Allow Avatar's to be shorter

I'm all for this, unfortunately I've just joined and this is one of the features I was already expecting to exist. More votes people this needs to go through, for business people this will open up a a whole new place for you to target your products! The fact that it wasn't implemented already leaves me a bit disappointed since I have a personal avatar (not yet made) that I wanted to use with this kind of function

I agree with the proposal. Neko, we sell dog avatars that walk on all fours and learn tricks and animations. Granted, they are not that small, but since they walk on all fours, they aren't all that tall

Well I just allocated all 10 of my votes to it.
Just wondering, how hard would it be to implement this, wouldn't it just be adjusting the sliders allow for a smaller imput?

Cool. How much would you charge to make me a custom... oh, say, jaguar av? Or a cloud leopard... that would be terrific. I'll try to catch up with you inworld.

neko

I don't know if anyone has noticed but the lindens are getting better about at least looking and makeing comments of votes if they can get 500+ votes. If everyone who has a vote on this put 5 we would have the 500 that they say is going to get us noticed.

This is actualy technicaly complicated. It would require changing all the avatar mesh and config file.

I have argued and promoted the idea of alllowing compete added limits smaller and BIgger for all AV body parts indepedently and a complete and complex re working of the entire AV making system in SL . Please also vote for this.

AV making is who we are and is now one of the OLDEST unimproved areas in SL. I want to be able to see a version update dedicated to allowing us to totally improve EVERY detail, range of sliders up and down increased, number of variables increased and all sorts of improvements. Making a fantasy AV is a key element and the current AV making set up is tired, old, and out of date. VOTE for all these things concerned with AV making including my Proposition 125 and this one in the thread and we shall finally have some really good looking and variable AVs. I want SL to be at least as good for bodies as Poser.

The current system is looking very flat and dated now.

VOTE!!

Instead of increasing the variability available in the avatar's current sliders, how about just one slider for global scale? Instead of shrinking various limbs and such, one could set this slider to become, say, 50-200% the normal avatar size. No new meshes would need to be created; the resulting avatar will use the same proportions as the original, just a different size.

The first problem I see with it is that avatars with prim attachments, such as those who wear hats, high heels, holsters, prim watches, dresses, tails, etc may need to adjust the sizes of those objects seperately. Because there are size limitations to those prims, it might not be possible to scale them to fit the scaled avatar. The second will be the resulting stretch you have with enlarging existing textures, which can only be alleviated by allowing more detailled textures.

EDIT: I have just entered this as Proposal 612: Avatar Scaling.

And apologies for the error on the proposal that links it only to this post. You can find the rest of the "Smallar Avatar" discussion topic here.

Is there any real good reason why avies are the size they are relative to the size of the sim? I mean if avatars were scaled down to 1/4 their current size, a 512m plot becomes a rolling estate. Vehicles wouldn't be crossing sim boundaries every 5 seconds etc etc.

As for the proposal, have a look through the proposals as there are a couple of them that ask for that very thing. This could have the effect of "splitting the vote" so to speak.

The size of the sim is mostly based on how many avs, and all the prims those avs want (attached as well as lying around), can be modelled by an LL computer. If we were a 1/4 of our size, that computer would need to handle 4 times more avs (or is it 16? ) and 4 times more prims, and the physics engine would be under 4 times more strain.
Another problem would be that at the moment we can't build things smaller than 10cm without cheating. If we were scaled down a quater, that lower limit would become 40cm.

I am not so sure about that, why would the number of prims increase? A sim can only handle 15,000 prims, why would 15,000 smaller prims tax the system? Really, the only thing that changes is the size of the land. A 512 lot becomes a 2048 estate but it still only as 117 prims. Then again you would need fewer prims to build as a single 10m wall becomes a 20 story building side.

I think the lower size limit is there to help keep prims from getting lost more than what the server can handle.

sounds like a good deal, i personally always wanted to be able to make myself the size of a rat....as weird as that sounds i like the idea MUHAAHAHAHHA!

IF we scaled everything down, but did not pack more in, SL reality would become very sparse. Those who are used to very rural areas in RL might feel comfortable with that, but I think it would break the feel for everyone else.

Uhh, I don't know too many people who actually like being squeezed like sardines onto little cramped 512 lots surrounded by jokers building giant toilets and prefab newbie houses. To each their own I guess.

Okay, well, A couple notes:
Attachments: I am not saying implementing this should change the sizes of attachments on an avatar at all but merely the size of the avatar itself. For simplicity's sake, attachments would likely need to be scaled seperately and still be subject to the size limitations at both ends of the scale.

