In a SLARF first, we review the Werehouse Werewolf v3.0. The Werehouse is one of the most venerable, long-standing avatar creators in Second Life, and after so many years, so it’s a pleasure to be able to review one of their freshest avatars.

Out of the Box:

Observations:

Build and Textures:

• This avatar is a full-prim one, meaning that none of the body mesh underneath is visible. Starting off with the build description, we’ll point out that the avatar is slightly larger than the average Second Life avatar, but not too much so. Additionally, it has a fair bit of muscle that puts on some bulk, and at the same time a touch of beast persona. The avatar’s prims are all well thought out and symmetrical with a number of prims used on each body part or limb to give the impression of articulated muscles.
• Texture-wise, this avatar is visually interesting because of the amount of ‘brushing’ to give the impression of slightly rough fur. The creator has paid some attention to the direction of fur ‘growth,’ which helps to make the heavily brushed fur look believable. The textures come with a decent amount of shading that adds a bit more dimension to the avatar as well.

• The markings over the avatar follow those of a wolf’s nicely, with multiple shades and tones. A neat function of this avatar that is usually applied to quadruped avatars is the option to change the body colouration through the HUD. Out of the box, users can choose from four different colourations of avatar (Timber Wolf texture, The Prairie Wolf texture, The Black Phase Wolf texture, and the Arctic Wolf texture), as well as make up their own colour scheme through premade colours or an RGB slider and palette. Another neat addition is the ability to add ‘texture packs’ from third parties straight to the avatar. In this way, then, colour and texture-wise, not only do you get all of the available colourations of the avatar, but have a lot of customisation.

• Before we move on to talk about the rest of the avatar, we’ll point out that this avatar does come in both male and female versions. As you can see from photos below, the female versions of this avatar contrast with the male with larger hips, and a generally more hour-glass figure. I find that the male shape for this avatar is slightly more superior to that of the female’s, though both are more than functional enough. Both versions of this avatar come with the same full complements of features.

Body:

• The lower limbs of the body (i.e. the feet and the legs) are very sturdy and appear more than proportional on both the female or male versions of this avatar. Along with their appropriate dimensions and size, the legs and feet come together to look like a full, continuous limb. Given that this avatar comes with a very active Animation Overrider, the lower limbs are put to the test and pass with flying colours when they move. Of particular note here is that the full-prim thighs do not appear out of place.
• Next up, the tail. The tail comes in two different forms; flexible-prim or sculpted prims. Both of these tail options are very competent on their own and fit the avatar’s look perfectly. The sculpted tail has a slight edge on the flexible tail because it fits in with the prim-body overall.
• The torso of the body is fairly segmented, with quite visible divisions between prims a slight bit distracting. However, by dividing the torso up into 3 parts rather than 2, this Werewolf will have a greater degree of natural movement, which is made all the more clear when the avatar is in motion with the included Animation Overrider. If you do use your own animations, however, the belly attachment may jut out a bit more than you’d like at times.
• I should mention that the avatar comes with a fair bit of prim fluff, which, while being made of sculpts, lines the avatar in areas like the front of the chest, or on the wrists.
• The female shape and male shape are fairly similar, with the exception that the female shape has a much thinner waist and small breasts on the chest. From the front, the breasts are hardly noticeable, but from the side, you can definitely see it.
• The upper body itself is fairly well built; though the male version of this avatar comes with very broad shoulders and well-muscled arms. To the contrary, the females have less broad shoulders and come with less muscular arms.
• The arm attachments are well designed, but do appear a bit as if the avatar has thrust its shoulders forward and rotated the arms forward. Additionally, the transition between the upper arm prim and the lower arm could have been a little smoother.
• The hand attachments themselves make for very competent werewolf hands; a clear cross between human and canine. While not poseable, users should find these hands very fitting for this avatar.

