After you succesfully signed up on the EntropiaUniverse website, and confirmed your account, it's time to download the client. This might take a while, considering the size of the full client. Once the client software finished updating completely, you will be presented with a screen stating that during the spacetrip to Planet Calypso your ship was attacked and destroyed by robots, as happens so often. Not to worry, though. The Calypso government has set up a body of brave deep-space rescue specialists that actively goes after the robot foes and tries to save the DNA of anyone attacked by them. You're one of the lucky few, as many souls never were succesfully rescued in such fashion. You will now be taken to a screen where you can start recreating a representation of yourself, called an "avatar". To do this, there's a plethora of options available to you. This tutorial is meant to guide you through the process. Keep in mind that after you are satisfied with the way your avatar looks, you will not be able to recreate or alter it in any way, other than when you use the (paid) services of trained specialists. On the left of the screen, you will see the tool you will be using to shape, color, and personalize your avatar. Let's take a bit of a closer look at it, and look at the different components the tool is made up out of: In section 1, you will see three buttons, allowing you to select a main part of your avatar to work on. At the time of writing this tutorial, there are buttons for the body, the face, and the hair. Switching between buttons will bring up different icons in section 2 that will allow you to fine-tune specific features of the selected bodysection for complete finetuning. We will take a more detailed look at this in a minute. The buttons in section 3 will allow you to quickly switch between the different features. You influence the looks of the features by using the control in section 4. It basically acts like a small joystick that you can move around the area. As you move it, you can immediately see the effect of the different settings on the avatar. Note that for some features, you can only move the bar from left to right, rather than 360 degrees around. For those who are impatient to get started, there's the buttons in section 5. The left-most button allows you to randomize the entire section of the avatar, while the right-most button will randomize whichever feature you currently have selected. For certain features, section 6 will contain a slidebar that can be used for further customization. Section 7 allows for switching between male and female avatars, while the reset button will undo your work, and take you back to the original. This option works on a per-feature basis. Finally, Section 8 will let you see your avatar dressed in either just underwear, casual wear, battle armour, or formal clothing. Note that regardless of which setting you pick, after you press "Accept", you will be dressed in a plain orange jumpsuit. The "Exit" button will let you leave Entropia Universe completely.
As promised, we will look more closely at all the different features that can be customized to your liking. For Body, these are the following features (from left to right): Size - The general heigth of the avatar. Body Fitness - How slim (or chubby) the avatar is. Neck Fitness - Allows customization of the muscle tone for the avatar's neck. Shoulder Fitness - Allows customization of the muscle tone for the avatar's shoulders. Upperarm Fitness - Allows customization of the muscle tone for the avatar's upperarms. Forearm Fitness - Allows customization of the muscle tone for the avatar's forerarms. Chest Fitness - Allows customization of the muscle tone for the avatar's chest. Torso Fitness - Allows customization of the muscle tone for the avatar's torso. Waist Fitness - Allows customization of the muscle tone for the avatar's waist. Hip Fitness - Allows customization of the muscle tone for the avatar's hips. Thigh Fitness - Allows customization of the muscle tone for the avatar's thighs. Calf Fitness - Allows customization of the muscle tone for the avatar's calves. Skin Color - Allows customization of the avatar's skin color. Skin Brilliance- Allows customization of the brilliance of avatar's skin. Head - Allows customization of the size of the avatar's head. Shoulder - Allows customization of the heigth of the avatar's shoulders. Arms - Allows customization of the length of the avatar's arms. Pelvis - Allows customization of the size and shape of the avatar's pelvis. Foot - Allows customization of the size of the avatar's feet. For the face section, the following features are available. Please note that here section 4 might just show arrows instead of the movable joystick: Face Skin - Allows customization of the the texture of the skin of the avatar's face. Nose Shape - Allows customization of the shape of the avatar's nose. Ear Shape - Allows customization of the shape of the avatar's ears. Mouth Shape - Allows customization of the shape of the avatar's mouth. Cheek Shape - Allows customization of the shape of the avatar's cheeks. Eye Shape - Allows customization of the shape of the avatar's eyes. Chin - Allows customization of the shape of the avatar's chin. Face Fitness - Allows customization of the slimness of the avatar's face. Iris - Allows customization of the size and color of the avatar's eyes. Jaw - Allows customization of the shape and profile of the avatar's jaw. For the Hair section, the following features are available: Hair Style - Allows customization of the style of the avatar's hair. Facial Hair - Allows customization of the color and definition of the avatar's hair. No bearded ladies allowed, though. Hair Color - Allows customization of the color of the avatar's hair. Note that other options for customization are possible in the universe (other shapes for the iris, more extensive hairdoes, etc), but they require a trained specialist to be skilled enough to "unlock" them. By this we mean that as their skills progress, they will be able to discover newer and more fancy customizations.
When you are all done fine-tuning your avatar, click "Accept". You will now be prompted to pick a name for your avatar. Your name will consist of three parts, as the screenshot shows, and in the universe you will be able to select which of these will be displayed to other users. Be aware that you are not allowed to create names that are very similar to those of existing avatars. This is done in order to prevent people from harming or freeloading on the ingame reputation of existing avatars. Once you confirm, you will enter the universe. The location where you start off might be different depending on where you downloaded the game, but most commonly you will find yourself in Port Atlantis. We hope this guide is of some use to you, and to see you again in part 02, where we will discuss the controls used in Entropia Universe.
