Why is avatar height not to scale?

Ianthe's being a bit sarcastic, but she has a point.

Claire, you're right, too...and you're describing exactly the sort of inflation that Winter pointed out, a couple of posts earlier.

Class project: Take a picture of a meter stick in RL. Scan it in to your computer. Upload the texture to SL, and texture a prim with it.

Make the prim 1 meter long, by the numeric sliders.

Now, students: Can we use this meter stick to translate between RL and SL? Maybe. But maybe not. There is still Winter and Claire's problem of proper proportions to deal with, an artifact imposed by our default point of view. There's the fact that avatars move clumsily. A space that's plenty big for you in RL would be awkward and confining for your av in SL.

And there's the pixel problem. As soon as we put the image of that meter stick on the screen, it lost its length (as measured in meters). The only dimension it has any more is in...pixels. How large is a pixel? It depends on how close you zoom in, and what your monitor size and resolution is. It's not a fixed measurement.

Thought experiment: Instead of a photo of a meter stick, what if we'd just made a graphic of a decimal scale, from 1 to 100, and used that to texture our SL meter stick? Hey...it would look just as good as the photo one, and both sticks are 1 meter long according to the edit window. Therefore, SL measurement has no relation to RL measurement, QED.

I think the best we're going to be able to do is an approximation. As far as avatar dimensions, the most accurate way is the rez-a-box-and-stand-in-it method.

(Hangs head) Sorry. I got carried away.

Thanks for saying I have a point. I meant it may help if everybody forgets about RL measurements - all that matters is whether your body has nice proportions in itself, and in relation to other people and things. To get that you have to adjust labelled sizes away from what you are used to in RL. That seems to be the same as Lindal is saying. So he must be right.


(Resolve: be calmer in the way I say things. Don't exaggerate. Don't be dogmatic. Never seem sarcastic never never never)

Oh, like *that* will work.

*runs*

By the way this solves lovely Cherry's problem completely, forced to be 6ft, measured as 5ft6, but



You see Cherry IS 5ft. It's just that the measuring system doesn't realise it, and other avs wrongly think they are 7ft. In units of Cherry they are not.

I just discovered on one of those measuring things (first time I used one) that it says I am 5ft6 too. Well well. As I understand it, that means that if I go to RL everybody will look smaller in relation to me than they do here. Weird.

By the way this solves Cherry's problem completely, forced to be 6ft, measured as 5ft6, but



Reading Cherry's posts, I now realise she is the standard of all things. Therefore she IS 5ft, exactly as she wants. It's just that the official measuring system isn't calibrated right, and other avs wrongly think they are 7ft. In units of Cherry they are not.

I just discovered on one of those measuring things (first time I ever used one) that it says I am 5ft6 too. Well well. As I understand it, that means that if I go to RL everybody will look smaller in relation to me than they do here. Weird.

Wha? Now I've started repeating myself. One of those days. I'm going away to dance on the roof.

My apologies if I am in error for reviving a post. However, I am curious as to what became of the "Realistic Avatar Height" group. Was it formed?

I am tired of having my 5'3" avatar told that she is a child because of her height. I am shorter than that in real life (5'2" RL). Not only that, but I've made it clear in her profile that she is a petite Asian adult, NOT a child. I wear an adult skin with full make-up. I have breasts. And I shop in adult clothing stores.

Has SL become so completely paranoid about pedophilia that realistically-sized avatars are being persecuted? Another friend of mine (with a 5'6" avatar) has also received a warning in regards to her avatar size.

This is not just in one sim, but seems to be across the board. Why are we being measured by the standards of giants? It's sooo frustrating!!!

In response, I did create an alternative shape of 5'10" just to avoid the whole issue. I feel like such a sell-out.

I've found that a building scale of 1:1.3 seems to work out well. A little more generous for height if possible. MOST of the problems with the avatars is just due to that darned followcam, and the way the optics work in the game. Our avatars "look" tiny, so somewhere along the line, we scaled things up to adapt for it.. then the buildings had to get larger.

Also, here's a handy tool I worked up, to help visualize your "agent" (or "Bounding Box". It's not 100% perfect, but it's a really good tool for diagnosing problems with doorways, sit poses, and problems in some vechicles.

Make a new prim, and drop this script into it. When you're done with it, simply delete it like you would any other prim, or "take" it into inventory to use next time.

init()
{
    llSetObjectName(llKey2Name(llGetOwner()) + "'s Agent Stand-in");
    llSetPrimitiveParams([
        PRIM_COLOR, ALL_SIDES, <0,0,0>, .25,
        PRIM_PHANTOM, TRUE,
        PRIM_TYPE, PRIM_TYPE_SPHERE, 0, <0.0, 1.0, 0.0>, 0.0, <0.0, 0.0, 0.0>, <0.0, 1.0, 0.0>,
        PRIM_TEXTURE, ALL_SIDES, "769681c6-9064-ab0f-e416-6a4eecc59e6a", <1,1,0>, <0,0,0>, 0.00,
        25, ALL_SIDES, 0.05 // PRIM_GLOW
    ]);
    llSensorRepeat("", llGetOwner(), AGENT, 96, PI, 0.1);
}

default
{
    state_entry()
    {
        init();
    }
    
    on_rez(integer start_param)
    {
        init();
    }
    
    changed (integer change)
    {
        if (change & CHANGED_OWNER) init();
    }

    sensor(integer num_detected)
    {
        llSetPrimitiveParams([
            PRIM_POSITION, llDetectedPos(0),
            PRIM_ROTATION, llDetectedRot(0),
            PRIM_SIZE, llGetAgentSize(llGetOwner())
            ]);
    }
}

I think they get used a lot just because there are lots of them around. I think there are lots of them around because they were a trivial project in scripting for some beginners to make. Not because they are all that useful.