Head:

• Onto the head. This is the most expressive part of the avatar with seven very different facial expressions, as well as the options to make the eyes glow, ears swivel, and more. The features will all be listed later in the review.
• One of the defining features for this avatar’s face is its eyes; they are not attached to the eyeballs, but are still 3-dimensional in relation to the head. The eye whites are generally dark black, while the eyeball texture itself is similar to that of a canid’s eye. The eye-glow option is well done and makes for a nice photogenic effect.
• The face itself was very well constructed, immediately giving the impression of a wolf’s head. The face generally leans a bit more towards a feral, non-anthro look, yet still has a lot of character and expression built in. This is particularly evident when a user goes through all of the available facial expressions. A personal favourite face is the “confused” facial expression, which is bound to cause a laugh or two.
• The muzzle is reflective of a lupine’s with a fair bit amount of space between the eyes, and an articulated jaw that features a full complement of teeth and a well detailed muzzle interior.

• Overall, the head is versatile in the options available to it; both in facial expressions and in such settings as the eye-glow, ear positions, as well as minor options like the activation of the random scripted eye movement. Above is a picture of some of the combinations possible through usage of the HUD. As such, the head is clearly one of the strongest parts of this avatar, aside from the animation overrider.

Features and Heads-Up Display (HUD):

• This avatar comes fully decked out with features that allow for a great amount of customisation, as well as some extra, non-essential features that some users may appreciate. Below is a photo of the HUD, which explains much of the avatar’s features.

• All of these functions are completely controlled by the HUD, but users are also given the ability to manage the avatar through text commands. The HUD itself is fairly straight-forward, though some users may have difficulty understanding some parts straight out of the box. For that, the avatar comes with a link to an online manual, which gives very detailed information with pictures to make the learning process much easier (CLICK HERE TO VIEW MANUAL).
• One of the neatest features for this avatar is that not only can one enter a mode to recolour individual parts of the avatar with ease on the HUD, but users can utilise third-party texture packages to expand their appearance.
• Below is a picture of the avatar with a ‘custom’ colouration straight from the box. Users are able to change the colour of each part of the body listed in the HUD photo above, with ease.

Animation Overrider:

• This is a huge part of the WereHouse Werewolf 3.0. Users are given the option between two fairly different animation overrider states; the Bipedal or the Quadrupedal.
• Both of these versions of the animation overrider grant the avatar a neat ‘feral’ quality regardless of which one you choose. The animations are very smooth but come with such variation and idle movement that you can imagine of an impatient, wild, werewolf.
• At this time, we don’t have the ability to include a video of the avatar’s movement, but suffice to say, while some people may feel that the avatar is a bit too ‘active’ in its movement, this avatar comes with an exemplary collection of over 35 animations for walking, standing, sleeping, howling, and more. We’ll note here that a few animations are coupled with sounds and/or the appropriate facial expression, such as snarling or howling.
• Perhaps the only criticism I can offer for the animation overrider is the choice of animation for the ‘walk’ on the Quadruped AO. I believe that the walk and the run animations are the same, which means that when the avatar walks in quadruped mode, the animation moves a little too fast for a suitable walking motion.

Customisation:

• This avatar comes copiable and modifiable, so users can easily customise this avatar to their desire. The option to recolour the avatar through the HUD ‘Colorizer’ allows for users to quickly and accurately reach their intended colouration with ease.
• While we have not seen any of the third-party texture-packs that users can apply, this produces the opportunity for further customisation or even a business, it would seem.

Conclusion:

As such, we conclude our review of the Werehouse Werewolf 3.0. This avatar offers itself as a very competent werewolf with a look that remains true to the style of avatars that attempts to produce a sense of animalistic ‘realism’ into Second Life. While the style of this avatar is similar overall to what we’ve seen from the Werehouse over the years, the avatar itself shows a considerable amount of skill in how it was executed. It is interesting to see how scripting options and avatar features usually reserved for quadruped avatars have been made part of a dual bipedal/quadruped werewolf. Overall, another well done Werewolf avatar that users can get much out of.