Xymbers' Avatar Reviews

By Xymbers Slade

It's been a long time since I went avatar hunting (or really, anything hunting since there's really nothing in SL I need at this point), but I'd heard of two locations with mesh avatars that sounded popular, and so I decided I'd check them out. The first location is The 5th Wolf, a place with a couple of mesh avatars and some clothes for the (non-mesh) 1st Act werewolf avatar. 5th Wolf has two avatars, a wolf and a minotaur, so I bought them both (at $2000L a pop) and decided to have myself a look.

First, the Wolf. It comes with two types, "Beast" and "Normal", which don't seem to be different at all except one might be a little bit larger than the other and might be better working or something depending on the AO used. Said wolf does NOT come with its own animation override. It also puts you into a very wide stance when you first wear it, which made me go "???" and tilt my head for a minute or two. While it has no AO of its own, the notecard suggests the "Vista Animations Beast Ao-vo1" (L$ 399 according to the notecard). It is RARE that you don't see anyone include animations in their work these days, but according to Karolline Khandr, the creator, "I don't know anyone who does animations." We can only be good at what we know (smile). The other big negative to this wolf is that there is no talkjaw... the mouth doesn't move. They're working on it, from what I've been told.

On the good side, the mesh looks awesome. Probably one of the best meshes I've seen yet, very detailed without looking like someone just painted a picture onto and over a blob of a mesh and called it good. Still, the programming "feels clunky" when I move without an AO, and the HUD was a bit slow to respond in some places. To be honest, at 2000 $L, with no AO and a lack of a talkjaw, it does feel unfinished (or underfinished). So I can't give it the best rating. I want to give it 4 Dragon Hoards out of five... but I just can't. This one gets 3 Dragon Hoards out of five, and that's pushing it.

The other avatar is the "Ukko Minotaur." It comes with two different forms, one with hair and attachments, and one without. It also comes in two sizes (big and slightly less big). It took me a little bit to figure out, especially since the box I purchased was of an old version and it had yet to update. There's still no AO or talkjaw on this one, but it does have an option to remove the horns (especially since some of its costumes, sold separately, come with another set of horns). There's options for skin coloring (four different variables), horn coloring (three) and eye color (four) and here the effort shows; it's as if the creator learned from whatever mistakes or whatever they ran into when creating the wolf. I'm going to give the Ukko Minotaur a good 4 Dragon Hoards out of Five.

Finally we have the last of the avatars I'm reviewing today, the mesh KOT Centaur. I pulled out my dark elf shaman avatar, strapped her into the equine body, and...

First, there's a demo you can get. The demo disappears if taken outside the sim, and only shows the mesh color on one side of it while you're exploring the coats. After getting the real thing, I found the avatar itself has 16 coat options, from black to seal to palomino to Pinkie Pie Pink. The skins are bought with "tokens" you can buy on the marketplace, but I didn't see such option or thing there and could freely cycle through the coats at whim. So I do not know if this is an idea that was abandoned mid-stride, or if the HUD I have somehow has access to all of the skins. You begin with the "Seal" skin (a dark brown) and get one token to start (I bought a "Rocky Mountain Black" skin with it); extra tokens supposedly cost $350 on the marketplace.

The notecard suggests that you should "always detatch the av via the hud" or it causes AO conflicts. I've never heard or seen something like that happen and I didn't have it happen to me when I switched avatars and back, so that is a plus (or maybe I don't use enough AOs... heh). The one glaring problem I DID have is that the arms lock whenever you click on something, freezing in the point animation and requiring a detatchment of the equine body or even a relog to reset. And even then, the arms seem to be "locked" in place. If you type and have the typing animation on, the arms will freeze mid-type when you're done. I had an extra AO from elsewhere I could use to reset the arms' position, but your mileage will vary. Is it a good mesh with good movement animations and clopping sounds while you're moving? Yes. Is it worth $2000L with a glaring "bug" like the arms locking? No. Thus, four dragon Hoards out of Five.

The 5th Wolf and the Ukko Minotaur can be found at the Waterton Commerce sim (57,224,2300) and the KOT Stables can be found at the The Triquetra sim (223,103,23).

Avatar Review: 1st Act Mesh Werewolf

By Xymbers Slade

In thinking along the lines of "Go Mesh or Go Home", I decided to go through my old landmarks and see if any other of my favorite avatar makers had also gone mesh. Cue 1st Act, makers of werewolves. I've spent quite a lot of $L on their werewolves (their originals --- the "big buff wolf" in my pictures --- cost 1950 $L per color of wolf and I have over a dozen) and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they too had "gone mesh" with a new variety of werewolf.

