Making a Proper Shape - A Guide to Human Proportions

Or scamper on four legs

Great guide but only realistic if everyone would use them.

First of all, male armlength: the hands go beyond the crutch
secondly: If I make my avi my RL height, it is NOT realistic.
Why? Simple, I would be smaller than the average male in SL, and in RL I am taller than the average male.

Right proportions is good, but using the SL numbers in their actual sence would make things impossible.

Example: most houses here have at least 5m high ceilings. For the average european house that should be 2.3 to 2.6 meters for a realistic look. But that would give camera problems. So basicly, if you make your avi true RL height, and them take the average SL house wich has to be that 5m at least to easely walk around in, you are looking extremely tiny.

I am 1.92 in RL (about 6'3" I think) and the ceiling of my livingroom is 2.4 so realistic proportion is that the height between top of head and ceiling should be 1/3rd of the entire room height or less. I never saw that correctly inside SL.

So correct body proportions, I am all for that. Correct height? hmm... I have my doubts

but in SL you have to allow for the camera position. Realistically scaled rooms leave the camera stuck in the ceiling. We need the extra head-clearance here.

I do not understand the 'chicken or the egg' reference.

What you must mean is:

If a RL sized avatar sits on SL avatar scaled to fit non-RL sized avatars they will look as if they are sitting in a joke chair (Which is how it looks to me when i see giants sitting in giant chairs).




So because the 'world has grown around us as Land of Giants' the people should be giants as well? I am not going to have extreme proportions because everyone else does. When i started SL, at the end of the 1st week I realized i was 6'11, and adjusted. I have no sort of "When in Rome, act in Roman kind" pressures - as i think anyone who has seen my avatar can surmise.

I am not arguing with your choice. I am addressing the remarks you make to me. Being 7' tall is your choice, no matter what your head size is.

I am just happy more and more people are realizing they look like giants and adjusting themselves. After all, most people are trying to be human or humanoid, therefore having a human proportioned body can only be a good thing - unless you are going for something more than human.

Interesting. So things are only 'realistic' if everyone accepts it?



You make your avatar based on the height of SL houses?

The chicken or the egg meant that whether the world was built out of proportion and the avs made to fit or the avs were made out of proportion and then the world made to fit -

As for too tall or too short- I do agree that people should be what ever they damn well please height wise. I have met u in person in-world (Mo's housewarming ages ago), you came to about my waist if a little taller- i didn't think anything of it same as i think nothing at all about the tinys or the dragons or what have u - And I am all for the resulting look being in proportion. The large avis look silly sitting in tiny' chairs as tinys look in the large furniture. My alt Hera is actually quite shorter than I am - probably more realistic than I am - both have their place and go happily about the world.

These are not *rules*. It is a guide for a more realistic avatar. You can take some of these rules and break them and use the others and still look like a regular person.

Some people have short waists, some people have long legs, some people have BIG heads (look at Jay Leno).

No one is saying physical traits that break proportion rules are wrong. Most giants and shape makers who make giants break more than one of these rules, which do make people look odd.

We notice in RL when people have proportions radically different from the norm - SL is no different. When you are near 8' with the head of a average RL proportioned human, well then I can't help but say "you done gone and made yourself look weird".

Lot's of people tell me i look weird in SL. A few months ago someone told me that because of my tattoo's and pierces i look like a drug user and was a probably a slut...wait...anyways...bad example. But maybe you get it.

I would say from the number of 2002 people that i know (all of whom are properly proportioned), that the world was built out of proportion by those who themselves were out of proportion because they most likely felt they were out of proportion due to the camera effect with the interior of builds causing the ceilings to be made so tall and they (the people) themselves looking small inside these builds, and thus adjusting their avatars upward in size, as Benksi noted.

Even 3 months after SL went live, people were making giants and were even labeled back then as giants, and i suspect this tall thing was an issue back then because people would associate the height slider as some indicator as to "short and tall" average human heights and the ends of each slider representing these differences.

By the time Shape Makers had an emerging market in 2004, it was too late to change and bad shapes were put out to the grid in mass, thus birthing more poorly proportioned avatars and newer shape makers mimic'ing them.

This pretty much. I'm 7'6" and not out of proportion, thanks.

Thank you Kelli.

