See More Avatars from: Lost Furest Creatures
08 Jun 10 | List Price: 3000L$
The Lost Ferals Leopard is one of their first feral avatars released around 2008. The avatar is marked by being a fair bit smaller and more squat than later feline or canine ferals, but shows an early starting point for the brand for which to compare 2 years of work.
Out of the Box:
- Full Animation Overrider ( Customisable Default)
- Stand, Sit, Lay, Dance, Default AOs
- Dances: Swaying, etc.
- Customising Colour HUD
- Leopard Gestures and Poses
- Sleep, Stretch, Lick Paw, Nuzzle, Drink, Play etc.
- Attacks
- Claws In/Out
- Flexible and Non-Flexible Tail
- Different Tail States
- 2 Pupil Sizes
- Pounce an avatar option
- Rez a Tree that the avatar sits on a branch. Works in a No-Build area
- Tongue In/Out
- Camera Adjustment for better viewing angle
Measurement Value Script Time (With HUD) ~0.8-3ms Script Time (without HUD) N/A. (AO in HUD) Avatar Rendering Cost (Scale Here) ~2000 Modify? No Copy? Yes Transferable? No
Build and Skin:
The old adage that goes, “How did the leopard change its spots?” shows that the spots of a leopard define it strongly. As such, any avatar that attempts to recreate such an animal in Second Life, let alone a quadruped version, must get these spots correct. For the most part, this avatar does so. To start; the actual base prims of the avatar that make up most of the body and the attachments are a straight, simple colour, the one that users bought. The spots instead rest on prims sitting just above those. This creates an interesting visual effect, but sometimes can cause clipping and merging of spots in places where prims meet. However, it means that people can colour the spots and rosettes in the fur individually from the ‘main’ fur colour underneath. The textures are good for the most part, but the biggest issues like where joints and prims meet, leading to a bundle of spots that don’t merge together well. Lost Furest would eventually go on to alleviate some of this in their later avatars.
The build quality itself, while not the best that we have seen compared to later quadruped avatars from Lost Furest, is appropriate for the time period in whence it came. All of the sculpts appear clear and clean-cut with little wrinkling.
Attachments:
Body and Legs:
This avatar is a very bulky and short, as we mentioned earlier; standing at max of around 0.9m tall. Compared to, for example, the Lost Ferals Cheetah which is around the region of height, this avatar is thicker; with a wider midsection and bulkier thighs and paws. As such, you get the impression of a compact stature which would have worked best if the avatar was larger. In short, the build is slightly more tiger-like than leopard-like.
The paws for this avatar are relatively simple; tall, but with fitted with prim pawpads on the underside. We note the dewclaw on bot of the front paws, but exempted on the hind-paws. ON the front paws, you can sometimes see the shape hands poke through the prims. The lower legs attempt to mimic the digitgrade stance of felines, and does it appropriately well, though the front legs look a bit too wide and bulky to really mimic the foreleg structure. The rear legs are sufficiently pull off the digitigrade stance with the arches in all the right places, and a set of powerful thighs.
The biggest issue with the legs, however, is the joints where the legs meet the trunk of the body. On the front of the body, the legs appear as if they’re human-like arms, propping the avatar up from doing push-ups. This problem replicates itself with the hind legs; the haunches project widely from the sides of the body, making the lower body look deformed. This problem is all the more exemplified when the avatar sits down; the legs simply bend in a way that they shouldn’t. However, we again recognise that this is one of Lost Furest Creatures’ first feral avatars, (early 2008), and they have since corrected these issues with their later avatars, so we won’t hold this against the avatar too much.
The torso shape is well made, consisting of three separate pieces which allow for variation and flexibility in body movement. The sculpts that make up the torso are also well shaped and textured; shifting focus away from the legs to the body itself. The length of the body is also on par and appropriately proportioned to the head, but the legs take away from the overall look.
The tail itself is decent; with good texturing all the way through to match the body itself, though sometimes there is a little bit of clipping between alpha layers every now and then when the tail swishes (The flexible tail, that is). A small issue with the tail lies in its placement; this tail appears a little too low between the rear haunches, which is more akin to where the anus might be, rather than the tailbase. There is also a sculpted, non-flexible version of the tail which looks better than the flexible tail. Users can raise it or lower it.
Head:
At this point, we move on to 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. On some avatars this produces a very creepy affect, while on others, it has been done well enough to work to the avatar’s advantage. This particular avatar’s eyes is neither, but settles for a middle point where the face looks slightly vacant except for certain angles. However, opting to use the “large” pupils (accessible through a command in the notecard) makes the eyes more lively and cute. Additionally, this avatar has a very wide gap between the eyes. The muzzle itself takes up a considerable amount of facial space, even if it isn’t too long. While the muzzle is well made, it does have a kind of leonine quality to it. The whiskers themselves are placed on flexible prims at the sides of the muzzle instead of as individual prims.
The nose is simply textured and not a huge detail to the head, making way to the cleft which then forms the upper lip of the muzzle. The inside of the muzzle has simple, torus-based prim teeth and a sculpted tongue on the interior. Users are able to stick out this tongue or keep it inside the muzzle. The sculpted tongue is far superior to the flexible prim tongues we’ve seen on some other Lost Furest/Ferals avatars.
Additionally, the face comes with a snarling/rawr type of emote in which the thick brows above the eyes curve down over the eyes and the mouth opens wide to show all of the teeth. At the same time, the ears fold back. This gives the face a rather fearsome look from various angles, while at other angles, this expression looks slightly off.
The ears themselves are well rounded, but have slightly pointed tips with white, furry lining on the inside, and a single white leopard spot on the back of each ear. Under the ears is some prim fluff to add a last bit of dimension to the face itself. As a whole, the avatar’s head is not bad at all and does well for what it does for the time-period in which it was constructed.
Features and Heads-Up Display:
This avatar has many features; of which have been dispersed in-between the two available HUDs and a small set of text commands. The only option not controlled by HUD is the selection of on of two of the eyes’ pupil size. The HUDs are self-explanatory thanks to the accompanying guides that come with the avatar.
Animation Overrider:
As with the other Lost Ferals avatars, the animation overrider maintains a huge importance since it provides character and style to the avatar. There is at least a few dozen animations, sounds, and gestures that bring the avatar to life. Users can go through dances, attacks, drinking, etc. animations on a whim through the provided HUD. There are also a few other pre-set animation overrider themes that users can access from the HUD. Remember though, that the AO is inside the HUD, and not wearing the HUD will cause the animations not to work. Thankfully, users can shrink the HUD into a small button, even though the HUD itself uses a corner design that is amazing at saving space.
A favourite option for this avatar is the tree; clicking the button on the HUD will rez an attached tree that will appear rooted to the ground, while the avatar shifts to look as if its comfortably snoozing in the tree. This is by far, one of the most entertaining aspects of the avatar.
Customisation:
This avatar is no-modify and no-transfer, but it is still copiable. So if users make mistakes or whatnot, this avatar will still be copiable. While users are unable to directly modify the prims on the avatar, there are a large number of attachment points still available, which allows users to create their own attachments or use the attachments made available by an active Lost Ferals content creation community.
Conclusion:
The Lost Ferals Leopard is a very good avatar for one that was made in early 2008. In the time since then, we’ve seen Lost Furest streamline their avatar making process, and take some creative liberty in how they design their avatars; resulting in far more streamlined bodies and more aesthetic avatars as a whole. Despite the few issues that detract from this avatar’s overall qualities, this leopard does hold its own. It will adequately serve people who are interested in it as well.
Tagged cat, feline, leopard, lfc, lost ferals, lost furest.