Land and Prim Density: As for concerns about a sparse, empty landscape, that's the price of making your land full of small stuff. There are shortcuts that reduce prim allocation that can reduce this effect. It seems to have worked quite well for those with "Tinies" avatars, in which the limbs are folded in half to produce their effect. They use scaled-down furniture that looks good, yet they manage to fill the land area with stuff. Go ahead and take a look at areas that speciallize in it and judge for yourself. If you can simplify a design enough, you could make a virtual mini city like something you might find in an oversized Legoland theme park. It wouldn't be as detailled as something normal-sized, but it would still look quite convincing.

By the way, avatar scaling also allows the reverse to happen too: depending on what limits are set to this, you can easily have giants among you as well as miniatures. Their sims would be big, but since they're using more plots with more allocated prim usage, they can have a much richer-looking environment in their apparently "smaller" sims. (provided they can increase their visibility range!)

The point of proposal 612 isn't to change an individual's apparent land space but to allow another level of avatar customization that neither requires a redesign of the avatar mesh nor interferes with any other redesign that may be in development.

In Closing: I don't honestly expect to see entire avatars the size of a normal one's hand anytime soon. I intentionally left the avatar scaling limits of this proposal open-ended to allow for desired limits to be determined by users and practical limits to be determined by the Lindens. I suggested a scaling factor of 50%-150%, but others may seek more or less variability.

As for the response of there being similar proposals, I had scanned for it quite thoroughly and failed to find any that propose this exact thing. Can anyone else find such a proposal? If so, I suggest we try to get some collaboration with the ones responsible for the other proposal and pool our votes.

I would like to see this as well. It would be great to make your AV smaller or larger than the normal. However it should also be noted that having larger AVs may also slow the system down. I hope this is not the case because I would love to see how many users would make their immagination run wild. I know I have my AVs preset to the smallest and largest I can make them.

Okay, I did notice Proposition 125, but failed to mention that one here... it asks for greater control of avatar size, but just for parts, which would require a modification to the avatar mesh or a retuning of the existing one to allow greater distortion without distorting it badly (??). 612 dodges that for now by scaling everything.

Ok what happened, if this was an issue should it not have been done in the beginning before linden's started this thread. instead of it taking a full year to be taken down and told, and I quote from the e-mail I got about it being removed.

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Here are the Linden notes: We did not allow the avatars to be shorter through the sliders to avoid the creation of child avatars, which we still believe to be a valid concern.
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It might not be as major of a group as Furies, but is still an active part pf SL.
And this has really come from out field. I used to co-own about 1/4 sim that was rated PG and had a neighbor report that they didn't think that Children / babies where appropriate for a PG sim. The linden that we talked to at one point saw no reason for there to be a problem.
I think we need a better explanation then that it is a valid concern. How is it a concern, why did this suddenly come up. Are we not all consenting adults and if you start banning any part of secondlife what will come next.

Why? There's no reason you need to allow 4* as many 1' tall AVs into a sim as you do 4' tall avs. I mean you can't fit twice as many 4' tall avs as you can 8' tall avs now.

Then don't shrink your av down to 1' tall if you want a denser sim! Sheesh!

Since you can use "Tinies" techniques to make child avatars (and I've seen them) this should no longer be relevant... there are child avatars anyway.

That is the problem .. that was there responce a weekago. not a year ago .. they just sundely desided to delete the vote, and give a poor reason for why they did it .

This is a very good idea. I'd recommend avatar sizes as small as one foot tall. I know some of our pixies would certainly like this. So would those who enjoy making tiny avatars.

One thing that would be needed in this is a "full shrinker" function, ie... create the avatar, complete with hair, clothing, wings, prims, etc and be able to shrink the whole thing down. (Which gets into another area that I proposed here... that of more practical applications of nomod-- such as size, color and texture).

This would be just a fantastic idea. Smaller avatar ability would be great.

Some have said, "But if we allow smaller avatars, Linden Lab wouldn't sell as much land because you could make houses and everything smaller."

However... that hasn't happened yet has it? We already have small avatar ability. Our pixies are currently half my size, but they still rent as much land as anyone. Tinies are teeny... but their owners still rent full-size land. Land isn't the focus of the issue-- allowing users a greater scope of play is the issue. And smaller avatars would surely allow such.

Another issue: Avatars using their size to "hide and spy". People already hide and spy. They use invisiprims, under-ground ghosters, etc. Instead, add a main-screen button option to red-beam every avatar within 96m. That would stop that problem.

All in all, tiny avatars is a terrific idea and well worth implementation and I'm really glad Jesse brought it up.

Allowing smaller avs is definately a good idea. I'm skeptical of why we have a minimum height for avs at all..... is someone worried about avs pulling a Mr. Fantastic and squeezing themselves under doors?

I vote for a new slider called avatar scale, which at 100 (which should be the default) leaves your avatar how it currently is. At 0 your avatar would be 1/2 to 1/3rd the size it currently is. This would be a true scale so your avatar would retain all of it's proportions. Pesumably all coordinates for vertices are local to some central point in the avatar in the hips, so applying a multiplier to them all shouldn't be too difficult.