See More Avatars from: Rez Fantazy

21 Jan 09 | List Price: L$

Rez Fantasy has moved into the avatar content creation scene with less popular species of animals (bears and pumas and goat-like caprans), and have continued the trend by releasing an updated Capran avatar as an African Gazelle. This avatar is a mixed bag that, in our opinion raises questions about Rez Fantasy’s Quality Control.

Out of the Box

• Blinking eyes
• Color changing eyes
• Twitching ears
• Swishing tail
• Hoof Prints
• Sound hud

Build and Skin

For this review, we shall start with the skin and texture-job. Immediately after unpacking the avatar, you realise that there was a good deal of skill that was used in texturing it. This is certainly possible as the creator also offers well-textured clothing under the Rez Fantasy brand as well. There is a good level of detailing all over the entire avatar, where there is little to no fuzziness, but clear division in colours and details. The female avatar comes with a mature skin and nipples baked in, which is advantageous for those who would like to save money from having to buy a nipple undershirt.

The avatar comes with hooves that are fairly simple, but acceptable. The digitigrade leg sculpts are appreciably well attempted, but suffer from a degree of warping that leaves the legs looking wrinkled in appearance. This is unfortunately a detraction from the quality of the avatar. It would be forgivable if this warping and wrinkling effect on the legs was only present there; but this issue crops up again in the head.

When first setting eyes on the head, the viewer realises that there is an issue concerning the symmetrical quality of the head. The muzzle is crooked, just as much as the main head-prim itself is crooked. A friend of mine has suggested that perhaps the issue doesn’t lie in the actual sculpt-creation process, but that the export of the sculpt textures resulted in sub-standard quality parts. This perspective is a far better explanation than to believe that the creator was merely incompetent. The product may have looked better in the 3D-sculptmaking program, but failed entry into SL. But the question is how these mistakes could have made it into the vendor for selling.

Without a doubt, the Capran was one of the first, if not the first anthropomorphic animal avatar that Rez-Fantasy released, so it is naturally not going to be as good as their later Puma or their Ursine avatars. However, if they were going to offer an re-coloured and re-released version of the Capran as a Gazelle, nothing would have prevented the company from upping the quality to better standards.

Regardless, the head is not neccesarily all a mess. If one imagines that the sculpts came out better, the avatar could be a very well done, complete package. However, the muzzle still remains crooked, with texture warping on the tip of the muzzle. This warping leaves a noticeable brown-creme spot that was covered over with a black torus to produce the muzzle cleft.

One part of the head where toruses have been used as a shortcut again would be the base of the horns. Compared to the sculpts used all over the head; to have two toruses that seem almost carelessly placed at the base of the horns really can take the attention off of the rest of the head. The toruses on the horns is mostly only noticeable if one removes the hair, which brings us to our next point; the avatar attaches the hair to the actual head. Thus, in order to customise the avatar and replace the mediocre hair that comes with the avatar with their own; you will need to remove all of the hair prims first. Additionally, this avatar will not look good bald; the creator did not texture the back of the head, likely assuming it would always be covered.

Heads-Up Display (HUD)

There is a HUD included with this avatar, but its function is limited to setting only the sound settings. The other settings, such as eye colour and hoof print usage require the user to use text-based commands, which are graciously included in the accompanying notecard. The lack of HUD functionality could dissapoint a few, but the usage of gestures is certainly no less advanced than if you used a HUD.

Customisability

The avatar can use normal clothing; from shirts to pants with ease. The head could be the most difficult to modify as aforementioned, one must unlink and remove the hair from the head. Some may have issue with getting the head to work with their own hairs and accessories due to its misshapen character. It is notable that the entire avatar (with the exception of the body skin) is modifiable and copiable, so modders can work with some of quality parts of the avatar with relative ease.

Conclusion

For the first Rez-Fantasy avatar that SLARF has reviewed, we are deeply disappointed. The creator shows definite promise with their other avatars, so one must not write them off yet. Again, perhaps these issues have been a matter of the sculpt-ed prim export process having gone awry, rather than poor skill in part by the creator. However, we would go far enough to say that the current price (850L as of January 2009) is highly inappropriate for its quality level.

Seriously. We’ve tried our best to remain balanced in our review. Without saying anymore, you, the reader can make the choice.

This review was written by Forepawz - Contributor and Senior Editor | Filed under Rez Fantazy
Tagged gallery, Gazelle, Goat, Rez fantasy, Ungulate.