Purple Pony Creations

(LOTS OF PICS. Slow internet people, beware!)

Yes, finally, version 2 of the AVentity equine is out.


Yes, I am currently rocking the FUCK out of the updated zebra.

So, let's take a look at it!

(Sorry this pics are of the white version, I hadn't gone to get another color yet... :p)

To start, these do NOT include wings or horns like the version 1. There are a million alicorns across the grid, I'm sure you won't die. As for wings... the original ones were very high ARC, and while I'm not a horrible "OMG GET YOUR ARC DOWN TO ONE" like some people can be, it can be a concern. The wings were high prim, with alpha textures, so, yeah, I'm sure you can find replacements. (I'm sure there are some in the part store that's around the AVentity vendors now.) They also do not include hand attachments, but I never really used those much any more.

All that said they ARE cheaper than they were at release, now costing L$640, down from L$800 a little over a year ago. Mephitis has lowered the price of all her avatars, and you get both sexes, so they're a really good deal. Honestly, one of the best deals on the market. The price is why I can't complain TOO much about the small issues I have with the avatar. The biggest of which is, again, lack of out-of-the-box Viewer 2 compatibility. The legs and hooves still use invisiprims. It's a simple as hell fix for me, and I'll take care of it as soon as I can, but if someone is not savvy in how to edit this, it can be a problem.

(Meph, please, if you read this, everyone will be FORCED to go to a V2 compatible viewer soon. Yes, forced. Might as well make those legs V2 compatible! :3 I've got a free digitigrade alpha texture that I created (because all the other free ones I tried were no mod and/or not well done) I will -GIVE- you, full perm, so you can include it and stop using those archaic invisiprims.)


The other issue I have is more of a personal one, and it is... av height. Yeah, I like short avs. But again, it's not a hard fix. And at least it's not as tall as some.

Anyway! Onto the av. :3

This is what you first drag to the ground...


Then you get a folder from that with two other boxes, one for the male av, one for the female. We're gonna look at the female av...



The first thing I notice, and love, is the fixing of the avatar's proportions. The arms are no longer too short, probably having to do with the lack of hand attachments. The figure is pretty extreme, but there are versions of my own, personal shape that are similar. Due to how SL does the joints, they always look stick thin, regardless of how muscular the limbs are. This is a SL issue, not one Meph caused with her shape, though toning down the muscles on the legs can help alleviate the strange look. Also, this shape is slightly knock-kneed, like the wolf was, so the width of the calf and the hoof becomes problematic (*smoosh*) on a pose stand like the one I'm on. In normal use, you don't really notice it. Modding would help too, if it's a problem for the user.


From the side, the av is pretty thin, and almost looks bottom heavy with the size of the legs. Again, I think the average user would alleviate this look some if they were to mod the avatar's legs. Over all, I DO love these legs and hooves so many times more than the old legs. No longer are the toes of the hooves super long and the heels severely under-run. I'll touch more on the hooves later. The new tail is flagged, and reminds me of an Arabian, fitting well with the face shape. The new female hair style is similar to the style of the KZK horse, with it being like an actual mane and pulled to one side. Several years back, Wingless Emoto did this with her old horse avatars, and you can still find those across the grid.

(A note about the fingers: There is an optional, tintable "glove" that adds the tips to the fingers. I was wearing it while photographing.)



From the back, you can see the style of the mane, and also how fluffy the tail is (in the first image) and the shading of the backside (in the second). The av looks great from pretty much any angle.


Back to the head for a moment... I'm not sure if I'm sold on the eyebrows but... I think I can deal with them. The difference in this face shape over the original is pretty signifigant.

And yes, those appear to be the same ears. I loved the original ear sculpts, and I'm glad she kept them.

Now, onto where I am going to nitpick every horse avatar I come across: the hooves. There is a saying: "No hoof, no horse." The hoof is the foundation of every equine, and to see it neglected is just... appalling. That said, the hooves are MUCH improved over the original.


To start, this avatar does come with a system shoe. Most ever horse av has this, and it really throws off my re-scaling. ... Just sayin', guys... :p


I'm not sure what's with the coronet area's discoloration on the white av. I don't really notice this on the zebra, and I forgot to look on the chestnut. The hooves are short, yes, but they're not over grown, as the old ones appeared. It fits with the chunky look, and a user can modify this, as the hoof is a prim of it's own.


While the outside of the hoof looks good, I am kind of "meh" about the lack of attention paid to the sole and frog areas of the hoof.