My avatar used to have knee's that bowed inward, and often times people would IM me and tell me "hey you know i can help you fix your legs?", and it used to annoy me because i did it on purpose to add physical character to my avatar. When my friends fixed my avatar shape (i screwed up my head shape at creation i guess because no prim hair would fit my head - LOL), they knocked my legs straight and i never changed it back..

People shouldn't take it personal - if they feel "tired of being called giant"; join the club, I feel "tired of being called small/short".

This is just a Guide, and many people coming to SL would like to know this information.

The kit also includes a Male and Female basic properly proportioned shape (a mod and a no mod version) for you to play with and use as a base if you like.

The only people I see in SL with natural human proportions... aren't human. Ironic, wot?

Also,

Posting "I'm 8'0 tall and proud etc..etc..." is not really accomplishing anything except saying you are either self-conscious about your height, or are perhaps angry about anything related to avatar height in SL, or both, andis not helpful nor furthering conversation and only is self serving.

People always complain about not having a measure for avatar creation. Well here one is.

I posted excerpts from the Guide included with the kit, and I accredited the writer, as did someone else in the thread.

I have not made an attack on tall avatars. So do not take it that way.

The word guide means:

guide \"gid\ noun [ME, fr. MF, fr. OProv guida, of Gmc origin; akin to OE witan to look after, witan to know — more at wit] (14c)
1 a : one that leads or directs another's way
b : a person who exhibits and explains points of interest
c : something that provides a person with guiding information

================ Please do not take it as anything more than what it is.

<--- ELF!

And most furries have a thing about proper proportions i suspect. They have in general always been properly proportioned in SL when it comes to avatar height.

Yet another solution for the Adult Content debacle: issue everyone shorter arms on rezday, and only let the longer slider positions that allow one to reach any naughty bits be "unlocked" upon verifying in some way.

I swear I'd be a genius if being a blithering idiot didn't keep getting in the way.

This is a nice contribution. A lot of people can imagine in their minds what they want to look like, but have trouble using the silder tools to make it happen. This guide helps those people.

I almost spit Pepsi on the monitor when I read this.

Fixt.

hurrah.

let's all follow these "not-rules" and look alike.
blue suits anyone?
with IMB tags?


cynism aside, i think i do have the proportions on my avi more or less right, my wife likes what she sees, i don't give a damn about the rest, and 7' tall means i can balance my beach cat in 25m/s winds.

I dunno if I follow the guide for shapes or not, but heck I do appreciate them being posted here, it is nice to see, and have handy if I ever decide to make more shapes.

As for my personal shape(s) I like the one I currently use at 5'2" (RL height too)

some folks ask me if I am a kid, I tell them no, unless a 44 yr old 5'2" woman is a kid LOL.

That sorta stops them in their tracks

(here are pics of my avatar in case some do not view the other thread) tell me, does she look like a kid? (teen, maybe early 20's but not a kid)

Is there any height, or other avatar configuration settings, that are taken as the 'norm' when animation writers create their anims for avatars?

Take a simple kissing anim, and the western average where the guy is a few percent taller than the girl, and an anim writer who sets up his anim with these factors in mind. It would really make a big difference if the percentage difference in heights between the couple who bought this anim was way different to the assumed difference.

I have often had my chest snogged passionately by a girl who prefers a realistic height, or with some anims we are kissing, but her feet are way above the ground. I guess it is who clicks the poseball first, not sure.

Rock

Nah!
Someone would just make bigger naughty bits that the short arms could reach.

Mountain - Mohammed


There's a name for the new sex empire
Mounting Mohammed

It has a nice broadly offensive ring to it

LOL - good one!

Unfortunately that post shows you have no grasp of the word "guide".

No one is telling *you* how to look or what to do.

The fact that this is a GUIDE has been repeated 3 times now.

Your perspective just shows you take issues with the matter at hand.

No skin off my chin.

I'm well aware of the meaning of the word "guide", Brianna. It is your self-appointment to the position of "Arbiter of how one should look" that's lost on me. Have a great day

A similar thing:-

Someone once asked me why you don't seem to find breast fondling animations. I make some but they must often look very silly due to huge knockers and small knockers and some as big as yer 'ead knockers. If the hand is made for big knockers, then it'll be floating in the air with smaller breasted women. If it's made for small ones, it'll be inside bigger ones. If it's adjusted to suit the couple then some other area is out of place.