Today we go back to the African Savannah and review another Feral from Lost Furest; the cheetah. Iconically spotty and the world’s fastest land animal, we’re pleased to review the four-legged variety.
Out of the Box:
- Full Animation Overrider ( Customisable Default)
- Stand, Sit, Lay, Dance, Default AOs
- Caramelldansen etc.
- Cheetah Speed Boost
- Customising Colour HUD
- Cheetah Gestures and Poses
- Sleep, Stretch, Lick Paw, Nuzzle, Drink, Play etc.
- Attacks
- Snap, Pace, Cower
- Flexible and Non-Flexible Tail
- Different Tail States
- Different fur ‘Styles’
- Spots, King Cheetah, Mange, Rings, etc.
- 2 Pupil Sizes
- Pounce an avatar option
- Chirping Gesture/Sound
- Rez a Rock and Tree that the avatar relaxes by. Works in a No-Build area
- Multiple Jaw, Ear and Eye States
- Tongue In/Out
- Camera Adjustment for better viewing angle
- Muzzle Talking Function (Voice Only)
| Measurement | Value |
|---|---|
| Script Time (With HUD) | ~1.1 |
| Script Time (without HUD) | N/A. (AO in HUD) |
| Avatar Rendering Cost (Scale Here) | ~2014 |
| Modify? | No |
| Copy? | Yes |
| Transferable? | No |
Build and Skin:
The avatar is immediately recogniseable as a cheetah thanks to the well-textured and placed spots over the body. The construction of the body is such that all body parts are a simple and dual-coloured, but with prims over the surface where the texture layer of spots sits. Even without the majority of the spots, the avatar still has ample texturing. This means that users can easily change the colour of their avatar without having to re-load the spot textures. The only downside is that if you get your camera really close, you can see a tiniest little bit of space between the spots and the body.
Additionally, users can quite literally change the spots on the avatar to one of 6 different choices. The photo above shows these choices range from normal spots, to splotches, specks, rings, and even the King Cheetah variety of skin. Like the body itself, users are able to change the colour of the spots/patterns. Overall, the body exudes a degree of fluffiness not only because of the good textures, but also because the avatar has plenty of semi-transparent prim fluff along areas like the chest and different joints of the body. In short, the textures on this avatar stand out and do a good job of adding to the overall look of the quad cheetah.
Next, we move onto the build quality. As the avatar is a quad, the entire avatar shape is covered with prims. The sculpts have all been streamlined and appear smooth. The only area where we see any discrepency in sculpt quality is the hind legs, which is where we will start our discussion of the body parts.
The avatar features paws with 4 toes tipped with dark black, shiny claws. On the underside are also dark black pawpads and some semi-transparent fluff for extra emphasis. Users can toggle the ability to leave pawprints behind them with the included HUDs. The forepaws come with dewclaws, but the posterior legs do not have them. Nothing much can be said other than that they serve to be adequate paws. In terms of the legs, however, there is a slight issue with the digitigrade rear legs. Users are able to see some discrepancy and prim clipping of multiple prims instead of one or two clean sculpts. The result is a slightly messy looking joint. However, when the spots cover the joint and the user zooms out, the problem hides itself considerably well.
The haunches for the hindlegs are powerful-looking while the forelegs have slimmer upper shoulders. When the avatar goes through its multiple poses and animations, the movement is swift and smooth, meaning that the placement, size, and shape of all the body parts has been well thought out before-hand.
The torso on this avatar is sleek and cone shaped; thickest behind the neck and the slimmest at the hindquarters where the tail begins. The torso was divided into three sections to ensure that the avatar could conform to a number of different positions and animations as we mentioned earlier in this review. A short mane runs from just between the shoulders, up the neck to the back of the Cheetah’s head. As a whole, the torso and neck have been put together well. Sometimes the spots do look a touch inconsistent in size and placement, but because we are dealing with static prims instead of stretchable mesh or skin, this is forgiveable.
