See More Avatars from: DERP

08 Mar 10 | List Price: L$

Today we go back to DERP’s first avatar as a new creator; the Red Panda. While we have seen a few other red pandas in the past from other creators, each has been a unique interpretation of which DERP’s is also. Let’s take a good look at this avatar inspired by the iconic Red Panda.

Out of the Box:

Measurement	Value
Script Time with HUD	~0.06-0.07
Script Time without HUD	~0.042
Avatar Rendering Cost	~1076

• Male and Female Shapes with Unisex Skin
  • Unisex Hair Attachments
• Moving Eyes with Tri-Colour Irises
  • Custom Eyelid State Slider
  • Blink Toggle
  • Output Eye Colour Settings to text for saving
• Talking Jaw Function
  • Custom Jaw Rotation
• 3 Tail Variations (States)
• Customisation Hints and Tips Guide

Build and Skin:

The textures on this avatar are up to the standard that we had seen in the later released DERP Hyena avatar. Most of the avatar’s body is black, so we see some highlighting to give the chest and other landmarks on the body some definition. To help in combating the ‘black hole’ effect on the front of the body, the creators put a little bit of brushed fluffiness on the top and bottom of the torso. In sharp contrast to the front, however, is the back of the avatar. Depending on the variation of avatar the user chooses, it will usually be very vibrant and detailed. Aside from the vibrant colour, the back of the avatar is given a texture-job of idealised brush-stroke patterns, as is the rump cheeks with colour. While the unisex skin is well made and suits both male or female shapes, a criticism that can be afforded is that you cannot see any of the defining features of a red panda when looking directly at the avatar from the front (other than the head). This could have been alleviated with a little bit more colour on the shoulders and sides; enough to break the pure black front.

Of particular mention for this avatar is that while both male and female shapes are provided to users, the male shapes are more or less ‘normal’ with a slight amount of pudge. Females, on the other hand, are granted with wide and thick hips and a behind that would likely draw either jealousy or scorn from many a real life woman. Either way, it is agreeable to see creators push the boundaries of avatar shapes.

The feet are are 50-50 cross between foot and paw. They are flat on the bottom with dark, but visible texture pawpads on the underside. All of the digits on feature a light-coloured, but prominent claw with a reasonable amount of shine. Despite being completely black, highlights give the feet dimension, especially on the arch leading up towards the leg. The digitigrade legs are well shaped with good angles making up the bend. Overall, the shape is organic and sized to fit inbetween the avatar shape’s kneecap and the top of the feet. On both the front and the back, there is some prim fluff for decoration. The prims on the front cover a little bit of the feet for a fluffy effect.

However, one of the biggest issues with this avatar are that Red Pandas are simply not digitigrade, but plantigrade. It is possible that the digitigrade leg construction was intentional, for the look of the entire leg (including the thighs) were well put together. This wouldn’t be a major issue if the feet themselves were better made for usage with the digitigrade legs rather than by themselves. It will require a little bit of modification to wear the avatar without the leg attachments or even with pants.

The hand-paw attachments are much like the feet; a competent cross between human hand and animal paw. Contrary to the feet, however, the hand attachments come with 5 instead of 4 digits. Also tipped by grey-ish claws, these hand-paw attachments feature textured pads on the palm and tips of the fingers. The fingers do not move, however they are set in a very relaxed, natural arrangement that hides the shape hands beneath, and suits pretty much any position that the avatar is in.

Just above the hands-paws, which are slightly larger than most, there is an arm attachment that does a good job of smoothening the shape-to-arm transition. Just above that, on the forearms are some fluff prims grant the avatar even more of a furry appearance.

Another part of the avatar which really stands out is obviously the tail. Carrying on the very iconic striped tail, users have a choice of wearing 1 of 3 different versions of the tail. Each of these different versions include the same tail, but in different positions. The following picture shows you all three. The form of the tail was well put together; the main prim smooth and organic in appearance, obviously with a decent amount of prim fluff to give the tail a floofy impression.

