General Discussion Forum

[Perrie Juran Member]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

I with you Ariel.  It is widely known among competant creators that the official SL viewer is inaccurate for height ..................

Facts are facts and if you state a fact in your advertisement it should be right, regardless of what the official viewers say.

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I will agree with you that it is a widely known fact.

But it would be interesting to survey shape sellers as to what standard they use in their advertisements.

The standard which Linden Lab judges things against is the Official viewer. A merchant would need to be very clear if they used a different standard in their advertisements.  You and I as experienced users are aware of the height discrepancies.  But what would a new user who was unaware of this think if after buying a shape they found out the Official viewer told them it was a different height?

To be safe, a Merchant needs to stick with official terms.

[Ariel Vuissent Advisor]

The particular creator I was thinking of when I wrote my original post has a height measure in her store, that supposedly used PRIM height. In fact, the floating text about these height detectors says something along the lings of "actual prim height." Posters above those height detectors essentially denounce tall avatars and strongly advocate for following true prim height. And yet, the creator's own shapes are incorrectly measured.

The argument stands, though. You're right, there does need to be SOME kind of standard for measuring height. The official viewer's edit appearance display, however, is not the answer in my opinion. It's just too inaccurate to make a good measure. It's not overly difficult to stick a notecard in the shape folder explaining the difference in measurement; or to copy and paste an explanation into any IM's or notecards from customers asking for the reason behind the difference. The height discrepency is too well known to simply be ignored with a "well, but it's the OFFICIAL viewer's measure and we don't want to confuse the newbies.." Why not eduate them instead? At least maybe after that they won't walk around with a 7 foot avatar, thinking that they're 6'4" or so. (Again, nothing against 7 foot avatars, if they WANT to be 7 feet. But many don't actually know how tall they are.)

[Perrie Juran Member]

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Ariel Vuissent wrote:

The particular creator I was thinking of when I wrote my original post has a height measure in her store, that supposedly used PRIM height. In fact, the floating text about these height detectors says something along the lings of "actual prim height." Posters above those height detectors essentially denounce tall avatars and strongly advocate for following true prim height. And yet, the creator's own shapes are incorrectly measured.

The argument stands, though. You're right, there does need to be SOME kind of standard for measuring height. The official viewer's edit appearance display, however, is not the answer in my opinion. It's just too inaccurate to make a good measure. It's not overly difficult to stick a notecard in the shape folder explaining the difference in measurement; or to copy and paste an explanation into any IM's or notecards from customers asking for the reason behind the difference. The height discrepency is too well known to simply be ignored with a "well, but it's the OFFICIAL viewer's measure and we don't want to confuse the newbies.." Why not eduate them instead? At least maybe after that they won't walk around with a 7 foot avatar, thinking that they're 6'4" or so. (Again, nothing against 7 foot avatars, if they WANT to be 7 feet. But many don't actually know how tall they are.)

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I would consider this a unique and different issue and I sure would be taking it up with the Merchant. I perhaps took too much of your post as speaking in general.

Any scripted object that is 'calculating' your height is using math that may get you close, may even work out occasionally correctly, but still has a margin of error if all my reading on the subject is correct.  The only correct and accurate way to measure is to rez a cube as you suggested and stretch it from head to toe.  But even then I have seen slight variations where I think the viewing angle may be creating optical illusions.  I have measured my own avatar several times this way and get a plus or minus an inch or so difference.

I think your suggestion about the note card is a very good one.  I remember several years ago Bits N Bobs started giving out or had available in store a rather lengthy note card about how dance synchronization worked.  Understanding that helped me with a lot of things.  It probably saved him a ton of time answering questions about things that were not a problem with his product but were what you might call 'expected or normal' (mis)behavior.

Really right now I think best practice would be to list both heights, the SL Official height with the secondary prim height measure.  I could be wrong but as far as i understand, the measurement of the bounding box is always accurate.  The actual height measures may be subject to slight variations.

[Melita Magic Member]

Send the shape maker a freebie height checking thing and hope they take the hint. Most probably won't cross check that with prim height but it's better than being a foot or meter away as you described.

[Coby Foden]

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Melita Magic wrote:

Send the shape maker a freebie height checking thing and hope they take the hint. Most probably won't cross check that with prim height but it's better than being a foot or meter away as you described.

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Careful with the height detectors. There are some which will show avatar "Agent Height" which is exactly the same what the Linden Lab viewers show.

There are also height detectors which will show the mesh height (prim height) of the avatar quite accurately (as accurately as can be by a calculation, which calculation is based on the agent height with a correcting factor).

Unfortunately there is no function in SL which would tell the mesh height of an avatar directly. So, to get the exact mesh height, measuring by prim is the most accurate method.

