SLURLS (Click to Teleport)
Eclectic Randomness is the store of Winter Ventura who might be best known for her widespread collection of megaprims. Her store contains items from the weird to the practical and everything in between. Somewhere along the line she also found the time to make some high quality avatars.
Out of the box:
- Prim-based android avatar.
- Approximately 1.5 m tall.
- 2 “hairstyles” included. Additional styles and other accessories are sold separately.
- Copy/modify permissions. You can customise it entirely to your taste, and can make as many backups as you like.
- 750 L$.
Build and textures:
Stylistically this robot looks to me as if the designer was partially inspired by the movie I, Robot and the cartoon series My Life as a Teenage Robot. It is clear enough though that the final result is Winter’s own view, and by no means a copy of any existing design.
To fully create this kind of avatar in Second Life, she based it entirely around prims. When wearing the avatar, only the neck and fingers from the system shape are still visible. Sculpted prims were used only for the head, but there, they have beenused to good effect. The low amount of sculpts means that the avatar rezzes very fast compared to many other full prim avatars available these days. For more flexibility in the use of the prims, it was necessary to use lots of invisi-prims, however. This work-around sadly means that in some areas around the grid you’ll see large holes in the scenery behind the avatar. This is a sad side-effect of the work-around necessary to hide parts of the system shape. Let’s hope Linden Lab soon does something about this so as to free avatar creators from the usage of invisi-prims.
The textures on the robot are quite minimalistic and sleek. By default the avatar is mostly white with black edges, and some small amounts of sky blue and golden detail. For added effect, these mostly monochromatic textures make copious use of the various texture options available in Second Life such as shiny and bump mapping. Glow is also used, though very sparingly so it doesn’t distract. However, the usage of these SL client effects means that if you look at the avatar at low graphic settings it will look very bland. You’ll need to be able to run SL at at least a moderate graphics setting before you can really enjoy the full visual effects of this robot.
Click for animated view of default hair styles
The two hairstyles that are included with the avatar utilise the same stylistic elements as the avatar itself. Both are futuristic looking, with cabling and valves in the place of organic hair. The first style is a trendy cyber-era version of cornrows. The second style reminds me of medieval European monks. It’s bald on top, with a half circle around the back of the head.
Customisation:
As mentioned before, additional accessories can be bought separately at the store. Currently the choice is limited to a few hairstyles, and a jet-pack with included flight assist. I have been told an entire line of accessories will soon be released, however. If you buy both the female and male robots, you can also interchange most of the robot parts between the two. You can also try to wear human hair with your ER type robot, but it will probably need to be scaled down a little to fit the smaller size of the avatar.
Since all the parts of the robot are copy/mod you are also able to go much further than just changing the hairstyle when you want to modify your robot. You can change everything from the prims to the textures. One thing that might bother users in this case are the large invisiprims. When trying to edit my robot, I regularly found myself unable to select prims because they were buried entirely inside an invisi-prim. You might need some advanced camera controls and selection tricks if you really want to go all the way in modifying this avatar. The creator made a definite choice not to include any recolouring scripts because she believes in giving her customers full freedom in making their own custom robot. The hairstyles are the one exception to this rule. They can still be modified manually like the rest of the avatar, but they also include a recolouring script. It’s different from the regular click and select scripts though, so be sure to read the included notecard.
Since the avatar does not come with any animations, your AO is another area where you can personalise your robot. Even though it’s a fully prim-based avatar, it uses the human shape as a base without needing any morphs. This means that any human AO will also function while you’re using this avatar. Again the small size might be worth remembering though. Solo poses and animations probably won’t have any issues, but couple poses or group poses might look strange because many animators build their stuff for the average 7-8 ft giants you’ll find roaming SL.
Conclusion:
The M-type Robot is one of the more unique avatars I’ve found in Second Life so far. With its futuristic design it’s sure to be an eye-catcher almost anywhere you go on the grid. Customising it might take (some) skill in the editing and building tools of Second Life however, but at least in my opinion the hard work is very much worth it.
