Designing for the 'average' avatar shape...

First, my 'tale of woe'...

Recently I went shopping for a pair of shorts. I quickly discovered finding a decent selection of women's shorts in SL was more difficult than I could have imagined! Finally, I came across one shop tucked away in the corner of some megamall complex that offered up an entire wall of shorts to choose from. As I browsed I could not help but notice that the model in all the photos must have had her hip width slider at 100 and her waist slider much, much lower. The thought occurred to me that the model was probably also the designer.

Unfortunately, it did not occur to me until after I'd made my purchase that the designer/model had not bothered to check her creations on anything other than her own, rather unusual figure. The garment, as you can imagine by now, fit in the most bizarre way on my short (for SL) but otherwise fairly average figure.

Which brings me to my question... How does one design for a mesh that can be so drastically altered? I understand I can't create garments to fit everyone all of the time but I would very much like to lessen the chance that the designs work only avatars on close to my shape.

I do keep a folder of various shapes I've created (though most of them are short by SL standards) and shapes of my friends who've shared them with me...and, of course, there are the 'newbie' shapes in the Linden Library folders. So I can test my creations on a few different shapes at least.

Is this what others do? And/or have some 'beta testers' to try on new designs and give feedback?

Thanks in advance for any tips or constructive comments (or suggestions where to find cute shorts since I don't make them). ^_^

For one thing, you can allow people to modify the clothing you sell. Many designers are hesitant to do that (for obvious reasons). What most of the top guys do to circumvent this issue is they provide a whole pile of clothing made for different body types. For example, if you go to some of the 99,999L/week listings in the classifieds for the keyword "clothes", you'll see many products in which 5 separate versions are included in the sale (i.e. tight, loose, long, , wrinkled, small, etc). This is an easy way to get around such problems. You can make clothing at say 50% of max whatever, make another with 75%, another with 100%. Heck, even thrown in a 25% You only need to make 1, then just modify, save as, and repeat. Not only does this offer the customer more selection, it makes it appear that they're receiving more products.

Best of wishes with designing! Maybe I'll be shopping in your store someday

Hi Merry!

Yes, it is difficult to try and figure in every shape that will wear your designs. I have two shapes of my own, my friends, and some customers selected to receive new items in return for their opinions..and yet we have but a fraction of the diverse sizes covered.

How do you define *average* in a world where fantasies are the norm?

Shorts are difficult (for me anyway) since the groin stretch issue just annoys me. I can deal with the the chest stretch, the shoulder stretch...but the groin issue is just a pain. I would rather visit the dentist or eat broccoli. Perhaps someday...

BUT I just IM'd my friend who is quite a shopper and she said that Mischief is the place to go for shorts!

So, happy hunting & happy designing!

~Ari

Reece> I'm definitely going to do something like that with the prim skirts I intend to make. Having struggled with getting prim skirts I've purchased adjusted to my height but still keeping an appropriate circumference around my waist I can definitely see the need for it!

Arikinui> The groin stretch issue is exactly what was going on with the shorts I purchased. Tat definitely seems to be the least forgiving. I'm with you, the other stretches aren't quite as bad somehow. Especially stretching across large chests...on a certain level it's believable that a design would stretch over a large chest or bosom so it doesn't catch my eye as something drastically 'wrong'.

Thanks for the advice and Ari, thank you and your friend for the tip on where to find shorts! ^_^

I design differently for men and women, but other than that I don't think I can insure the fit for every avatar shape.

I have been thinking if I do prim clothes and sell them I need to also include the shape and/or sell it with set connections peices and allow mod, copy permsionss.
Yet I notice with even items that allow mod and transfer, that mod is different then item I would make. You can't stretch it in the same way when worn the access boxes are white but you can change aspects of parent prim but not it it is joined with another prim
Is there a reason why they some don't include mod or copy permissions? I understand no transfer. I could imagion why artist would want art work for no mod.
Are they doing those settings because they can or is there a special reason?

No copy is a stupid one to have. It doesn't do anything but increase the risk that you may lose that nice clothing you bought -- i.e. forget what folder you placed it in, accidently delete it without knowing, it goes missing due to severe hardware issue at LL, etc. There's plenty of clothes from top designers with 'copy' permission granted, I've found it more common that the 'little guys' employ the no copy permission, perhaps not realizing that without transfer it's not like 1 copy or 100 will make a difference on their sales. As for mod, well some people like to sell the same clothing in different colors or have minute modifications to the clothing they sell. I've never actually bought 2 of the same suit, shirt, pants, etc before (i.e. one in red and one in blue). I really enjoy having the ability to modify clothing as it allows me to take well designed clothing and tailor it to my color preferences, size preferences, etc. Although, I will admit I've bought no mod clothing before, I would be far more enticed to buy the modifiable one if they were the same price. Of course, if you make 20 color variations of your suit as well as several modifications for people of different sizes, I would imagine that perhaps your profits may be larger.

