Despite what people have perceived as inactivity from AVentity over the years, they have been busy working on a multitude of projects, some of which include sharks in wolves. In a re-debut of AVentity on SLARF, we take a look at one of their more recent offerings, their extremely unique Moray Eel avatar.

Out of the Box:

• Male and Female Shapes and Skins
• Moving, Recolourable Eyes
• Optional Digitigrade Legs
• Flexi Tail
• Blink States
• Muzzle Talking Function
  • On/Off Toggle
• Free Updates
• Technical Manual included in the Manual

Build and Skin:

This is the first avatar from AVentity that we’ve covered since we last discussed their Serval av, which is now over 2 years old. In that time, AVentity has naturally progressed with their techniques in both design, as well was sculpting and textures. Texture-wise, the avatar ranges from being incredibly simple to being slightly intricately spotty. This avatar has a simple ‘base’ texture which includes soft gradients and the gentle shading or highlights of different areas of the body. This is uniform across all of the Moray Eel avatars. The major difference between ‘varieties’ of the avatar are the colours, as well as the intensity of the spots and other markings. These, in turn are nice and sharp, contrasting with the rest of the body. The following photo shows some of the differences between varieties.

One variety comes with both a male and a female shape, as well as skins to go with each gender. As one would expect, the male avatar focuses on the abdominal muscles, while the female has a softer belly and more prominent breasts. The textures for the avatar may seem simple to some, but it really does go with the avatar’s style, giving it a crisp, vibrant appearance.

Sculpt-wise, the prims are also clear-cut and have no nobbling of any kind. The construction of the avatar itself keeps creasing between prims at a minimum; especially since the general structure of the head is pretty much just 2 prims.

Attachments:

Now, for an animal that has no legs, one question that might immediately come to mind is, ‘why’ are digitigrade legs included with this avatar. Normally we encourage avatars to be anatomically correct, but given that eels don’t have legs anyways, and this is a heavily anthropomorphicised eel, digitigrade legs doesn’t seem to be too much of a stretch compared to the idea of an eel walking on two legs. In that respect, then, this avatar allows users to wear the digitigrade legs optionally.

The feet are somewhat paw-like, but not to the point of having paw-pads or anything like that; just simple 4-toed feet tipped with a claw, and a little webbing between the toes. Users can wear just these foot-paws and get away without the digitigrade attachments. However, the digitigrade attachments suit the avatar nicely, as well as add to the overall image of the Moray eel. Both legs look ideally weight-bearing and just ‘fit’ with the avatar in general. It would appear that AVentity still continues to create strong digitigrade legs. There aren’t any 2.0 capable attachments, so be aware that there are some invisiprims, but users can easily take those off on their own.

The next area of observation is the tail, which looks much like the back half of a Moray Eel without legs. The fin lining the top and bottom of the tail is distinct and well made, with little holes and notches placed here and there in the membrane. This membrane extends up the back, ending off at the neck before forming a new fin at the back of the head. The pictures show this off a great deal better than I could describe it.

Head:

This avatar’s head is the defining feature of the entire look. One detail that stands out on the face has to be the large underbite, the bottom jaw jutting out from under the top jaw, complete with a few sharp fangs poking upwards at the front of the jaw. The interior of the muzzle features a simple mouth interior, though the top jaw has many more teeth than the bottom. Most of these upper teeth are hidden inside the mouth, a couple in full view. All of the teeth are visible when the jaw moves.

The face is certainly Moray Eel-ish, though it does faintly remind me of the very sly eels from Disney’s Little Mermaid, but the style is still very much AVentity’s. The eyeballs are attached to the eye-attachment points underneath the head, so they follow your camera as you move about. The eyes have a very direct gaze, giving the face a good deal of character and life, which often gives some avatars a little edge. With this avatar, it’s difficult to decide whether the character of the face is deviousness, or if it’s merely an enigmatic facial expression, but it doesn’t make it any less interesting.

Features and Heads-Up Display:

This avatar does not come with a HUD, but rather, it uses just commands to get the job done. Some of us may be dissapointed by having no HUD, but this just means that if we remember the few important text commands, or tie a text command to a gesture activated by a keystroke, (F2, etc.), we can get almost everything we need to, done.

The following is just a few features offered through the text commands:

• Eye Colour
• Muzzle Talking Function Toggle On/Off
• Eyelid State (Droopy, open, closed, etc.)

Users can change eye-colour depending on either preset colours listed in the notecard, or RGB (i.e. <0.38,0.69,1.0>). The included technical manual educates the user on how to take advantage of some of the more advanced commands for the avatar with their own scripts.

Customisation:

This avatar comes as copiable and modifiable, so it is very easy to get the job done if you want to change your look. Third party hairs should fit somewhat easily since the head on this avatar is smaller and the skull-shape is human-based.

Conclusion:

It’s not ever day that we get to review avatars based on sea creatures, let alone ones that actually don’t have legs. The Moray Eel avatar from AVentity might not have the latest and greatest in scripted features, but for 640L, it seems a very fair price for an avatar that looks very presentable, but is also very unique in terms of the species it emulates. With many colour choices to choose from, as well as the personality that has been etched into the facial expression of this avatar, it makes for an interesting and fun user experience.