FREE DRIVE PROJECT // Mantaray

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THE FREE DRIVE PROJECT
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About:

The Free Drive Project is an initiative to provide everyone the opportunity to drive and own amazing cars in Second Life for absolutely no money. We encourage everyone to share this vehicle as much as possible, and please note that no dollar amount should ever be paid to own this vehicle or any other vehicles involved in this project.

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Basic Use:

► Arrow Keys to move. Page Up and Page Down to shift up and down.

► Click body for car menu.

► Engine ON or Engine OFF to start car and shut down.

► Click Lights ON or Lights OFF for head lights and again to turn off.

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Tuning:

► Position to change sit position.

► Brake to change brake power.

► Turning to change turn radius.

► Accel to change acceleration.

► Refresh for when you add or remove prims. Click to update car.

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Customize:

► Change your car's appearance by selecting Customize in the Options menu.

► Choose between different color combinations across many different parts.

► Add/remove items to your car.

► Personalize with a custom license plate.

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Access:

► Locked or Unlocked for access level.

► Eject to remove all passengers.

12-01-2023:

Hello everyone, it's Ryo! Happy Belated Christmas, Kwanza, New Year, et cetera et cetera. Aren't you excited? I am. There's another free car for SL residents!

Now before you go writing this off as the last one, I'm gonna admit that I did that one all wrong. In looking for a "proper" shell for this, I basically just put perfectly good labor into a body that clearly didn't deserve the work. LOD issues, lack of mesh quality, all that. The concept of this is to create AWESOME cars, free for everyone to distribute and enjoy. The very first one wasn't the best reflection of it, and so I've really put in the work for this one to better align with the vision I had all along. How do you show gratitude by giving people a tinfoil hat as a party favor? That's basically what it felt like. This new one makes me feel much better.

Now I admit that I don't make the mesh, just the scripts. "How do you avoid the wrath of the uploaders," one of you may ask. It's simple-- I don't. I know I'll get a million eye rolls and bad opinions for saying this, but let me explain. I'm very careful about picking out parts and bodies for these cars, keeping far away from legitimate businesses (you know who you are) and opting for shells from clearly defunct brands. In the case of the last one, I'm just ripping off the pirates (you know who they are). Not all mesh is perfect or handmade, but you do get to choose who you do business with and I'll make it clear here that there are meshers in SL I will never jeopardize a relationship with. Those shells will never make it into the Free Drive Project (so don't expect any shells or parts from CPD, Min Barzane, Tech Robonaught, Memo Motors, etc., all great uploaders IMO (although CPD and Memo do their own modeling too), but ICONIC? LOL. That's fair game).

This car, though, comes from an inactive uploader. He kinda ghosted from SL all the way back then so if he comes back and claims copyright best I can do is apologize. I kept this in my back pocket to re-release every time I had some scientific breakthrough but I realized that this car doesn't really deserve that fate as a cheap cash grab. Finally after all these years, it's getting a well-deserved retirement as a people's sports car, and mind you, I worked pretty hard on it to build in features that make it into future Free Drive cars. Lo and behold it's far more robust now!

For example, sim crossings were basically impossible on my old scripts because of the way memory was allocated. That I couldn't fathom, so I rewrote everything. Drove this thing through 50+ sims trouble-free so it's now a true do-everything car! Add that to some pretty sweet customization options and you get this. I feel like a pirate's shoulder saying I am proud of how this turned out, but you get the idea. I really hope you enjoy this car as much as I enjoyed putting it together!

Stay tuned for future cars and the NEXT Free Drive Project!