As we continue to catch up on Lost Furest Creatures’ Catalogue, we introduce a little bit more variety on this site and go through their line of quadrupedal avatars. In this review, we discuss their very first canine avatar of this type under the Lost Ferals brand.

Out of the Box:

Measurement	Value
Script Time with HUD	~0.638
Script Time without HUD	N/A Need HUD for AO
Avatar Rendering Cost	~2109-2400

• Full Animation Overrider ( Customisable Default)
  • Alpha, beta, Omega, Default, Dancing AOs
  • Caramelldansen etc.
• Customising Colour HUD
• Wolf Gestures
  • Sleep, Drink, Dig, Mark, Scratch, Sniff, Pant, Howl, Sleep, etc.
  • Attacks
• Multiple mane styles
• Flexible and Non-Flexible Tail
  • Different Tail States
• Different fur ‘Styles’
  • Splotches, Line along back, etc.
• 2 Pupil Sizes
• Pounce an avatar option
• Howling Animations and sounds
• Multiple Jaw, Ear and Eye States
  • Tongue In/Out
• Camera Adjustment for better viewing angle
• Muzzle Talking Function (Voice Only)

Build and Textures:

Lost Furest Creatures, back in 2008 decided to diversify their line of offerings by exploring the world of quads. While other creators like Dragon Keep Designs or Extrovirtual had already dabbled in quadrupedal avatars at the time, Lost Furest spawned the Lost Ferals brand to offer their own take. Our first review of their quad avatars will be their wolf.

The avatar is well sized and wolf-like in dimension. Despite its dating as mid-2008, the sculpts are of good quality, and the overall build reflects the canine qualities of a wolf well. The textures also add a considerable amount of organic quality by focusing on making the avatar look covered with fur. They are not, by any extension overly realistic, but the brushstroke-like texturing works to the avatar’s advantage. There are many different options that users can choose from, ranging from black coats, to brown and silver, as well as the full array of unnatural colours (like purple).

As well, under the “Style” menu in the accompanying HUD, users can choose a few different variations of the colour styles. They can choose smooth colour transitions or spiky transitions, whether they want splotches or not, whether they want a line from head to tail, or no real marking at all.

The legs for this avatar routinely follow the quadrupedal lupine appearance without any real aberrations in respect to the original species. The paws are the usual 4-toed attachments tipped by black claws. The major difference lies between the forelegs and the hindlegs. In particular, the front legs come with a dewclaw while the rear legs don’t. Additionally, the hindlegs receive fairly powerful-looking thighs, but not so much that they stand out too much. One criticism here could be that the largest paw-pad prim arches up the back of the forelegs a little strangely. At the back of all 4 legs, some fluff prims offer a little bit of dimension.

On to the trunk of the avatar. Here, the avatar has a stream-lined, conical shape; a thicker body near the front-legs before tapering to a relatively smaller size between at the hind-legs. This part of the body is well constructed and makes a good visual transition with all of the legs. For variety and mobility of the avatar, the trunk is made up of two separate attachments; one for the front of the avatar, the other for the hindquarters. As such, having the trunk as separate attachments explains the slight discontinuity in the textures since both parts shift around as the avatar moves. Also included with the avatar is the option for users to opt to wear canine genitals or not. It did seem a little odd for them to be included right from the get-go, but some may appreciate the anatomical correctness. They cannot be removed manually, but can easily be hidden by using the included commands (Hint: /1!female).

Next, the tail for this avatar comes in two forms; either sculpted or flexible, as we’ve seen from many creators in the past. Both have their strength in both movement and style, with the flexi tail looking more ‘swishy,’ and the sculpted tail looking more shapely and well defined. Both of these tails can be held up, or down, and naturally wag from side to side as the user wishes. The tip of the tail can also be re-coloured using text commands.

Finally, the neck and head. From the trunk of the body between the forelegs, the neck makes a clean transition to where the head begins. This method of construction has helped numerous avatars with a quadrupedal stance have a more feral, true-to-real-life appearance when they aim for a non-chibi appearance.

The head itself is very canine in shape and construction. It’s easy to argue that this avatar has lupine facial features, but at the same time, there has been usage of artistic license to recreate wolves in the creator’s personal style. For example, one would perhaps expect a larger muzzle and smaller eyes, but that is left to personal opinion between users and the creators. Either way, the head of the avatar exudes a calm and collected kind of confidence. However, it is easy to turn that into expressions ranging from cute and friendly to an dangerous alpha.

The end of the muzzle could have benefited from being a little less rounded; perhaps drawing out more of the lupine characteristics of the face. The interior of the muzzle is simple; when the jaws are open wide, we mostly see an array of white, sharply pointed teeth. The tongue in the muzzle is sculpted, but when one sticks their tongue out (as when the avatar is doing the panting gesture), we see a flexible prim tongue instead. Sometimes we see a sculpted tongue stick out of the mouth (e.g. when the water-drinking gesture is played). For user enjoyment, they can choose what colour they would like the nose to be through text commands.

The eyes are textured to have one of two different pupils that the user can select from (large or small) through text commands. Users can also change the iris colours as they wish. A neat way that this was constructed was that from any angle that you rotate your camera around the head, the pupils will always be looking in the camera’s general direction.

Finally, at the top of the head are triangular ears with a smooth, slightly concave shape to them to round out some more lupine features. Starting with the interior of the ears, a bunch of prim fluff provides some fuzziness from the top of the head before turning into cheek-fluff at the sides of the face. As well, users have the ability to wear a ‘Forehead Symbol;’ generally unique insignia like a Sagittarius sign, a paw, a bolt, a cross, Biohazard, etc. Users can also tint the colour of these through text commands. A list of the head-symbols is found in the accompanying notecard.

Additional Attachments:

Users can take advantage of a few accessory modifications in terms of extra hair/fur for different areas of the avatar. Some examples are scattered in pictures throughout the review. They include:

• Extra Cheek-Fluff
• A full Head-Mane
• A Larger Full Head-Mane
• A Shoulder Mane
• A series of Link(Wolf) Inspired Manes
• Mohawk

Features and Heads-Up Display:

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.

The Wolf 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. You can colour the following areas with the HUD:

• All of the avatar at once, Around the eyes, Underbelly, Inside the Ears, Mane up top, or the ‘Glove’ colours.

Animation Overrider:

A HUGE part of this avatar is the animation overrider. Being a quad, creators would normally have to invest a lot of time and resources into making new animations to bring their creation to life. In short, the creators of this wolf have done that, featuring a few dozen different animations, sounds, and gestures to make this avatar a lively lupine. Users are able to have the wolf take on a variety of different facial expressions on their own without using gestures, but can also resort to different quick-access buttons to Caramelldanse or whimper in fear.

The avatar covers things such as swimming/flying, running, pouncing, digging, and idly standing very well. The following picture shows one of the attack gestures.

Customisation:

The avatar is copiable, but not directly modifiable or transferable. 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 moddified with alternative means. There is a fairly large market of items and add-ons made for the wolf that would easily interest users.

Conclusion:

The Lost Ferals Wolf is a full avatar with many features and available options for user enjoyment. Despite the size of the avatar, much as been packed into it. As an avatar, it does a good job of being both a conversation piece when hanging out with people, but also for day to day life. Most quadruped avatars attempt to outfit the user for an alternative lifestyle to that of the conventional bipedal avatar; something that the Lost Ferals Wolf has done well.