SLURLS (Click to Teleport)
Mainstore:
Satellite Stores:
Eclectic Randomness is the store of Winter Ventura who might be best known for her widespread collection of megaprims. Her store contains items from the weird to the practical and everything in between. Somewhere along the line she also found the time to make some high quality avatars.
Out of the box:
Build and textures:
Stylistically this robot looks to me as if the designer was partially inspired by the movie I, Robot and the cartoon series My Life as a Teenage Robot. It is clear enough though that the final result is Winter’s own view, and by no means a copy of any existing design.
To fully create this kind of avatar in Second Life, she based it entirely around prims. When wearing the avatar, only the neck and fingers from the system shape are still visible. Sculpted prims were used only for the head, but there, they have beenused to good effect. The low amount of sculpts means that the avatar rezzes very fast compared to many other full prim avatars available these days. For more flexibility in the use of the prims, it was necessary to use lots of invisi-prims, however. This work-around sadly means that in some areas around the grid you’ll see large holes in the scenery behind the avatar. This is a sad side-effect of the work-around necessary to hide parts of the system shape. Let’s hope Linden Lab soon does something about this so as to free avatar creators from the usage of invisi-prims.
The textures on the robot are quite minimalistic and sleek. By default the avatar is mostly white with black edges, and some small amounts of sky blue and golden detail. For added effect, these mostly monochromatic textures make copious use of the various texture options available in Second Life such as shiny and bump mapping. Glow is also used, though very sparingly so it doesn’t distract. However, the usage of these SL client effects means that if you look at the avatar at low graphic settings it will look very bland. You’ll need to be able to run SL at at least a moderate graphics setting before you can really enjoy the full visual effects of this robot.
Click for animated view of default hair styles
The two hairstyles that are included with the avatar utilise the same stylistic elements as the avatar itself. Both are futuristic looking, with cabling and valves in the place of organic hair. The first style is a trendy cyber-era version of cornrows. The second style reminds me of medieval European monks. It’s bald on top, with a half circle around the back of the head.
Customisation:
As mentioned before, additional accessories can be bought separately at the store. Currently the choice is limited to a few hairstyles, and a jet-pack with included flight assist. I have been told an entire line of accessories will soon be released, however. If you buy both the female and male robots, you can also interchange most of the robot parts between the two. You can also try to wear human hair with your ER type robot, but it will probably need to be scaled down a little to fit the smaller size of the avatar.
Since all the parts of the robot are copy/mod you are also able to go much further than just changing the hairstyle when you want to modify your robot. You can change everything from the prims to the textures. One thing that might bother users in this case are the large invisiprims. When trying to edit my robot, I regularly found myself unable to select prims because they were buried entirely inside an invisi-prim. You might need some advanced camera controls and selection tricks if you really want to go all the way in modifying this avatar. The creator made a definite choice not to include any recolouring scripts because she believes in giving her customers full freedom in making their own custom robot. The hairstyles are the one exception to this rule. They can still be modified manually like the rest of the avatar, but they also include a recolouring script. It’s different from the regular click and select scripts though, so be sure to read the included notecard.
Since the avatar does not come with any animations, your AO is another area where you can personalise your robot. Even though it’s a fully prim-based avatar, it uses the human shape as a base without needing any morphs. This means that any human AO will also function while you’re using this avatar. Again the small size might be worth remembering though. Solo poses and animations probably won’t have any issues, but couple poses or group poses might look strange because many animators build their stuff for the average 7-8 ft giants you’ll find roaming SL.
Conclusion:
The M-type Robot is one of the more unique avatars I’ve found in Second Life so far. With its futuristic design it’s sure to be an eye-catcher almost anywhere you go on the grid. Customising it might take (some) skill in the editing and building tools of Second Life however, but at least in my opinion the hard work is very much worth it.