store models (alts/bots)

I like them if they have access to all the outfits in the store.

I don't like them if they're alts and not really there. I remember going to Blaze as a newbie and trying to ask the dancing "model" if she would try on a particular dress for me... I asked her several times, with no answer. She never responded and I never went back.

a lot of store owners have blogs, (mine is in my sig) and use those to showcase pics of their products (or sneak peeks) or even some other tidbits of info

I have been giving a lot fo thought as well, to creating my own website

I had asked opinions about it back in the old sales thread, but not many ppl seemed to have much to say about it

I probably will one day make a website specific to my store, set up as a store, with links to onrez, xstreetsl and inworld, for purchasing (I am not knowledgeable enough to link it such as xstreet and onrez do)

I would love to know how heh then I would have it so folks could buy directly from my website (when I get it done)

as it is I have some done on my PC, just nothing live on the web (except my blog)

Come to think of it, a bot could do that with much less customer effort: just temporarily use the customer's shape and skin on request. Animations, too, I guess. But at first this would freak out people who didn't understand how it was being done, and might theoretically infringe IP.

Demo versions are probably better. For texture clothing, just seeing it in 3D (as with the sculpty mannequins) does give a hint of the quality of seams, etc., that are often not shown in product pics. But matching the customer shape and skin, and seeing it move with the customer's animations could a pretty good substitute for a demo version.

Wouldn't work... they'll only have the customer's baked skin which will include the clothes they're currently wearing.

I like models showing sexy underwear, both in SL and RL. I particularly like nude models showing skin. I would like to have them in RL. hehe

I notice that this has turned into a discussion of *clothing* designers, only.

Here's some more wishes from me, for other kinds of creators:

Animation makers: animations for avatars with unusual proportions: short legs, long body, short arms, so a ferret can sit down without being buried in the ground. And... more subtle animations. Maybe change out the animations you sell just for the sake of changing them, with minor differences, so you don't see a whole room of avatars doing the same "wipe the **** off my foot" animation at the same time.

Avatar makers: less common species! I don't care about a new cat avatar. I want fossas and kinkajous and civets and yapoks and numbats and linsangs.

Vehicle makers: stop selling no-mod vehicles. Actually, that goes for just about everyone. No-mod is a pain in the neck for anything, but for some reason it seems to be most common for people building aircraft.

Everyone making primmy stuff: a sample texture with the main colors of your product in it, so I can stretch them over extra prims instead of trying to match them with tints. For tiled textures, include that texture no-transfer for individual customization. Have pity on those of us less skilled than you who want to stand on your shoulders... we're strong advocates for extra sales.

Everyone who uses little scripts in their products: if the value of the product isn't in the script... make the script full perm, or if you're paranoid about that put a copy of it in a notecard. It rarely takes me more than a few minutes to come up with a replacement for it, but after writing code all day it's just not so much fun reverse-engineering a script before I can extend it with whatever extra cool stuff I want to do in it. The value of your product isn't in a 20-line script that's barely different from the almost-identical 20-line scripts all your competitors use, it's all the cool non-scripty stuff that's, well, cool.

Oh, and when I do give you an enhanced version of your script back, after I've reverse-engineered it, don't get all weird about it. I can't make the cool stuff you make, which is why I keep buying it. Second Life would be boring if we were all identical.

Anyway, that's my wishes for now.

On another track, a request from a creator to creators:

For the people who use big scripts like Francis Chung's Franimation Overrider, or my Cyberflight... there's licenses on these scripts. They're usually pretty lenient, so please honor them. Some of the common ones have years of work in them ... I have spent time working on my own AO script and, you know, all those weird special cases in them? They're really necessary. I gave up and just use Franimation clones instead, just like everyone else.

Franimation is GPL, so if you mod it and hardcode the names of your own animations in it... you gotta release THAT version. Really, that's what the license says.

(no, I'm not Francis Chung's alt or sock puppet)

Cyberflight? I don't require that, but you must credit me. And I would like to be informed when you use it... you don't have to, but it'd be nice.

That's how I understood it, too, but somewhere somebody wrote (as if with authority) that the component texture IDs were also sent to all viewers--although that wouldn't seem to serve any normal purpose, so maybe that was misinformation. (I've never studied the protocol, so I'm easily misled. )

I suppose it would be a little intrusive to ask the customer to get naked first before the bot tries on something skin-revealing.

I have seen designers' websites, and they do help. I often Google "second life" and whatever I am looking for.

There are some sites with good pictures. Often, however, what is displayed on the site is the same as the box drawing that can be seen on Onrez or in the store. It would help to see more pictures of the clothing item on a model in a natural pose.

A regular web site is much better than a blog. If a designer has enough different types of items, multi-level navigation can be used, so that the customer would simply choose "women's apparel", "intimates", "bras", and then be taken to a page with pictures. The web sites of real world stores can serve as a model.

As for buying directly from your site, it is not worth the trouble to set up a "shopping cart" system. Onrez and XLStreet already exist, so just link to them.

For example, www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=403886 and shop.onrez.com/item/391904

Any book on HTML will give the code necessary for the link.

But my main point is that pictures of a mode in natural poses would be helpful on the web sites.

Mary

One more thing models are useful for is modeling shapes. 2-D images definitely do not give you a good idea about how a shape looks. Not that I shop for shapes, but...

And avatars, it depends on what kind. I know that the Isle of Wyrms dragons have a temp rezz display for some of their pieces, without models. It's great to be able to walk around, under and stare at the dragon before you buy.

As for clothing, well, rarely see the clothing on the models before I see them on the vendor, so... *shrug* And if you see a DiamonX Model running around my shop, that's just me on my poster model, working on my shop. If I'm online as either, then I'll gladly model gowns if you need to see them in world.

That's only supposed to happen if there's no baked texture available.