The starting werewolf comes in three flavors (each for 1250 $L) --- Timber, Shadow and Arctic. Off to one side, there's also a vendor for re-skinning (at 650 $L a skin) where you buy a little hud that you click to change the basic color of the body. Simple and easy. There's a shop next to the vendor that has basic mesh clothes to fit the body (I settled on a dress for 450). The hud for controlling the wolf allows you to control the expression of the wolf (there's about a dozen programmed expressions, and five different hand positions) as well as controls for the ears, eyes and mouth.

Missing from the hud is a howl or snarl sound effect gesture like from their originals as well as an option for coloring eyes (those are now human-esque and need to be bought separately (at 150 $L per variety, coming in black background with "rich color", natural, evil eyes or cybernetical), but I think that's just a minor nitpick as the mesh is really well done. My only real nitpick is that the mesh isn't easily editable; in an effort to make my female wolf a bit bustier, nothing changes from the "edit my shape" menu when I go to edit (well, the shape changes but is hidden by an alpha layer; the mesh doesn't change with the avatar shape as the two are different things).

So that's that. A short and sweet write up on the new 1st Act mesh werewolves which I am going to rate at 4 dragon hoards out of 5 --- I think the skins and the clothing could be a bit cheaper, and I would have liked to see a few more gestures like snarling, scratching, tail-flicking, etc. It's a good choice if you want to upgrade your avatar to a mesh skin (that and it's hard to find clothes  for the female bigger buff original versions that -aren't- harem wear, so I was looking for something new). These new mesh wolves can be found at the 1st Act Main Store.

Xymbers Slade

Timber Wilds

Recently I was people-watching in Caledon Oxbridge when a couple of wolf avatars I hadn't seen before crossed my path. Asking them where they got their avatars, I was pointed to a place called Timber Wilds.

Timber Wilds is a very nicely done wilderness sim that's perfect for a quick getaway from the madness and insanity of regular SL life. There's a lot to explore, a lot of little nooks and crannies to hide in and wander about, and there's what appears to be a club at one end of the sim.

The avatar itself that was being sold is a wolf (they also have foxes) by Timber Wilds Industries. It's very very well done; had a bit of a "scruffy" look to it. It's about the size of a large dog; not as big as the Werehouse Dire Wolf but not so small as to be mistaken for a puppy or a chibi version of it. The HUD comes with recoloring options for every part of the body (except for the eyes, recolorable eyes have to be purchased separately, but are very cheap) as well as several options for gestures, like sitting and wagging your tail.

Timber Wilds (based in the sim Silent Hills, no relation to the video game) also has a sister sim, Whispering Wilds. This is an RP sim for ferals, and after wandering past the Timber Wilds vendors, saw that there was a sign advertising a trio of wolfpacks, perfect for RP opportunities. Further investigation revealed that the packs mentioned on the sign have been for the most part "inert"; from what I understand the leaders of the RPs got up and left and most of the groups followed suit. Now, Whispering Wilds is home to -some- RP, but my impression was that the RP is "here and there" --- no real main "quest line" or story line is ongoing at the moment.

Rabid Ghost, one of the admins of the sims, had this to say: "Timber Wilds is a public, feral animal roleplaying sim geared towards natural interaction between creatures in the dense forestlands that give the place its name. Also home to Timber Wilds Industries, offering high quality animated & expressive quadruped animal avatars and accessories, geared toward roleplaying and detailed character customization. Free demo avatars are available, as well as two full regions of beautiful scenery to explore with both In Character-enforced roleplay and casual OOC hangout areas."

One interesting thing I saw was that in their sim rules, the Werehouse Dire animal avatars seem to be marked as forbidden in the sim. This I learned was because of a lot of "god moding" while wearing them --- more the result of bad RP by players instead of bad blood between avatar makers, and the wolf avatars of Timber Wilds -do- look a lot like the Werehouse ones.

Both sims, especially Whispering Wilds (In-Character only) are beautifully done and give a good place to relax from running about in SL buying clothes, playing dress-up, or building things in the sandboxes. I'm definitely keeping an alt in the area on occasion; it gets Four Dragon Hoards out of Five, if only because the wolf avatar is a bit more pricey than I would of liked (2000 $L).

Xymbers Slade