Lost Furest has been expanding their Evolutions line, and one avatar that was released alongside their Maned Wolf avatar is their ordinary “Wolf” avatar. With this review, we revisit the iconic canine and discuss how this avatar reaches its goal of anthropomorphicising the animal.
Out of the Box:
- Both Male and Female included
- PG and Mature Skins
- Ear Positions including Twitching
- Prim Eye States and Blink
- Jaw Positions and Expressions
- Clickable Tail Functions
- Tintable Flexi Tails
- Muzzle Talking Function (Voice and Chat)
- 15 Different Pupil Choices (Slitted to Round to O.o to X.X, etc.)
- Yapper for typing (a yapper is a LF special, emit textures as you type as if you were speaking them)
| Measurement | Value |
|---|---|
| Script Time / Memory (With HUD) | ~0.2ms / TBD |
| Script Time / Memory (without HUD) | ~0.1ms / TBD |
| Avatar Rendering Cost (Scale Here) | ~2640 |
| Modify? | Yes |
| Copy? | Yes |
| Transferable? | No |
With the exception of a few minor details in appearance as well as the entire head, this avatar is very close to the ‘Maned Wolf’ avatar released at the same time by Lost Furest. The link to that review is here: Lost Furest Evolutions Maned Wolf Review. Some of the content in this review is borrowed from that review, but as the head is completely different, new material is written for that attachment.
Build and Skin:
This avatar comes with a variety of different skins; each offering a slightly different take on the fur patterns and colourations of wolves, but also a few employing unique patterns (e.g. The Prismatic colouration). All of the colour choices are interesting, though the Prismatic LFE Wolf goes the extra mile in having different parts of the avatar cycle through the rainbow randomly. Compared to other avatars in the Lost Furest Evolutions line, this wolf maintains their standard of texture level. That is, there is not a huge amount of detail, but sufficiently enough to make the fur look soft, and the transitions between colours and lines fuzzy and fur-like. There is a suitable amount of shading on the skin, particularly the front of torso, where males get softly defined pecs and abs; females receiving even softer abs and breast definition.
The avatar comes with both sexes; though when the user unpacks the avatar, they are given only the female version. Users must unpack the “Male” version of the attachments and skins from an object inside the unpacked folder. There, users will find attachments made to fit with the male body shape, as well as PG and Mature male skins. The mature male skin receives smaller nipples than the females, which makes logical sense. However the nipple versions of the skins suffer slightly from the ‘stick-on’ effect where they appear to rest atop the fur rather than be surrounded by it. Some fur does cover the nipples, but the stick-on look is exemplified because the fur looks slightly cheap atop the nipple. Females also receive female genitals.
Warning: The Picture Under this link is rated Mature. Click here to view the male and female mature skins.
Attachments:
Lower Body:
An immediately prevalent trait for the feet on this avatar are the large, and very thick pawpads on the undersides. The undersides are a black before transitioning to grey at the corners. Between the toes, we can see some prim fluff which is a common theme across the avatar. The feet come with a compliment of four toes, each tipped by short and shiny black claws. As with the other LFE (Lost Furest Evolutions) avatars we have reviewed so far, this avatar opts to have the avatar appear to stand digitgrade even without the digitigrade leg attachments by having the toes and paw-pads touch the floor while the heel slopes up and away from the ground.
From the base of the foot upward, users can choose whether they want to use plantigrade or digitigrade leg attachments. The digitigrade legs by themselves are well made and textured with a good angle at the joint in the leg. These legs are very much close to, if not exactly the same as the LFE Maned Wolf’s digitigrade legs. For that avatar, these legs helped to give the impression of the stilt-like look of a Maned Wolf’s. We had raised the observation that when one wears the digitigrade leg with the foot, one couldsee that the foot is a good deal wider than the leg, leading to an odd-looking connection between the digi-leg and the foot. Additionally, if users wish to wear clothing without either plantigrade or digi-leg attachments, the back of the foot juts out a little bit from the shape leg which can look a little off. A problem with these legs is that they legs look far too scrawny for a non-Maned Wolf avatar. However, here too do the plantigrade leg attachments look far better with the avatar than do the digitigrade leg attachments.
The tail comes in two forms; either as a sculpted or as a flexible prim form. The flexible one is fluffier in appearance and swishes about when the avatar wags its tail. The sculpted one, however is more shapely and suits the rest of the avatar better because of the shape and contours. To set options for the tail, the user must click on it, where they can set the tail to sit upwards or downwards, as well as choose options pertaining to movement. Overall, the wagging could benefit from being slightly less jerkiness in movement. Males and females also receive butt fluff to frame the rump-cheeks and add extra decorative fur.
