What shapes do you use for setting up poses?

Does anyone have any recommendatations for good male and female shapes to use when setting up poses, esp. couples poses?

For example, might it be a good idea to start with the SL Sexy male & female shapes (or whatever they're called), but with sizes set to typical values (i.e., 80 and 100, based on what I think I see inworld)?

I realize that for the best couples poses, you need to adjust & personalize. But I also notice that most people don't, and poses in public places are unadjusted, so it's definitely best to get close to typical when setting up the poses.

Thanks!

Shape? Are you talking height?

People in SL are too tall compared to RL therefore furniture, builds, poses are all set to be used by people who are 6'2 and taller. I think something like only 92% of the RL U.S. population is 6'2" or taller.

I'm 5'3" in SL, which is not too short, at least I do not think so since I am 5'6" in RL, and 99% of the furniture, kitchen builds, couples poses/dances, are all set for people in the 6'0+ range. I do not expect to run into dances and couple poses set at my size, i expect to have to do some adjustment, but people should really start using an AV Ruler when setting their height. You will get a more realistic representation of a person, instead of a giant.

Here we go again.

It's not that people are too tall, it's that the SL ruler model is badly off. The human form has very specific proportions, as DaVinci discovered. In order to make a human look normally proportioned, you have to make them *seem* tall by the abritrary measurement system in SL. 1 Meter in SL is not equivalent to 1 Real world Meter. Linden Lab is using what appears to be a Poser 2 model, and this same measurement issue has (and still is) in Poser. This debate has raged in Poser forums for years, and i think you can tell what side I'm on. I prefer realistic proportion over meeting some arbitrary ruler unit. People aren't too tall, the Meter is too short, and so are people who try to conform to it.

To answer your question, there is no answer. There is really no way to make an animation that will look good for every AV, and as evidenced above, many people have very different ideas about what 'average' and 'normal' is. Perhaps sticking with the defaults is best, as then most everyone can be equally dissatisfied.

Perhaps one day LL will fix it so height is considered by the client before playing the animation.

With infinite variability in av dimensions, poses and animations will always be a problem. I checked out Bits and Bobs Animations. Their website has a FAQ.
http:/bits-and-bobs-animations.blogspot.com/2007/03/poseball-and-ao-animation-faq
Can't vouch for the link!! Typed it from a printed page!!
They list all the body dimensions they use as their "standard" figures.
Height for example: the male is 53 and the female is 40.
But the other body dimensions matter too!! So see the full list.
I found that the result is smaller than I would like and somewhat bigger in the hip area!!
But have fun!!

If you go to the Bits and Bobs store, there are several places to get notecard with the detailed discussion of avatar shapes (which basically boils down to: it isn't possible to have animations work perfectly for everyone).

My informal messing around with shapes seems to suggest to me that, for both male and female, all the sliders at '50' seem to produce a 5'9" person. Adjusting the body height slider by +5 seems to add a 1".

I assume that the figures I downloaded to use in Poser to create animations are default representations of avatars with height at the '50' slider (so about 5' 9" each).

I didn't examine this rigorously, but I have found that for a lot of free shapes, female shapes seem to hover around 5' 9", and male shapes hover around 6' 0". So I've been using that as a baseline.

Then remember that when a woman is wearing heels, most SL heels add 3" to 4" (though not evenly- essentially just leg height).

In making male-female couple poses, assuming a male about 3" taller than a female hss worked fairly well for me so far.

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, of course there's no way to fit everyone. It would be nice, though, to get an idea of averages. Height setting alone doesn't do it either, since leg length varies so greatly (and for many anims, makes a bigger impact on what works).

It would be nice to know what average measurements are. I wonder whether copybot could be modified to collect average values for the key shape settings ... but I suspect it gets polygon info, not shape settings.

Ah well.

I don't think it's wise to follow Bits & Bobs if they use such small values, since most avs are so tall (for the reasons Darien mentions, as well as the simple fact that so many people think "taller = better".

I might just use the Night Club male & female forms, and maybe adjust the heights to match what I see as typicals. If I do find anything helpful I'll share.

only 92%? lol

in RL, 92% of the US is 6'2" or over? Wow... never realised that. I guess I'm one of the 8% that isn't. I'm just under 5'3" in RL...

Ways to research height:

1) Get one of those objects that one clicks to know one's height (they are freebies). Ask all of your friends to touch the object so you can get their height and write it down.

2) Go to clubs and eyeball it. Watch couples together (when they are not on poseballs) and just take some visual observation on height differences. You ought to be able to eyball things like "the top of her head comes up to about his chin." (Also make note of which women are wearing heels- usually, most of them. Heels in SL often add 3" to 4".)

3) Make some sample animations (or just static poses) and test them yourself with as many friends as possible. Animate a few of the different scenarios in which avatar size really affects the animation (for example, one avatar wrapping arms around the other). Make several variations of each sample, with each variant using a different height assumption in the animation. Then test them with your friends or willing strangers, and you can figure out which height assumptions seem to work best.

Of course, when I'm looking for test subjects for my romantically-themed couples animations, I can always insist, "Really, it's not for the sex, I'm just doing technical research."

Of course, I'm sure the poster meant to write that in RL life, 92% of the the US population is under 6' 2", or something to that effect.

If anyone really wanted to know some real life statistics, one article from Wikipedia has it laid out by nationality and age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height

Of course, as has been mentioned before, SL avatar heights do not accurately track RL people heights.

However, I think the RL average differences in height between men and women have turned out to be fairly well reflected in SL. According to the Wikipedia article (and depending on the nationality or age groups selected), there tends to be an average of around 5" difference between men and women. Based on my casual observation, that may be about the average height difference between male and female avatars in SL.

(Adjust this a little bit for heels. I think that in SL, more women wear high-heel shoes more often than one sees in RL, and the typical heel height in SL tends to be higher than average heel height in RL.)

Such a result would not be entirely unexpected. When players are messing around with the shape sliders for their avatars, they don't have any good visual references in SL to help them visualize how their avatar's height would measure up to RL height. However, you have easy visual reference, by looking at other avatars, to see how your avatar's height measures up to others' avatar heights. If one is trying to make an avatar with "realistic" height, its easier to imagine that, if I'm usually eye-level to man's collarbone in real life, then I can adjust my avatar so that she's usually eye-level to a male avatar in SL.

This is mostly guesses based on casual observation on my part.