house builders tape measure

While rummaging thru my inventory I found a 'tape measure' box that when rezzed had some interesting house building standard measurements.
2.8 = door
3.8 = 1st floor ceiling
7.6 = second floor ceiling

NOW, the question is this: how many of u pro house builders use these as standard? They seem too big to me. I had been using measurements closer to RL. I know that avatars need more room to manuver than real people, but I often feel dwarfed in both houses and furniture in SL. (I set my avatar height to midway.)

3.5 meters is about as low as you can go with a ceiling before it cuts off people's cameras. Any lower, and you end up with the camera above the ceiling. I don't know that I'd call 3.8 in particular any more of a "standard" than any other number, but it's certainly a pretty good height for an SL ceiling.

As for door heights, usually I'll make them just tall enough that the tallest possible av can walk through without bumping its head, no taller. Generally, that's about 2.5 meters. 2.8 might be a little high, but it's pretty close.

There are no set standards, though. People just go with what looks good to them.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't recommend using RL measurements. Meters in SL are smaller than meters in RL. (That's by comparison on the only practical constant we have to go by, the height of an average human against a RL meter vs. the average height of an avatar vs. an SL meter.) So it takes more of them to add up to appropriate sizings for objects. Generally, anywhere between 1.3:1 and 1.5:1 is good.

Not to mention that just generally people in SL need more space in order to move around. This is both because of the camera remove Chosen referred to, and because avatars are not as agile as real people. Think about how close together the racks are in a clothing store in RL; now imagine trying to navigate racks that close together in SL.

I generally go with 7m on walls, sometimes 8m. You certainly can go lower, but I find that lower than 7 really feels claustrophobic for me and seriously interferes with camera movement - which if you are building for resale is important since your customers are likely to want to "view" themselves from a variety of angles.....

I'm comfortable with approximately five metre ceilings per floor, and that's pretty much how I build. Door heights... I think some SL avatars would bump their heads on 2.8 metre doors even. I've landed in a store full of people who must have hit 100 on every height slider.

Just don't ever look at an avatar stood next to a door, because the door looks huge then.

I generally use about 6 metres for each floor(Wall length, so this includes any floor and ceiling panels.. Allows for cameras to be very comfortable, even in small spaces, and allows larger furniture to be used before cam gets cut. However, hanging furniture is sometimes too high because of it, so a happy medium would probably be between 4 and 5 metres for me. (Though for my own things I always use 6 metres)

For my doors, It all depends on the type.. swinging doors I like to have a little taller than than sliding, personal preference, but doors tend to be between 3 and 4 metres tall for me, usually closer to 3.

So I'd say my normal build would be:

3.2 - Doors
5.9 - First Floor Ceiling
11.8 - Second Floor Ceiling (Flat ceiling)

ETA::
With my own, relatively short character (Female, about a head shorter than most of my friends...staring at chest level or so), the measurements above are perfect for how my home is set up. I have hanging chairs and such, and some poseballs on a couple walls (I love my house right now lol), and the view never cuts out or anything. The house also doesn't look overly big in my opinion.

If avatars were half as tall, prims would be *effectively* twice as large. For that matter, sims would be *effectively* four times as large.


Just think of the savings

Great topic, this is somethign I have wrestled with for awhile. I basically stick with 5m for floor heights in general. Seems to be a good balance and provides a good camera view. If I am scaling a rl build i use a ration of 1.6 sl meters to 1 rl meter, though i dont apply that to the wall heights. I have written a couple blog posts on the topic if interested.

http://jjlanes.wordpress.com/2007/09/23/prim-scaling-to-real-life-sizes/

http://jjlanes.wordpress.com/2007/09/24/prim-scaling-cont/