Let’s take a look at the new Kinzart Kreetures dire wolf. Be afraid, be very afraid 🙂
This review refers to version 1.1.10.0. There are still some issues with the avatar, which the creators have acknowledged and said they will be fixing shortly, but none of them are major, and none of them take away from just how awesome this avatar actually is.
First up, the avatar is both bipedal and quadrupedal at the touch of a HUD button. Both modes have a built in stand, walk, and run. The quadruped set is particularly good, but the biped set leaves just a little bit to be desired, particularly for females. The stand is nice and menacing as you can see in the top picture, but the walk and run are just a little stilted. This is definitely one of the things the creators have promised to address shortly. As the avatar has no demo, the movement was my major concern, but as the quadruped animations are so good, I’m hopeful that the bipedal ones will be upgraded to something a little better soon.
Also included in the HUD is a sit button, and you can cycle through eight ground sits, like the one above.
The HUD has twelve inbuilt fur textures, all with materials enabled. And everything from the claws, pawpads, eyes, nose (twelve inbuilt textures), tongue, and mouth are customizable with a color picker, fullbright, and glow.
As the avatar is undoubtedly aimed at people playing lycans, the hindquarters are lower than the shoulders in quadruped mode, which is in keeping with the werewolf theme, as opposed to a real dire wolf, which was not too different that modern day wolves, in body shape at least.
Let’s talk animations. There are a ton of them, for the Bento rigged ears and forepaws, the eyes, mouth (the tongue out animations are great!), the brow, jaw, face, and even pupil dilation! There are also five actions: Dance 1, threatening, begging (cute), rolling (cuter), and playful (cutest), which trigger a number of the face and paw animations plus animate the entire avatar. Tail wag speed and position can also be selected via the HUD. There are fur on/off options, and additional fur options for the thighs, elbows, and cheeks.
There are even solo and pack howls, where the pack howl will trigger off other dire wolves in the vicinity if they are allowing it via the HUD 🙂
Although I don’t have any clothes for the avatar yet, the creators have certainly not neglected clothing designers when it comes to alpha cuts. The HUD has a comprehensive alpha section, although it only shows the front of the avatar, and the back of the torso can only be alpha-ed with the torso button. Considering that wolves don’t wear a lot of clothing, this is probably not a major concern. You can also save up to four alpha presets.
Oh, and you can select either male or female via the HUD. The female option adds boobs, which are, umm not the most believable I’ve seen, but the body does respond to the shape sliders, so I gave them a little more gravity and separation, which helped. In quadruped mode, this matters not at all, but in biped mode, they look a little strange from the side. I’ll play more with the sliders to see if I can get them just a little more natural looking.
With free updates for life, and a number of fur mods and some accessories on the marketplace already, this looks to be the best wolf avatar in SL hands down. You can get each size (there are three, small which I’m wearing, medium, and large) for L$2500, or the fatpack of three goes for L$6000.
Avatar: Dire Wolf by Kinzart Kreetures (also known as KZK)