The tail is another area for discussion; like the rest of the body, it uses a base prim for the main colour, and an additional layer for the spots. This avatar comes with a flexible tail which looks nice during movement, but has less than organic appearance when kept still. In particular, you can see that the tail has an absolutely flat end. This could have been improved with a little bit of extra texture working at the tip. On the other end, it comes with a non-flexible, sculpted tail that is stiff, but looks much better than the flexible tail because of how organic the shaping is. A criticism for both of the tails is that the placement of the tail is slightly off because it appears as if it were placed where the anus would be as opposed to just above it.
Finally, the head. The eyes are immediately the centre-piece to the head because the gaze follows whoever is looking at it from any which angle. This often has the potential to be creepy, but for this avatar, it has been done in a way that is noticeable, but cute. There is a fair distance between the eyes because of the somewhat broad muzzle. The entire muzzle isn’t very large, but is shaped well. As is expected, the muzzle features the prominent cheetah marking which extends from the top lip to the eye, stopping just at the forehead. The whiskers are placed on flexible prims at the sides of the muzzle instead of as individual prims.
Under the pink, sculpted nose, the cleft is fairly short before meeting very dark lips. The interior of the muzzle is decked out full of thick, predator-ish teeth and a sculpted tongue on the inside. Users can stick their tongues out, but instead of sculpt, they get a flexible prim tongue which pales in comparison to the tongue inside the muzzle. Another small criticism is that just under the bottom lip is a bright white streak of fur lining the skin which stands out more than it should.
The ears themselves are round and concave, dark grey fur on the insides framed by dark black fur on the rim. The backs of the ears themselves feature a prominent marking that we see often on bigger cats. Just below the ears is some prim fluff to round out the appearance of the face itself. As a whole, the head stands on its own as perhaps the most aesthetic part of the avatar despite the white patch on the lower jaw under the lip. Despite its age, the head holds its own very well, and we can see where the new Lost Furest Evolutions Line had developed their style from.
Features and Heads-Up Display (HUD):
This avatar has many features; of which have been dispersed in-between the two available HUDs and text commands. The HUD best sums up most of the features that come with this avatar.
Features not covered by the HUD are found in the included notecard as commands:
- Small or Large Pupil Size
- Toggle Sleep ZZZ’s without the Sleeping Animation
- Nose Colour
- Nail Colour
- Tail Middle Colour
- Angry Facial Expression
The Cheetah Color HUD allows users to easily choose the colours that they wish the avatar to be. It is very self-explainable as users simply modify Red, Blue, and Green values with a slider.
A favourite feature of this avatar is the “Rock.” A rock and a tree is rezzed and the avatar rests on it idly. This works in no-build areas, and once the user begins to move, the tree and rock disappear.
Animation Overrider:
As with the Lost Ferals Wolf avatar, a HUGE part of this avatar is the animation overrider. There is at the least, a few dozen different animations, sounds, and gestures to make this avatar come to life. You can see a number of them in the HUD manuals included above. Users have been given the ability to maximise their creativity and appearance through a variety of different animations, gestures, and Animation Overrider settings.
A nice addition to the full compliment of animation features is a speed boost; where the user is able to choose whether they’d like their avatar to run at a normal speed, or Cheetah, and ‘Fast Cheetah’ speeds.
The avatar covers animations such as swimming/flying, running, pouncing, digging, and idly standing.
Customisation:
As with all Lost Furest quads, this avatar is copiable, but not directly modifiable. This presents a few challenges in regards as to how much the avatar can be modded, but doesn’t mean that it cannot be accessorised or modified with alternative means. We have seen an increasingly large amount of items and add-ons marketed for this cheat and other Lost Furest quads from both Lost Furest and others outside that community.
Conclusion:
The Lost Ferals Cheetah is an entertaining package of the African feline for quadruped enthusiasts. Users will be able to entertain themselves with numerous different animations and customise the avatar reasonably well despite the permissions. Reviewing this avatar has demonstrated for us how a creator has been able to take skills that were developed for one type of avatar (i.e. quadruped) and later translated them for another type (i.e. bipedal). While the body has some few issues, the head for the Lost Ferals Cheetah, combined with the animations causes the avatar to stand out with expression and life.
