In the summer of 2010, DERP released a set of both domesticated felines and canines. With several domestic feline avatars available, and undoubtedly more to follow, users will reap the benefit of all the choices available thanks to each creator’s unique style. In this review, we discuss how DERP has applied their unique style to domesticated felines.
Out of the Box:
- Male and Female Shapes and Skins
- 4 Facial Expressions
- Surprised, Quizzical, Mad, Default
- 8 Eyelid Open-ness states
- Moving Eyes with Tri-Colour Irises
- Choice between Slitted Pupils or Rounded Pupils
- Custom Eyelid State Slider
- Output Eye Colour Settings to text for saving
- Blink On/Off Toggle
- 8 Mouth Open-ness states
- Tongue In/Out Toggle
- Muzzle Talking Function with On/Off Toggle
- Viewer 2.0 Compatible hands, legs, and feet + Alpha Layer Skins to avoid using Invisiprims
- Complimentary Accessories:
- Recolourable Hairs
- DERP Collar
| Measurement | Value |
|---|---|
| Script Time (With HUD) | Unknown / Unknown (Unable to acquire) |
| Script Time / Memory (without HUD) | Unknown /Unknown |
| Avatar Rendering Cost (Scale Here) | ~1400 |
| Modify? | Yes |
| Copy? | Yes |
| Transferable? | No |
Build and Skin:
DERP’s textures maintain their quality standard that they’ve set for themselves as of the Ridgeback and Serbex avatars. As such, the textures are clean, appear soft, and all of the markings for each of the respective cat breeds are rather spot-on. As you can see from the below photo, little paint details in the fur add some extra dimension to the skin.
There is ample shading over areas of the body, with enough differences between the male and female skins to look appropriate for whichever sex you choose. Additionally, it’s great to see that DERP continues to completely abolish the accidental line across the belly. All in all, suitable texturing that reflects their style. The photos below shows some of the different breeds one can choose.
The build quality of the avatar is also fairly high. The sculpts are crisp and clear-cut, and in the way that DERP builds their avatars, creasing between prims is kept to a minimum, except for the small one where the muzzle prims meet the main head-prim. The textures on the attachments maintain the quality of those of the body shape’s skin, and match the prims they’re on nicely.
Attachments:
DERP offers two kinds of leg/feet attachments with this avatar. First, we’ll talk about the plantigrade-style ones. These consist of feline-inspired plantigrade feet which sit flat against the ground, complete with pawpads on the undersides. We note the interesting movement of the dew-claws to rest against the floor like the other toes, but still further up the side of the foot. At the base, there is some ankle fluff which fleshes out the feet further, adding some decoration for those who wear no clothes, or wear clothes, but would like to keep their lower legs bare.
The digitigrade leg attachments are more interesting in a few ways. For starters, unlike the plantigrade legs, they are all one prim, and require the usage of the alpha invisible layer to be worn. The design of the leg is also fairly different from what we’ve seen of most digitigrade legs of avatars we’ve reviewed. It’s clearly a digitigrade leg, but kind of re-imagined into a semi-digitigrade shape. Some may prefer this style of digitigrade leg, while others may not. In the end, we do find its construction pretty interesting and fitting for the avatar.
Next up is the tail; which is the normative flexible prim tail that one would expect with the avatar. The tail swishes from side to side, though users can opt to turn off the swishing through usage of the HUD.
Before we talk about the head, we’ll say a few brief words on the hand-paws. The hand-paw attachments mimic the plantigrade feet by making a cross between a human hand and a cat’s paw. Each finger-digit is thick and features a paw-pad underneath. Like the footpaws, each digit also features a grey claw. These attachments are non-poseable, but appear in a kind of a relaxed state that appears natural. The size of the hand-paws are suitable to the avatar.
Head:
The company continues to exert its style with all of the species of animals that it recreates into anthropomorphic avatars. This Cat features the eye-style we’ve seen in DERP’s recent avatars; large, and with bright textures. The eye-textures for this avatar feature slitted feline eyes, but as usual, users are able to re-tint the three separate areas of the irises. A good trait of the eyes is that their gaze is direct and intent, making the face look markedly alert. Sometimes, due to the age-old client alpha bug, the eye shadow might not load perfectly; but this is not the fault of the creators at all.
As we’ve mentioned before, the head does have a little bit of a crease where the muzzle and the head-prim meet. It’s not very prevalent, especially if one purchases an avatar with darker fur colours and/or markings over the face. We should also mention that the head features strong textures that mirror that of the body. The shading across the bridge of the muzzle and whatnot give the head a little bit more presence as well. One criticism that could be offered is that the muzzle is too low on the face, but this is more of an issue of opinion than technique. The muzzle as it is, works well for the face.
Beneath the well-constructed nose, one can note that there is a huge plethora of whiskers on the muzzle as well as above the eyes. This has done much to portray the feline nature of this avatar. The interior of the muzzle features teeth, and a fairly standard muzzle interior. Users may appreciate the cute pink tongue that sticks out between the bottom canine teeth.
Our final note on the head is the ears, which arch up from the back of the head to perch outwards at the sides. The ears, along with the prim cheek-fluff at the sides of the head do much to considerably finish off the face and mark it as characteristically feline. In short, DERP has managed to successfully produce an anthropomorphic cat in their style.
Features and Heads-Up Display (HUD):
This avatar is completely controlled by its HUD, which maintains the simple, user-friendly interface that DERP has employed in their last few avatars. The photo shows below both the Control HUD and the Eye-Colour HUD.
Accessories:
This avatar comes with really two additional accessories; a DERP collar and a hairstyle for each sex. The ability to change the colour of the hair with a simple click+dialogue means users get a little bit of customisation with the well styled default hairs. The collar itself is very appropriate for a feline; including fish-shaped decals on the collar and a bell.
Customisation:
This avatar is easily customisable, with both modify and copy permissions. The head-size and shapes makes the fitting of third-party hairs a rather simple process.
Conclusion:
The DERP Cat manages to fully apply the creator’s style to domestic felines in the right way. Clearly, the company is in their element, honing in on their their technique and design strengths. As we’ve seen with other creators, when a company gets to this point, decisions on whether to purchase the avatar become less about technical skills or build quality as much as they do about design styles of the creators themselves. This is a good position for DERP to be, because it positions this avatar within a category of well-performing anthropomorphic domestic feline avatars that each have something unique to offer.
One More Thing…. [EDIT]
Pussycat Catnap has written a few words on her personal experience on wearing and modding the DERP Cat. If you want a slightly different take on it, head on over tohttp://catnapkitty.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/my-new-avatar-derp-domestic-cat/
