Avatar Planet is one of the newest creators in the market and one of a handful hailing from the former Teen Grid. Their debut avatar, the Red Panda, is available in a variety of very vivid colors, sure to please those looking for something bolder than the norm.
Out of the Box:
| Features | Specifications |
| Male/Female shapes, Unisex skin Two tail options (unscripted) Plantigrade legs/feet Twitchy poseable type-react ears Poseable jaw Blinking poseable eyes Male/Female tintable hair Dual-tone heterochromic eyes Recolorable maw + pawpads Detachable extra fluff |
Render Weight: 62210 (no hair) Script count/load:
Mesh: No |
Skin and Textures:
As mentioned, this avatar’s colors are bold and bright. Even the black areas and full black avatar have a punch to them. The belly seam is nigh invisible on darker colors and only slightly noticeable on the lighter colors, and shading and texturework are consistent throughout the skin and prims. Prim-to-prim texture matching is good, the only majorly noticeable flaw being the muzzle-skull seam, which is very abrupt.
The bright, contrasting shading used on the avatar makes the fur texture and overall shading simply “pop”. This not only contributes a lot to the avatar colors’ vividness, but also adds an interesting effect – the furring here is very, very neat, as if freshly groomed, but to some, especially in the smaller-textured areas like the top of the head and the backs of the ears, these may come across as looking like scales.
Overall Build
The majority of the avatar’s attachments are sculpted – no mesh. On the whole, the sculpts are very smooth and clean, with minimal prim wrinkling and creasing and no “sphere tips” visible. There is some texture stretching noticeable on the tail, especially the curled tail.
The avatar is plantigrade, as are real red pandas, but does not come with thick plantigrade ankles, instead preferring to add some simple fluff and leave the system ankles as they are.
The shapes included with the avatar are simple, but effective – the female shape is somewhat thick, but more or less a middle-ground; the male shape builds off of a system female shape but retains a masculine appearance. Of course, the shapes are mod, so you can customize them to however you want them to be.
In-Depth Body Summary
As mentioned, the Red Panda does not include plantigrade ankle attachments, instead favoring a heavily humanoid foot shape and some removable calf fluff. This can be very beneficial if you wish to wear clothing meant for humans, as plantigrade ankles will not get in the way now, but this can cause glitching when walking or otherwise moving your feet when the ankle part of the foot glitches through your system leg. This is a common error with these types of feet, however, and is to be expected. Some of the leg fluff clips through the system leg and can be seen as a black dot above your foot; this can be fixed by simply moving the fluff back a bit, or you could just leave it as-is and consider it a marking.
The Red Panda, true to its real-life counterpart, does not have digitigrade leg attachments. If you wish to make your Panda digitigrade, you will have to use third-party legs.
The feet themselves are, no matter which color you choose, solid black. They have a small tuft of fur on the top of the foot, and five toes – four main toes and one “dewclaw”-ish toe. These all fit onto the foot very well, with minimal sculpt or texture clipping between them and the main foot prim. The claws are very soft textured and have appropriate colors for claws; rather than being solid white, they have a little bit of tone to them; however, this also makes them appear more like teeth than claws (more solid color, not as transparent). Each toe and the forefoot have pawpads. These pads are simple, spherical, and basically shaded – this helps, because they’re retintable via the HUD.
The creators offer two tail types, both of which are sculpted and neither of which is scripted. The default tail is long and thick, ending abruptly in a small poof of fluff prims. It’s a rather basic tail, but again, the colors make it pop – the default body color alternates with a lighter tint in the same configuration you would find on a real red panda.
The alternate tail is curled up, seemingly wrapped around something. This tail gives the illusion that your tail is longer than it really is, and also has a lot of texture stretching, taking away from the shading and fur texture quality somewhat. This tail could be useful if you like to carry things around in your tail or “hang around”.
The Panda has simple, thin, four-fingered paw-hands. The hands, aside from a recolor script, are unscripted; they do not pose. Here we find a similar style of pawpad and claw to what’s on the foot; the pads here being recolorable as well. The wrists, probably to better blend with the system wrists, have been made rather thin, and this may come across as odd-looking to those used to larger, thicker hands.
Lastly, there is some removable fluff on the chest and forearms, displaying the same type of texturing as the fluff on the rest of the body.
In-Depth Head Summary
The head is modeled closely after a real red panda head – round, short-muzzled, somewhat flat, with short, fluffy ears and characteristic red panda markings.
As mentioned prior, the furring on the skull and ears may appear to some as scales, due to the high contrast and conformity of the fur tufts.
The ears themselves are relatively short, wide, and thick. They appear very soft and smooth and are not very deep, appearing to be covered with very thick fur. There is a little bit of extra fur fluff hanging from the bottom edges that blends in with the fur tufts on the cheeks. The ears will randomly twitch and “tuck” back when you’re typing – these are toggleable via the HUD.
The eyes are simple – two-tone recoloring, heterochromatic possibilities (that is, you can recolor each eye separately). They however do not dilate, and as such are permanently stuck in a somewhat nighttime-dilated state. The blinking animation is a little choppy, but not too terribly so. Eye openness can also be controlled via the HUD.
The muzzle is probably the first thing you’ll notice about the avatar. It’s somewhat pyramidic in shape, coming to a point at the nose. This is also one of the few places on the avatar where sculpt wrinkling and prim/texture clipping is very noticeable – very faint wrinkling is visible on the muzzle itself and the skull/muzzle prim area does not blend the white and black fur. There is minimal shading on the muzzle itself as well, aside from on the ridges between the bridge and lips.
There is some fur texturing on the underside of the jaw, on the white. Also, on the jaw, there is an overhanging lip, which may make your avatar appear to either be constantly pouting or to have lip gloss on. This lip fits as a detail when the tongue is toggled to hang out, which gives the impression that the texture was intended for use with the tongue out function.
The mouth is tintable via the HUD – inner maw and tongue. There are four states of openness available as well, via the HUD, and the jaw will animate when you type. The teeth are of note, too – the creators, unlike many others, included the different types of teeth found in a red panda’s mouth, rather than just using the same tooth shape repeatedly. This is a small detail, but refreshing to see.
Features and HUD
The avatar isn’t as feature-packed as some others on the market may be, but it still has its share of useful and vital features.
Foremost, the recolorable parts. The pawpads, inner mouth, and eyes are all recolorable through the HUD’s HSV color picker. As stated earlier, the eyes can be recolored separately, two tones each.
The jaw and eyes have four preset states each, and the tongue can be toggled in and out.
Ear twitch can be turned on and off and type tuck can be turned on and off as well, but the ears are not poseable.
The HUD covers these features, and not much else – you have the selection buttons, the HSV picker, and a cute little red panda picture. In the future, the avatar HUDs will be more comprehensive and interactive.
Customization
As mentioned, the avatar’s mouth, tongue, eyes, and pawpads are all recolorable through the HUD.
The avatar comes with basic tintable hair for males and females, but you can also use third-party hair with it. The avatar’s head shape shouldn’t cause too much of a problem, since it’s largely flatter on the back than most other avatar heads. As always, buy demos, and make sure you can mod the hair you’re buying.
Rigged mesh hair will not work on this avatar, as it is not editable. Rigged mesh clothing should work, but again, always demo what you plan to buy.
The avatar has mod and copy permissions, so you can modify and play with the avatar all you want. As always, keep a backup of the avatar in case something breaks!
Conclusion
Red pandas are steadily growing in popularity throughout the Grid, and elsewhere. It’s always great to see a new creator, and even better to see their interpretation of a popular species. Moreover, the bright, vibrant color selection is sure to please those out to make a bold impression on all that see them.
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