez prims won't be cleaned up. Most of my demos are temp-on-rez to avoid having them returned to me when an agent crashes and the vehicle flies off-world and to make sure they don't clutter anyone's land.

I had free boating demo machine. Know what happened? I discovered just how many no-script plots are in existance. I also evidently made several home owners irate, and got returns from all the way across the grid.

I suppose temp-on-rez may work... but 120 seconds? Ugh.

For the time being I just show potential buyers the handy-dandy guest mode on my own copy. That works out a lot better in person than some faceless machine.

A big reason is that it takes a bit of time to do. You have now created 2 identical vehicles that you would need to keep it clear on which one is the full retail version and which one is the demo model. For the full retail model, you want to have the proper perms in place, a lot of times it is no-mod/copy/no transfer and each script would have the proper perms on it as well. For a demo model, you want them to only have 1 copy at anytime which involves making sure the no copy option is there but that forces the transfer box to check. Then it becomes a pain to toggle some scripts or items to no transfer but copyable and some parts to no copy but transfer. One of the factors I try to keep from happening is that a free demo model gets taken then resold for a lot of money to an unsuspecting buyer who in turn only gets one use out of it before it dies. Then there are updated models. Revising a retail item is a time consuming task but to factor in updating a demo model to match is just as time consuming if not more when you need to factor in permissions. I prefer the llDie() upon pilot stand though, gives a test for as long as they are willing to stay in the vehicle and allows them to externally evaluate the vehicle from different angles before flying it without fear that the temp_on_rez will kill it, especially if they need to go afk in a pinch. When I buy a car, I like to kick the tires and look under the hood so I think that is why I prefer this method and even deal with making demo models

I agree. More vehicle makers should have demos.

I try to make a demo for each of my latest vehicles, time permitting. The only reason why I haven't in some cases is that it takes a while to re-script each one as a demo and add it to a demo rezzer.

I agree with Cubey.

I have a couple of demo's out. I still have a mehve one demo out, event though I am selling mehve 2. Why? because its there just to get a taste of the vehicle - if you like it you will buy it.

However right now, I am totally ummed out with SL. So I am taking an extended break.

I love your demos! I used to ride your planey thing in Abbots round sandbox

You know, there just seems to be just a lack of demand for this

I've been selling vehicles for about 20 months in SL. Not once have I been asked for this.

It might be just me - all my vehicles, if the owner is seated, it will allow anyone to drive. So if you want a "test drive" it's not hard - just ask a friend who already has one