Upper Body:
The hand attachments mimic the feet pretty well, but with obvious differences marking it out to be more hand-like then foot-like. That is, we see 4 finger-digits and the addition of an opposable thumb. The pose of the hand is relaxed and the fingers look more akin to paw-digits than hands; thick and meaty with pads taking up the majority of the finger underside.
We’ve often said that the head is a major part of the avatar, and this is no different here. Lost Furest has included a lot of fluff prims around the neck and head regions of the avatar which really give the entire body extra dimension and fluffiness. As such, the avatar comes with:
- A mane that travels down from between the ears to the small of the back
- Chestfur
- Extra Cheekfur
Users can easily go without any of these attachments, but for a good number of people, these attachments make up a huge amount of the avatar’s presence; it almost seems a shame to wear clothing and/or take off these prims because it makes the Wolf look less fluffy and somewhat ‘naked.’ (See picture on right)
Head:
The landmark for this face is the eyes; which as with all LFE avatars, comes with a lot of different choices in colours and pupil shape/size, and even shapes. The textures themselves are very clear-cut and appear shiny, and users can choose to wear a X.X expression or even a robotic eye kind of eye with only a coloured, full-bright center. Users can apply up to 7 different eye ‘shine’ textures; from stars to hearts, as shown in the accompanying picture. Females also receive slightly more prominent eyelashes while males receive more gender-neutral eyes.
The muzzle is broad, thicker at the base before tapering slightly at the tip. This puts a fair amount of distance between the head, and coined with the width of the face, provides an idealised wolf-shape. Of all the features on the face, the muzzle is perhaps the most intricately textured; particularly looking at the nose which appears cold and wet, despite the slightly unnatural amount of shine on it. A small series of whiskers lines the side of the muzzle and eyebrows, and the interior of the mouth features the full compliment of teeth, sculpted tongue, and a very articulated uvula at the back of the throat. A downside to the muzzle is that on the bottom lip at the front of muzzle, there is sometimes a bit of a white splotch that appears a touch unattractive. As a whole, the muzzle does very well in terms of appearance, the mouth set into a neutral expression with an enigmatic curl at the ends of the lips.
The sides of the face have a gratuitous amount of fluff which makes the head appear wider and more wolf-like. This makes the wolf one of the fluffier of bipedal wolf heads that we have reviewed. The head slopes a fair bit, which marks the head-shape as being a bit more feral-shaped than human. There is no real ‘hair’ included as much as a decorative ‘mane’ attachment that start between the ears and spreads down towards the back. The back of the head has been textured to allow people to get away without wearing the mane or any hairs at all.
Finally, we point to the ears. The shape is easily lupine; triangular shaped despite being deeply concave and have a bit more curviness to the shape than one would expect. One or both ears can be put into multiple different positions for user’s expression interests.
Features and Heads-Up Display (HUD):
The bulk of features that come with this avatar are accessed mostly through the HUD, while those that pertain to the eyeballs themselves are accessible only through text commands.
HUD controls:
- Eye-Width State
- Individual Ear State (Up, Down, Perked, etc.)
- Muzzle Talking Function Toggle On/Off
- Tongue In/Out Toggle
*To Access the few States of Mouth openness, you must turn off the Muzzle-Talking Function or the mouth will close automatically after hitting the custom rotation button
Text command controls:
- Eye Colour
- Eye Pupils
- Eye Shine Type
It should be mentioned that as part of the Muzzle-Talking function of the avatar, when users enable this option, the muzzle emits little “YAP” from the muzzle in a string of particles. This actually has quite a cute effect when the particles fully rez. Users can replace the yaps with other provided textures from the creator in an accompanying notecard. However, for those who might not like the particle chat, to turn it off, the user has to either remove the prim on the bottom lip that emits the particles, or at least, set the scripts inside to “Not Running.” This is one area the avatar could have benefited from an On/Off toggle in the HUD.
Customisation:
This avatar is readily able to be modified due to its copy-modifiable nature. The head is slightly more ‘feral’ shaped than humanly so, so some third-party hairs might be a little difficult to use on it. But with a little tweaking, most hairs should be able to fit, given that the shape isn’t necessarily too spherical. Do keep in mind that the feet do jut back from the leg, so it may look odd if users wear ordinary pant/trousers. Prim pant/trouser-cuffs will help remedy this.
Conclusion:
The Lost Furest Evolutions Wolf portrays the lupine species well; resting in a zone between toony and realistic, which yields creative results. As such, between the avatar’s overly fluffy upper body and the way the eyes were done, we do not get so much of a ‘cute,’ nor ‘burly’ or ‘feral’ look, but a wolf that appears friendly, yet mature. As such, users looking for a wolf that appears stoic and mature can look to this avatar as a choice.
