Next in the line of avatars from In the Fur Enterprises, the company has taken on an iconic avian. This is admittedly the first I’ve seen of such an avatar in SL, anthropormophic or otherwise. In this review, we discuss the ITFE Pelican avatar.
Out of the Box:
- Blinking/posing eyelids (Sculpting)
- Eye Colour (RGB palette)
- Full-Bright Eye Toggle
- Beak-Talking Function
- Poseable beak
- Flight Animation Overrider
- Sound Gestures
- Toggleable fish
- 20% of Proceeds go to the World Wildlife Fund
- Limited Edition OilSpill Pelican – 100% of Proceeds go to the World Wildlife Fund
| Measurement | Value |
|---|---|
| Script Time (With HUD) | Unknown / Unknown (Unable to acquire) |
| Script Time / Memory (without HUD) | Unknown /Unknown |
| Avatar Rendering Cost (Scale Here) | ~2800 |
| Modify? | Yes |
| Copy? | Yes |
| Transferable? | No |
Build and Skin:
This avatar comes with a variety of different choices in colour/patterns; seven to be exact. The photo below shows almost all of them together in one shot (the exception being the oil-spill variety).
The textures for this avatar are well designed, with the creator having gone through the pains of hand-painting each feather on almost every part of the body skin. The male and female skins are pretty much the same, but the shading across the chest is light enough to make for a very competent unisex skin.
The textures themselves maintain their quality all over the attachments as well. Quality-wise, the sculpts have been decently made, with little to no wrinkling or knobs on the sculpts. All in all, the attachments take the focal point of the avatar moreso than the body itself, simply because the textures over the areas like the beak and the legs stand out.
Attachments:
This avatar is supported by either orange, white, or grey legs and webbed feet. These attachments were done particularly well because of their design, and also the quality of the textures. At the back of the wide, webbed feet are the digitigrade legs which give the avatar the appearance of sturdiness. In all, the leg-feet combination works for the avatar, though the underside of the webbed feet look incomplete.
Next, we’ll discuss the arm-wings. Contrary to what we’ve seen from some other creators, ITFE has opted to include only arm-wings, maintaining a 50/50 cross between the human arm and the avian wing. To that end, therefore, we find a fully feathered arm and forearm, but also bare human hands. In the ‘American White’ Pelican viewed in the photo above and the left, you can see the two distinct rows of white and black feathering. With the Dapple and Brown versions of the avatar, you’ll find differently textured patterns in the feathers themselves. For the most part, the arm-feathers work well with the avatar, but depending on your animations, you are sometimes going to see prims and different parts of the avatar poke through the body shape.
The tail-feathers are arranged in a dome shape, jutting out from just over the posterior in a way that pays homage to the position of the tailfeathers on a non-anthropormophic Pelican.
Head:
The body itself and the body attachments pale, of course, in comparison to the head. Perhaps the most eye-catching part of the avatar is the beak. This is mostly because of how prominent it is to the face, and how central to the identification of the species of avatar. Depending on which particular species of Pelican one purchases, the beaks will have a number of varying styles and colour patterns. The design of the beak itself stays very true to a real-world pelican while anthropormophicising it enough for anthro form. As an added touch, users are able to wear a ‘fish’ that hangs out the side of the muzzle. This is turned on by default, but users can turn it off using the HUD.
Our next topic ranges around the eyes. ITFE has done a slightly different approach here by adding sculpts to the area around the eyes; allowing for sculpted blinking while still using the eyes underneath the shape. This has turned out a rather interesting result. Specifically, the sculpted blink offers different eye expressions now, which up the amount of customisation that can be done. Users can change the colour of the eyeball prims, and they move around, following the camera. Unfortunately, because the eyes are fairly small, the eyes give the impression of the avatar being completely disinterested in their surroundings.
At the same time, though, the sculpted prims around the eyes do have a slightly high profile from the face, and depending on the colour of avatar you buy, stick out more or less if you’re wearing a lighter or darker avatar. To that extent, the head ends up looking slightly more like a mask than an actual face. The sides of the head feature furred ruffs that cover up the shape ears underneath, and gives the sides of the face a little dimensions and avian-fluffiness.
Finally, at the back of the head, the signature profile of feathers peaking at an angle away from the head finish off the look. This avatar’s strength is definitely when you view it from the side. In sum, this avatar manages to pull together the visage of an anthropormophic Pelican fairly well.
Features and Heads-Up Display:
ITFE has completely revamped the style of the HUD, replacing the usual dialogue menu options with a far more user-friendly, and easy to navigate, texture-based HUD. Below shows the photos of all the options in full.
Animation Overrider:
The animation overrider comes with two different animations; one for hovering, and one for actually flying. Both are well done and appear smooth. More animations could have been used to flesh out the AO further, but they’re not really necessary. Users can easily pull the AO animations from out of the HUD and put it in their own personal animation overriders.
Customisation:
This avatar is marked as both modifiable and copiable, so users should very easily be able to change aspects of the avatar to suit their taste. As well, since the head utilised as the shape-head, third-party hairs will fit this avatar extremely easily.
Conclusion:
The ITFE Pelican does well at reflecting and channeling the appearance of a Pelican very strongly. Their textures have been done very well, especially with the detail having been given to each and every feather on the body and on the attachments. The beak itself was spot-on, and the addition of sculpted eyelids added a little bit more expressive flexibility to the head. At the same time though, the face does remind one of a masquerade costume as opposed to an anthropomorphic avatar. Thus, this trait becomes either this avatar’s strength or its weakness.