You're welcome Merry! OOOH! The crotch stretch! I once thought that it was an athletic injury...now I know it can be painful even in the virtual world as well! LOL!

Was the stretching visible in the displays? That is just so odd. Have you talked to the designer? I'm sure he/she would want to know. I know I'd want to be notified if there were an issue with one of my items. I'd hate to think that someone was not happy with something they purchased from me.

I hope you find some shorts you like! You may also want to try Chip Midnight's store. As good as he is, I'm sure if he has shorts they're among the best!



Hi FD! Long time no chat

As far as prim clothing is concerned, I only make items like sleeves, skirts, collars, hair..etc. Nothing along the lines of what you are talking about with a full prim shirt. My only comment concerning that is that I make my prims items copy/mod so that if a customer needs to change the size or adjust it to fit their avs better. I allow the copy option so that if they make a mistake in their adjustments they have a back up original.

In order to modify, say a hair style, or any object made up of multiple prims you do need to modify each prim individually in any object with more than one linked prim...or modify the entire object utilizing the little white boxes. This is the same even if you are the original creator of the object containing linked prims.

No mod: I do that with non-prim clothing items. Mainly because if I design it a certain way, then that's how it is intended to be. If a customer desires it in a different color or whatever then that's always an option when they contact me. My customers tell me they prefer copy, so that's what I do.

Every creator has their own way of doing permissions....and it works for them so that's all that matters.

Best,
~Ari

A note card with the shape settings the prims fit around would be nice to include with prim clothes. I have found that the white boxes distort the item entirely. If I need to resize something that badly, I go into edit linked parts and refit the entire item. I will have to say you prim clothing makers sure are talented and patient!

That is an excellent idea! I have a custom no-mod shape so I don't know my measurements....so this option is out for me. Drat! Foiled again!


Or completely, totally, and utterly insane.

Hard to tell.



~Ari

i try hard to make stuff that fits the average shape but there is no guarantee. For expensive stuff a demo would probably be a good idea for me expensive is something like 300+ lindens for clothes I dont know if that is what others consider expensive. I honestly dont think its possible to accomodate for all shapes and sizes unless you make 10 versions of the outfit. Perhaps a sizes + store like in real life for that stuff and a "petite" store for smaller then average fit etc would be in order. Myself I guess for me accomodating the "average" sizes is about all I can handle now because the textures do change with some of the distortions you can make on an SL avatar. I use the default avatars and I have a short guy and a tall guy (i tend to try to build it on the tall guy and then see if it fits the others seems to work so far)

apart from that I can't say that I can accomodate say an avatar that is really short and fat or incredibly tall and skin with like NO waste (i have seen a few people do that their avatars are very distorted and I highly doubt that my clothing would fit on them properly)

shoes is an even worste problem I try to make them for "big feet" hehe and leave them modifiable and then i try them on the avatars with "little feet" they do require a lot of adjusting if the avatar is really tiny sizewise but mostly they do fit. I have had to help a couple of people refit their shoes I ended up doing it by putting on a tiny avatar that i had and just resizing the shoes that way for them (so far seems to work)

Hi Wilhelm!

One question on making your shoes...do you include a shoe base or form with your shoes? I do this and that way the customer can wear the base and the shoes magically fit regardless of their avatar's size.

I guess this is perfect One-Size-Fits-All strategy

Best,
~Ari

err you mean the umm "sl shoe" yes i do i'm not sure what else you mean hehe

its more the rest of the body you need to worry about if you got these massive shoes and this tiny avatar that swims in em it looks silly

You mean the Micky Mouse look isn't attractive???? lol

There was one shoe store I frequented a couple years ago that actually sold small, medium and large versions of their footwear. It was great! It cut down on the fitting quite a bit.

Since my avatar is small I can get away with the standard 'Size 0' shoes...but size 0 feet on anyone over 5'6" starts to look a little odd. There are some mesh issues when the avatar is very tall but has size 0 feet as well...some polys around the ankle start jutting out in peculiar ways.

For those of you attempting prim clothing, specifically skirts or anything requiring prims to be lined up in a circle, check out Ged Larsen's LoopRez Deluxe. It's an absolutely fantastic tool which will save you from many many headaches. I just picked up the commercial version (I have high hopes) and have been absolutely delighted with its ease of use. The only drawback I've found is that the prims can look a little TOO uniform but that's easily remedied with a small amount of adjustment by hand. Some folks might prefer the very uniform look though!