Dark Spot Designs recently gave their wolf an update; much to the point that the avatar could be considered brand new. As such, we’ve written a new review to re-visit DSD’s style tweaks and evolution as an avatar creator.

Out of the Box:

• Both Male and Female variations
• Viewer 2.0 (Transparent clothing layer) Ready. Pre-Viewer 2.0 Compatible
• Talking Jaw
  • Tongue Toggle
  • Manual Jaw Adjustment
• Moving Ears and Tail
  • Ears and Tail with Custom Positions and Options (See HUD section below)
  • Tail Length and Fluffiness
• Eye Expressions
  • One or both eyes
• Different Eye Colours
  • Blinking Eyes
  • Dilating Pupils
  • Different Pupil Type
  • Eye Shine Options
  • Eye Blink Frequency Settings
• PG & Mature Skins (for both sexes)
• Head and Ear Piercings
• Tail and Ear Touch Action Dialog Box
  • (e.g. “<Someone> grabs <Your Name>’s tail…  maybe time to worry…”)
• Whisker and Pawprint Colour choices

Build and Textures:

When you compare to the previous wolf avatar from this creator, you can see considerable updates to how it is presented. Textures are smooth and the colours flow into one another rather than being disjointed and segmented as with their previous wolf avatar. There is the usual amount of shading over the body, with women getting a focus on the breasts, males have a focus on the abs. The rump area is subject to an amount of shading as well. I should also mention that the navel/belly-button is fairly prominent to draw user’s attention to it.

With this release, DSD has offered the largest library of colours of their avatar than they ever had before. The avatars come in both male and female. When unpackaging the avatar, users get to choose between whether they want a Viewer 2.0+ compatible avatar or the pre-Viewer 2.0 version to be unpackaged, then choose their gender. That means that we’ve seen about 3 different ways that creators are offering their Viewer 2.0 ready avatars; in separate boxes (e.g. DERP Tiger), as a HUD toggle option (e.g. Kinzart Southern Dragon), and now as part of the avatar unpackaging process (DSD Wolf v2). Both avatars come with mature skins, with females receiving nipples and female genitilia. Males receive just the nipples. Unfortunately, the nipples suffer from the stick-on affect; seemingly sitting on the top of the fur rather than being surrounded by it.

Warning: The photos under this link are considered Mature: Click to view Male and Female Mature Skins.

Attachments:

Lower Body:

DSD has set itself ahead in terms of its dedication towards creating competent footpaws and digitigrade legs. They continue this trend with another well constructed set of legs and feet. Again, compared to the last wolf avatar, the feet have been radically improved, looking more organic and definitely more paw-like. The toes fit together nicely and the underside of the foot attachments feature a full compliment of sculpted paw-pads. Here and there you also find some fluff prims for decoration. Each toe features a sharp-tipped claw, while the dew-claw (which rests on the lower half of the digitigrade leg) has a very blunt, vestigial claw.

DSD employs the same kind of digitigrade leg that they started using with the lion; shifting the bend towards the back of the foot instead of closer to the knee-cap. The result has been aesthetic and looks slightly more balanced. We make note of how cleanly the digitigrade leg attachments meshes with the avatar shape at the kneecap. The included tail only comes in flexible form, appearing brushy and carrying the avatar’s colour scheme very well. One criticism is that the tail may be a little bit too long and fluffy for an avatar of the wolf species. However, true to Dark Spot Designs fashion, users are given the ability to adjust both the tail’s length, fluffiness, and flexibility. The implementation of this option was done very well.

Upper Body:

The only attachments in this section are the hand-paw attachments which cover the hands. These are static and unmoving, which means that it is important that these attachments are well sized and appear in a neutral position. The hands achieve this aim with a relaxed appearance. Like the feet, they mimic a paw-like structure while borrowing influence from human hands. As a result, there are 5 fingers, though more blunt than a human’s, and tipped with claws. The shape and size work so well that there are no wrist prims needed to smoothen the visual transition from hand-attachment to the bare arm. Some may feel the hand-paw attachments are slightly large.

