How tall is your avatar?

I'm not sure the "apparent" height is a particularly useful or even needed feature; it sounds like trying to do two things wrong to make the whole thing right. Either you get the third-person fish-eye prospective, or you don't. Because it's a convex view like a side-view car mirror, objects on screen are larger than they appear.

Or if you're going to include that number, call it what it is: "Funhouse mirror height."

If one is happy as far as height goes you're the perfect height

My initial reaction was "Why are these sliders based on percentile of population?" followed immediately by, "Why in the world don't these read out in meters like everything else in SL?" Instead of making it hard with some 1-100 range with no basis in reality and the default being 50, the range should read out in meters with the default being 1.73.



Intuitively, when you have a range of 0 or 1-100, it's a percentile, so naturally, all 50s would be a "perfect" average. That's your perfectly average body. I'd have to do more research than I really feel inclined to do at the moment, but I suspect the top and bottom ends of the height range would be the record tallest and shortest adult humans.



If they don't grok the slider intuitively, that is.

And to be honest, a little bit of curve is better looking than the walking skeletons the fashion industry's trying to churn out these days. I guess collective, industry-wide bulemia nervosa is one way to help thin the herd, since people continue to reproduce beyond their means to support themselves or their offspring properly, with long-term, detrimental effects for all of society...

My guess is that it would be a lot of additional complex coding to do that conversion, because of the polygonal nature of the avatar mesh that the appearance sliders are editing. How much of a processing overhead this would be, I don't know - but you could always start a Jira for this as an enhancement... and hope.

It wouldn't be that hard to code. Heck, it's actually having to make that "complex conversion" as it stands to be able to render you in world at any height, and it's one that could be avoided by simply using units that people outside the healthcare industry who haven't spent too much time around hospitals would understand. As for the processing overhead: Negligible, as demonstrated by all existing viewers.

As for the JIRA...I could do that, but without looking, I suspect someone else already has. If I get bored enough after this term, assuming I still haven't found work (as I'm writing this, I'm taking a break after a job interview in Burnaby, BC since there just doesn't seem to be any jobs left in the US that don't involve exchanging hand jobs for crack, and I have standards), I'll just submit the patch to fix it.

Good answer, about the JIRA, though. A better one would have been to say, "Hey, it's open source, go fix it already!"

Mucho Sexy.


Me like chocolate.

Actually when I rezzed the prim I did check the bottom! I do wear higher heels than in that pic so I probably am a little taller.

grins

IRL, I'm 6'1", or 6'2" early in the morning if I stretch real hard. I had a girlfriend once who was 6', but often wore roller skates. What a treat! It's kinda fun looking up for a change, and hugs are ... well, I'll leave that to the imagination.

Sure, just see all the full-bodied women in the movies of the 30s through 50's -- NOT. They're mostly thin as a rail, with the ones you mentioned being the exceptions rather than the rule.

I don't know when thin became in. It was certainly well after the Renaissance, and at the latest, in the 1920's. Way before Twiggy, although that era revitalized the trend.

I think before the 20's, even, but I have to rely on works like Gone With The Wind and Laura Ingalls Wilder, which mention tiny waists, even by today's standards. (Scarlett, after giving birth, despairs of ever getting back to 19". Wilder mentions her father being able to span her mother's waist.)

Gee, I remember when Harlan Ellison was an annoying young twerp. No denying his talent, though.

I've voted for it Oryx, 'cause I think it would help a lot of people, but some instinct tells me it may not be an easy mod - not easy to do well, I mean, as distinct from "quick and dirty".

Ok, back to the OT.

I'm 6'1" IRL. Don't remember my av height, but I have my height slider set to about 87 most of the time. That makes me shorter than most men, but seems to keep my proportions closer to RL ones compared to most women. And frankly, I care much more about most women than most men!

There are two reasons why avatars in SL are so tall.

1) because they can
2) the avatar mesh was goofed up to begin with, so if you try to match RL sizes, the proportions are a bit off. But I think #1 is the main reason.

Folks who try to match their SL size to their RL size based on the inworld "meter" will unforutunately be rather short relative to most other avatars and most products.

BTW, the avatar size slider can't read out in terms of meters, because other things affect total height (e.g., leg length).

Finally, different ways to measure avatar height inworld yield different results, with about a 5% range. So, when folks post avatar heights, we can only take the numbers as a rough guide.

Then please add a comment to the Jira (see link in post from Oryx) explaining how to do it.

I wasn't around in the 60's, but sort of question if anything was forced on anyone.

My experience has been that guys massively hit on three general groups of girls.
Amazing Face ...
Totally Packed ...
Very Thin, Lots of Skin ...

Those of us with an average face ... have, what we have.
Those of us that don't fill out the package well ... have, what we have.
But anyone can be thin, and show lots of skin ... and it does work very well.

Your personality is boss once they get to know you ... but they do have to notice you, to get to know you.