Still the hoof is nice and proportional, with the length and width being about even. Some other makers ignore this, so it's nice to see attention paid to it. (Had to take one hoof off, otherwise, you'd have seen something that looks kinda like a butt.)

Over all, I'm so damn happy to see this. The original, while a good av for it's time (early sculpties), hadn't aged as well as one would hope, especially considering there's a lack of GOOD anthro equine avs on the grid.

AVentity halter update will be out in a day or so, and I will also be taking a look at the updated AnthroXstacy horse, and comparing it to the original (which I didn't really care for...) Let's just say I bought a second AX horse.

What did I wake up to see today?



Pics and my thoughts later. (May have to redo the pics later after I buy an av that's not white... :p) Also, updated halter for AVentity.

And, the AX horse has an update too, so I'll probably look at that again. ... Maybe just the free update I've apparently gotten, if I can find/get it. Misae crashed when I logged in, so I have to go the the AX store and grab that...

This thing will be a work in progress for a long time, me thinks...


So I poked at it a little more today. One of the things that had been bothering me was how tall my av was, and, as I've mentioned, I prefer a shorter avatar. I pulled off the top few prims of the hoof so it would sit lower on my foot. I understand why Meph did the foot the way she did but... Not preferred for me. (I tend to forget to take off shoe bases, or I'll accidentally replace them.)


I'll eventually find an equine or other ungulate leg that I like (thinking maybe the leg on the DSD ram), but for now I have a re-textured leg from the Tokushi Chinese Crested. Super fluffy! <3 (That texture isn't the greatest, but I'm half asleep and did it in like 10 minutes. x_x)


While pulling parts from the Chinese Crested, I decided to try the arm fluff from it. Really like how cute it is, so, she gets that too. :3

The ratio of the human "wingspan" (fingertip to fingertip) to the human height is typically 1:1. If you're not sure of how ratio works, that goes (x unit) to (y unit). For an example (sorry, I'm bringing World of Warcraft into this, since it's convenient and in my bookmarks), the ratio of ACTIVE Alliance to Horde on my realm, Executus, is 1:1.5. This means for every alliance character, there are 1 and a half Hordies (okay, not really a half, but you get the idea. I could say for every 2 Alliance, there are 3 Horde and that's make more sense). On the Cho'gall realm, the ratio is 1:14.3. (Cho'gall Alliance is Hardmode WoW. I have a lot of respect for them.)

Anyway... Humans are, with a few exceptions, roughly 1:1. A few inches/centimeters here or there isn't much, and not enough to really tell.

But on SL, there's a really big problem. No one seems to realize just how SHORT their arms are, or how damn log their legs are! Okay, well, not no one, but a LOT of people. Even I suspected it, but I wasn't sure. Was I in for a shock today when I went to see.

Now, I got to looking because of a few things... When ever spring rolls around, I remember from make incidents with the other girls at school that the fingertips on a human normally sit at about mid thigh. This was the line where that our shorts and skirts couldn't be any higher than. When I see all these female avatars on SL with their asses hanging out, I always think of that. That thought reminds me of a visit to the Knoxville Zoo after they opened new birds of prey exhibits and compared bird wingspans to humans. There was a footnote about arm to height ratio on the display, and for some reason, I tend to remember random crap like that.

Finally, as I have spent more time on the grid, I'm noticing a lot of short arms.

Then I got to thinking mine are too short, so I hopped up on a pose stand... (FoxLabs has a great, 6-pose stand for free. Link to the XStreet listing at the end of the post.)



...Hrm. Well, lets find out.


I made a standard, everyday box and drug it to the center of my avatar. I used a point on my virtual breastbone to line it up with the center, but a pixel or too off isn't important. I raised it to the pads of my feet, then I stretched the box up and too the top of my head.

Then I turned it sideways...


Oh my... :x

My arms were sitting at 58 on the slider.

I hopped off the pose stand, leaving the box in place, and went in to edit my appearance. (Tip: Click on the image above the slider to raise the value by 10.)

I tried raising it by 15... then 20... then 25...


Raising it by 30 is what it took.


The result is better, but I may try knocking back the arm size a bit and raising my hand size a little. My hands are sitting at 25.

(Edit: I did cnock the arm length back by 5, but increase the hand size by 10. It's an improvement, I'm just too damn lazy to take another screen shot. :3 )

... I notice a LOT of size 0 hands around too, on non-furries even. Most furry paws are made for size 0 hands, so it's not uncommon for us to run around with small hands if we take our paws off. Most of them never know about hand size since the never edit their basic shape.