Head:

The head shows the most improvement on the avatar, with a better angled forehead and more organic facial features. To start with, the eye textures have been given a revamp; DSD replaced their previous set of eye textures for a new one that looks much more realistic. Users can still adjust the levels of eye-shine, pupil size, pupil shape etc. The new eye textures even include a touch bit of red on the eye-whites (sclera). We’ll mention that the new eyes really do add to the head as a whole. The new eye textures make the face look a touch wet-eyed and ‘cute,’ which works well for the avatar.

The muzzle shape has good definition; smooth like the rest of the head. The muzzle isn’t too distinctly lupine, so users are able to use the avatar’s head to represent a number of other canine species. The nose is a landmark for the face, well textured, but resting close to the top lip. The interior of the muzzle is the best that DSD has offered to date, with a full compliment of sharp, canine teeth, and ample texturing which give the gums, lips, and tongue a very wet look. For some, the sheen may have been too much more than necessary. Users are able to stick their tongue out in front, which, while not new, we see that DSD has improved their design for tongues. The textures are better, and the tongue is thinner and more canine-looking. Users also have the choice of having the tongue hang out to the left side of their muzzle in multiple jaw states.

At the sides of the head are the obligatory fluff prims to give the sides of the head some visual dimension. Above the cheeks are the ears, which are very much wolf shaped. The edges are smooth and curved, slightly blunt rather than pointed like some other canid ears. The interior of the ears are very much fluffy at the base and the interior of the ears. A final detail to mention is the whiskers that line the sides of the muzzle.

The avatar comes with both male and female hairs. They are of average quality and shown in the accompanying photo above.

Features and Heads-Up Display (HUD):

This avatar is commanded exclusively by the included HUD; of which the functions we briefly list below:

• Ears: Individual Ear Positions (Up, Down, Back), 4 Custom Ear Position Slots, Ear Rotation (X, Y, Z), Toggle Ear Movement (During Typing, Talking, etc.), Twitch Speed, Ear Action Dialog/Reaction Toggle
• Eyes: Eyebrow Expression (Individual and together), Blink Enable & Frequency, Toggle on Type/Talk/Away/Busy
• Eyeball: Dual Colour, Pupil Type, Pupil Size (Manual/Automatic), Fullbright On/Off, Eye Shine Level
• Jaw: Custom Jaw Rotation, Tongue Position Toggle, Muzzle Talking Function Toggle
• Tail: Twitching Speed/Type, Tail Flexibility,  Tail Action Dialog/Reaction Toggle, Fluff Length, Tail Length
• Misc: Pawprint Toggle On/Off and Colour,  Whisker Toggle On/Off and Colour, Script Reset, Chat

With past DSD avatars and including this one, things can get a little chatty with messages announcing that you’ve changed a setting. Now users have the choice to enable or disable “Script text” which would mute these announcements.

As usual, the creators have included a version of the head with various piercings over the face and the ears. DSD continues to be imaginative with how they place the piercings in the ears. With this avatar, they’ve scaled back the amount of piercings they usually employ for a slightly more simple series of studs, barbells, etc. The quality of the piercings, however, has improved.

Admittedly, we really do enjoy the extra leg attachments that come with DSD avatars (e.g. stockings), but this avatar does not come with any. However, the wolf does come with a very well made muzzle. Fitted to the head, the muzzle comes with options that allow users to change the colours of every single piece of leather. The scripts inside change the actual textures rather than re-tint, so the colours look real and vibrant. We give DSD some attention for the excellent muzzle they’ve created. The pictures are self-explanatory.

Customisation:

The avatar is complete customisable, being both modifiable and copiable. In terms of third party hairs, however, the head, while being slightly more spherical than some other previous DSD avatars, can fit regular sized and shaped hairs with a certain degree of modification.

Conclusion:

Updates to an avatar are always the best way to see how a creator has changed from an earlier period compared to the current time. The second version of the Dark Spots Design wolf shows itself to be a resourceful, very flexible avatar that allows people to not only use the avatar as a wolf, but as other species while taking advantage of the little areas they can tweak the face. As a whole, the avatar is a rather complete package that provides consumers with a competent and aesthetic wolf.