What immediately stands out for this avatar, like many others before it, is the eyes. Users are able to choose from 3 different eyeballs of varying pupil size. Also, the eyes are dual-tone, so many different eye-colour combinations can arise. Generally, the texture of the iris appears soft, yet a smidge glassy, making the eyes pretty interesting. Surrounding the eyes are very prevalent black lids which accent the eyeballs all the more.

The muzzle itself is fairly short and blunt, but yet smoothly contoured. This reflects the facial structure of a red panda pretty well, considering the amount of anthropomorphisation of the face. The tip of muzzle is covered with a prominent nose of deep black and a good amount of sheen applied to it. Below that, the mouth opens and closes during chat thanks to the included Muzzle-Talking function. The top lip is fairly feature-less, but the bottom lip has a black tint that lines the front of the jaw. Thankfully, it is of a reasonable amount so as to easily be used for both male or females.

The interior of the muzzle is reasonably less detailed, but enough to get the avatar by, which is all that is really needed. The roof of the muzzle and the tongue are well shaped and textured in ways similar to the rest of the face. Both the top and bottom jaws feature rows of gradient off-white yellow teeth. Users can edit the width of the mouth by using the custom jaw rotation slider included in the HUD.

So far, we have neglected to really discuss the facial textures. For the most part, the facial textures retain the patterning of true life red pandas, from the top of the head down to the jaw. While there is no details to give the perception of fur on the face, the colour transitions are smooth and fur-like. As well, certain areas have been shaded along contours of the face, like the brows over the eyes. In all, it is plain to see that DERP has taken risks and moved towards making slightly less human-shaped or spherical shaped heads in order to pronounce some of the facial features, like the aforementioned brows. The final result is an almost palpable, dimensional head.

To finish off the head, along the sides of the face the obligatory sculpted fluff prims which go up to the base of the concave, yet smoothly triangular ears. On the back, the ears tipped black, but on the front, they are a crisp white. For emphasis, there are semi-transparent fluff prims peeking out from the interior of the ears. This is not seen anywhere else on the avatar, so the ears situate themselves as landmarks.

Features and Heads-Up Display (HUD):

This avatar is completely controllable through the two simple and graphical HUDs. While both HUDs are colourful and minimise the amount of text in favour of intuitive graphics and icons, they do not have the option to ‘minimise’ the HUD to the side of the screen. Fortunately, the options allowed by both the Main HUD and the Eye Colour HUD are not accessed very often.

The options are as follows:

Red Panda HUD v1.0

• Eyelids: Eyelid State Slider, Blink On/Off Toggle
• Jaw: Jaw Width Slider, Muzzle-Talking Function On/Off

Red Panda Eye Colour HUD

• Choose the Eye Colours of three parts: Middle, Edge, and Shadow
• Saturation Level slider
• “Automatic” random eye colour generator
• Independent Eye Colour Options
• Export Colour Settings to Text

As mentioned, there is a guide that comes in the notecard which helps users who wish to modify the shape to ensure that the head still works well with the avatar.

Customisation:

This avatar is easy to customise thanks to its copy-modifiable properties. Users can opt to wear the thigh prims or not without much of an effect to the avatar’s look. However, some shape  modification and possibly prim adjustment would be necessary if the user opts to go without the digitigrade legs. Most Third party hairs will require some work to use on this avatar unless you are at least a novice at fitting them.

Conclusion:

DERP more or less revisits red pandas and maximises character and personality through this avatar. The Red Panda species has been commonly noted and portrayed as extra cute and fuzzy creatures full of liveliness. This avatar, on the other hand exudes a calm, laid back, and leisurely kind of appearance. It is often interesting to see the results of personality and character construction in a furry avatar that still maintains the appearance of its archetype species.

This review was written by Forepawz - Contributor and Senior Editor | Filed under Avatar Reviews, DERP
Tagged DERP, panda, red panda, wah.