Basically, just take a look at your proportions, especially if you're an Amazon. Go hide somewhere that you can rez objects in, take off your hair and your shoes (system shoes too!) and take a look. You might be surprised at what you find.

Pose Stand (It is ONE prim.)

(I am wearing the AVentity Husky in white, but with my standard Snowhawk shape. I am working on learning recolors for this avatar and the other AVentity avatars.)

Well, I've not fixed the head textures just yet, but I have done a few things to the Snowhawk avatar (which I've been spending most of my time on).

First, I bought a halter. Horses and halters have always gone together in my mind, so I always have to buy one for any equine av I have. I remember BEGGING and PRAYING I would win a halter for my Hoof It! Pony avatar at the release party, and I did! I wasn't so lucky a few months later... But even that one got a halter eventually.

Anyway. I may have mentioned I considerably shortened the muzzle on the mare. And then I made it shorter. It's fantasy, I can have a short muzzle, damnit.

Anyway, this made fitting the halter... a pain in the ass. But I did it.



For comparison, this is the same halter, before editing, on the same avatar, before editing...



Yes, mine looks much thicker because I scaled it down so much I couldn't shrink the size of the ropes anymore. Future project? Hell yes. One more for the list.

Anyway, moving down...

I had once bought one of these tails on my Samiya account, way back when one of the Pony clubs I used to rent from was still around. Before I ever rented there. I miss that place, the people were awesome... Anyway, I did find that Yina Yao still had a store, with even more stuff, and so I had to pick up one of her wonderfully fluffy tails.



These tails are scripted to touch, and can animate the wearer too. Very fun. :) They're also scripted for color change, as well as differing bases.

Finally, I shod myself. The one I'm currently wearing until I can mod the fancier ones I bought are from Rose Evans, but I couldn't find a store LM for her. You can find them on the top floor of the Sale Barn at the FPC (yes, I had to go back, after all the crap that happened, to buy my damn shoes).



Simple, but effective. Coupled with the Pony Productions Hoofprinter (which leaves particle prints and makes a walking sound), I have fun. I don't wear the Hoofprinter everywhere, only at home and when I forget to take it off... :3

Now, you may notice a new horn in that first image. I purchased a sculpty horn and claw builder's kit from Invisible Designs (by Invisible Homewood), since it was well prices... and I can't be bothered to make a sculpty for my horn right now. This one looks much more like the one I draw on her usually. It's also got a very, very soft glow, and is somewhat transparent... And full bright, which I'd neglected to turn on. Yeah, my character's horn glows. I'm a bit of a sparkle dog (...mare) at heart.

Also, in all the images of the modded avatar, I'm wearing a slightly modded "Layla" from Sirena Hair. I streatched the medium size, since it was just a TAD too small, and the large was too big, then I moved the bangs a bit, since they covered my eyes. :)

I'm going to go back and update the previous AVentity avatar post in shortly, since I FINALLY got the images uploaded to Flickr.

Still working on getting pics together for the last review. I've been busy with another project...

Which I'm gonna show you here!

So, as I said, I got some L$ for my birthday, and I send some to Snowhawk so I could get her an Aventity horse av. Again, these aren't the ideal avs for this character, but I can make them work.

This is what I got:


Simple, white horse av.

First things first, change the shape! ... And wow did I look weird. Again, this is a tall av, 7'5", so the attachments are big. Scaling them down was easy, then some adjustments to where everything was situated. I detailed how I go about making the feet, leg, and arm/hand attachments even sizes when I did the Rez Fantasy kirin av, so I won't go into that again. (Too lazy to do it again. :p)

Now, my character is VERY purple. Like.. All over. Except her eyes and horn. And a little white snip on her nose. But she's not just -purple-, she's grullo... Just purple.

Which means I had to retexture everything.

Let me tell you... the addition of the "Temporary" textures saved me a LOT of L$. I was constantly playing around with everything, went through three versions of the eye textures for the head... and only spent L$100 for my uploads. That's all I added. 10 textures.

The skin is three (4 if you count the "mature" version), then four for the head, one for the ears, and a flat color for the attachments, since I just did the barring she one on the skin.


It's not perfect, the face isn't quite what I wanted, and the transition between the head and body isn't quite right.

But still, this is my first major modification project where I did everything. Even retexturing the Hoof It's was easier since I had instructions.







The skin is based off one of the open source skins (Another), and I didn't have to do much to them other than add the base and lighten most of the details. Then I added the markings and fiddled around until the seams matched up as best as I could get them.

It was a fun little project. :)