One of the biggest problems many shorties face with a much taller partner is in couples poses. It can look pretty silly dancing with your partner when your feet are two meters off the ground. Or even worse, couples poses in bed. Animation creators have to align poses for average size avatars. Many furniture makers allow customization, some don't. and certainly when you're dancing at a club, theres no ability to customize. anyways, something to think about when you choose your height.

a pic of Belle and myself dancing



http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll305/blazenielsen/belleblazedancing3.jpg?t=1242835292

I should better describe what I was thinking as proportional. The "public perception ideal" for women's figures has varied over the years (thinking of the Rubenesque models) and has likely gone through as many changes as clothing fashion.

I mentioned Twiggy because she was not just slim, but would likely be considered anorexic in today's society. There's a difference in being slim (not advocating obesity) and unnaturally thin for the pure sake of "fashion."

~ ~ ~

Personal anecdote: When I was a pre-teen and through my teen years I was so thin that I had the "no figure sticky look." I was on a synchronized swim team and so wished I had the figure of our team captain who was my height but would likely be considered overweight now. She was my height but "busty" with curvy hips and the lifeguards drooled when she walked by.

I was also mortified to take showers after gym class because I was a late bloomer and didn't become "endowed" for awhile and was ashamed to be seen by the more "developed" girls.

Now when I look back on photos of me during that time, I realize I had the "thinness" that people (including me now) would die for.

What is that expression - youth is wasted on the young?

~ ~ ~

Sorry to be so long-winded but thought of something else: in addition to fashionable body size differing in various times of American history, it varies widely according to culture as well.

My mother was thin but had a lovely shape. She worked in one place with women from Hispanic countries as well as one Egyptian lady who pointedly told my mother that she would be too thin in her country...men liked more curves. Apparently this is generally true in the Hispanic and African-American cultures as well.

I said "foisted" not "forced" which has a slightly different meaning. But, having modeled and having a bit of background in the fashion industry, the reason models are preferred to be thin is that the fashion shows that store buyers attend want to show off the clothes...not necessarily the figure beneath it.

The reason I mentioned skinniness, not thin but downright unhealthy skinny, being "foisted" with Twiggy was because she had a totally different look from other models to date...no figure at all, boyish looking, the huge eyelashes, etc. And with all new trends, young girls wanted to look like her, much like copying the Farrah Fawcett and Princess Diana hairstyles.

Totally agree with personality being most important. Looks fade and change over the years. As I said in response to Lear's post...I wish I had appreciated the figure I had when I was younger; now I'm learning to love my "fuller-figured" look.

Now where are those men from the cultures who like full-figured women? *grins*

True, Cz.

One time I was on the remote Polynesian island Rarotonga, and happened to meet a teenage boy who was playing guitar on the beach in front of his cinderblock home. His teenage sister was nearby at one point, and he taunted her by calling her "skinny", which she clearly resented. Here in the US, her friends would be giving her dieting tips, but there, she was considered too thin.

In Europe in centruies past, women we might call fat were esteemed because no poor women would have the resources to be fat: it was a status indicator.

I suspect that our current preoccupation with thinness is due to two things, in addition to the fashion industry: it looks younger, and simply the scarcity factor.

I wonder how we'd all look, if we could all look however we wanted to (as we can in SL)? Of course, at first, we'd look ways that are popular for historical reasons -- just as in SL, we look how we do because of RL preconceptions. But how would that play out? Would it swing wildly or converge to some norm? I sure don't know!

Perhaps we'd all end up as mustelids.

LOL

Samoa!

And "the Shrimp" Jean Shrimpton. But both body types are very much still in style today, despite many terming them "anorexic" at the same time. No wonder if teen girls are confused. Magazines tell them one thing, their physician and/or parents another.

Pertinent to Second Life, I have noticed overly thin shapes do not get much male attention (or at least, male av attention; I only can assume their puppetmasters are also male). Curves are in.



Worded slightly differently, you've answered your own question, I think. We'd all look AS we look in SL, most likely - at least, until societal standards changed again. (ETA: I haven't allowed for one exception: those who lack the skill or $Lindens to represent as they truly wish in SL. I guess some would need to have access to a virtual 'plastic surgeon'.)

What's interesting too is whether, or how much, those societal beauty standards would change (and how rapidly) if we COULD all look however we wished!

There seems to be no one single global beauty standard as other posts have illustrated. Facial beauty not included - there are universal parameters for that which have been studied and 'proven.'

In Iain Banks' "Culture" future history, he mentions that human style had gone through a number of phases, where people manifested themselves as winged endomorphs, or animals, or clouds of fog, or fractal robots, but in the period he set his novels the trend had gone back to more-or-less standard humanoid. Presumably because it made it easier for him to WRITE the damn books.
Nah, that's too sensible. The damn cat people always end up taking over.
That's how I interpreted Lear's comment.

I didn't see a statement on it, just a wondering. Mine was stating more that it likely would but how much? I didn't word it very well though, I was thinking it through as I typed (as usual).

While the men here are (sort of) on the topic of differing beauty preferences, I'd like to ask the men: Is there a difference between what they profess to prefer and what they actually prefer? Do they feel societal pressure to choose a certain type? Or, does the type they prefer, differ from the majority consensus on female beauty in the region they live in (In real life)?

Anyone who's willing to answer, I'd be very curious to hear their thoughts.