My AV is short (well, compared to anyone else I stand next to). I just compensate by making my breasts bigger!!!






Joke!!!

Was this "warning" from Linden Lab?

If not, then it's just some people who like playing policeman, making implied threats, and trying to boss people around. I hope it's a small obnoxious minority of people that are like that in Second Life. I would just ignore them, Mute them, or Ban them from your land. They are anti-social nutjobs.

You may want to ask at NCI Kuula, there's been a couple accurate height gauges made there. The old Type, which NCI also has, Im 3'9" and on the new ones Im 4'5".

The Kuula height tool puts my main shape at 3'11" without shoes and my biggie at 5'5" also no shoes. Most of the shoes I have add 4". In my own point of view, my biggie looks very tall.

When I've gone shopping in my biggie, I've been told "A little taller please" once. (>_< It bugged me that I had to fit this other persons standards as an "adult" so I went off on him in IMs... Just to say, he caved. I like dumb people, they're fun. (^_^)

I've also been told that the skin I use for my biggie looks too young. Why is it assumed that makeup = age? The skin has breast shaders and most of the details needed to assume I'm adult. I've been handed "appropriate" skins in clubs a few times and again... They just seem to fit the giver's tramp-makeup fetish. I've been tempted to send them my skin in return, but I've done a little work on it and I don't want to be cloned... even though I'm sure they'll reject it. (o.o)

Is it my problem that I don't like to have a pair of "Dolly Partons" floating in front of an 8 foot tall amazon? If any of you here start a "Realistic Avatar Height" group, count me in! We can share group IMs with SLURLs whenever someone bugs us about our height and flashmob the place to show them what's what. (>_<

Just FYI, here is a link to a JIRA proposal to correlate sliders to RL measurements on the avatar Edit Appearence:

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1094

No it won't, in one sense. If you set your av height by measuring against a prim meter stick, your av and build will be to scale. And if you built it in RL, all would be well.

Unfortunately, it will STILL be "too small to live in"-- at least the SL version will be too small for your avatar. There are two reasons.

1. Avatar movement is not as precise as RL movement. Places that are wide enough for a human in RL are a tight squeeze for an SL avatar.

2. The default camera position is about two meters above and behind your avatar's head. A "normal" eight or ten foot ceiling will result in your camera being on the second floor, or embedded in the ceiling. You will have to either reposition your default camera, or use Mouselook a lot.

In SL, the normal minimum ceiling height to feel comfortable is about 4 or 5 meters. Doors are much wider and higher than they are in RL.

Did I miss something?
I thought the official word from LL was it is *not* against TOS/CS to actually play a child avatar except in the performance of sexual acts? So except for this case, anyone complaining about 'age-play' is an obnoxious, self-imposed, misinformed busybody .. and needs a slap!

There, my post for this month!

/me waves ....... Bilboooooo!!!!!!!

And what a post as well! QFT and stuff

/me is 5'5f and been told to be taller many times. Still doesn't listen. Think they can all go to tall persons hell

I'll join you! And while we're at it, can people learn that most humans have a head around 1/7th of their height, 1/8th minimum. Guys, mostly the broad-shouldered types with tattoos and no shirts seem to be the worst culprits. Try modelling yourself on this guy...

http://www.guide-to-symbols.com/_images_pub2/vitruvian.jpg

Not this one...

http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/07/Thrud%20sample%201.jpg

The official word has not changed: if anything, it has softened a bit.

So ya, yer spot on bilbo.

(an good t'see ya around here!)

Mari

It's funny, now that I'm thinking about it, I get more comments about my big shape than I do for my kid shape. Maybe there's a window of height somewhere between 4'5" and 5'10" that some people just don't like. It's so silly to think about the random strangers that just WANT to modify me when I'm that size. Maybe I look too "hands off" in my main shape. Maybe I have some proportions off... I'll try to wear it again and ask my friends. (o.o)

As a child av I don't realy mind the giants, it just means I don't look to tall for a 6 year old with the smallest shape.

I just compared my hight detector with the rez a box meethode and found it to be 3 cm off but that can be contributed to me being a furry, the box mesures 1 m 33 cm and the hight detector has me at 1 m 30 cm.

according to the growth curve doctors use for checkups a 6 year old should be between 1 m 9cm and 1m 29cm

HA!! I'm Taller than Yooooou!!! By a whole INCH!

The current factor is somewhere between 1,2 and 1,25 to 1.
anything larger just makes it worse, and learn how to use the camera, stupid!

My estimates were between 1.3:1 and 1.13:1... Glad to see I'm not alone in this observation.