Easy way to do this is, pose the avatar on a pose where the legs are close together, body straight. Rez a cube, make it 50 per cent transparent. Center the cube on the avatar. Stretch the bottom to the lowest vertex on the foot sole. Stretch the top of the cube to the topmost vertex on the skull. Aligning the bottom and the top exactly is fairly easy as the cube is semi transparent. Just tilt the view so that you can see the top of the cube well. Zoom close. Now stretch slowly and you can see easily when the the cube top is exactly on the top of the head. Do the same with the bottom.

[Ceka Cianci Member]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Ceka Cianci wrote:

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Perrie Juran wrote:

I am going to side with the vendor here because all things 'official' in SL are measured against the SL viewer.  It might however be a 'best practice' for a merchant to list how they obtained their measurement.

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wouldn't they be measured to the edit tools and prims since pretty much everything is made from prims using the edit tools?

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The OP's complaint was specifically about shapes and the height for shapes is given in the appearance window when you edit them.  With the discrepancies between different TPV's, however minor they might be, and between TPV's and the Official viewer which is much greater because they are giving the measurement for different things, and because the Official Viewer is the 'standard' in LL's view, a Merchant is safer using the official measurement.

Now if we were talking about objects constructed from 'prims,' that would be a different issue.  I am unaware of any measurement discrepancies in any viewers regarding this.

eta to correct a spelling error

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i don't know..i was told in another thread that the LL viewer measures a certain part of the avatar which actually is shorter than the actual height of an avatar..where the firestorm viewer measures the actual height..

myself if i were creating shapes i would be using a prim to get my meters in the LL viewer..

because  in both viewers the meters are the same..so they both can't be measuring from the same spot on the avatar..the LL viewer is showing a shorter measurement by around 6 inches if we were to use inches..

myself i don't know what LL see's really when a sim is one size and a prim that is the same size as the sim measures out to be the same in meters..then we have avatars that are of a total different measuring system but still told they are using the meter?

i'm gonna go hunt that thread down and see what they were talking about where the two viewers measure from and i'll post it up here..unless someone else shows up to say what it is..hehehe

[Ceka Cianci Member]

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Coby Foden wrote:

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Melita Magic wrote:

Send the shape maker a freebie height checking thing and hope they take the hint. Most probably won't cross check that with prim height but it's better than being a foot or meter away as you described.

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Careful with the height detectors. There are some which will show avatar "Agent Height" which is exactly the same what the Linden Lab viewers show.

There are also height detectors which will show the mesh height (prim height) of the avatar quite accurately (as accurately as can be by a calculation, which calculation is based on the agent height with a correcting factor).

Unfortunately there is no function in SL which would tell the mesh height of an avatar directly. So, to get the exact mesh height, measuring by prim is the most accurate method.

Easy way to do this is, pose the avatar on a pose where the legs are close together, body straight. Rez a cube, make it 50 per cent transparent. Center the cube on the avatar. Stretch the bottom to the lowest vertex on the foot sole. Stretch the top of the cube to the topmost vertex on the skull. Aligning the bottom and the top exactly is fairly easy as the cube is semi transparent. Just tilt the view so that you can see the top of the cube well. Zoom close. Now stretch slowly and you can see easily when the the cube top is exactly on the top of the head. Do the same with the bottom.

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that's what i was looking for..agent height and mesh height...

it must have been you that told me that in the avatar section in that other thread i was looking for hehehe

[Coby Foden]

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Ceka Cianci wrote:
if i could find the other thread that goes on about where the LL viewer is measuring i will post it up..

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Here's one thread:
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Your-Avatar/Hand-and-Feet-Problems-in-Shape-Demos/m-p/1338069

What the Linden Lab viewers tell as "Height" in the viewer appearance editor is the avatar "Agent Height" (sometimes called also as avatar "Bounding Box" height. This agent height is shorter than the actual avatar mesh height is.

It's a mistake by the Lab to use the the word "Height" in the appearance editor. Naturally most people will assume that this height is the avatar mesh height. Most people have no idea what the "Agent Height" is.

[Ceka Cianci Member]

ya i just spotted your post above my first one..hehehhe

i just couldn't think of the names of the two hehehe

[Perrie Juran Member]

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Ceka Cianci wrote:

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Coby Foden wrote:

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Melita Magic wrote:

Send the shape maker a freebie height checking thing and hope they take the hint. Most probably won't cross check that with prim height but it's better than being a foot or meter away as you described.

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Careful with the height detectors. There are some which will show avatar "Agent Height" which is exactly the same what the Linden Lab viewers show.

There are also height detectors which will show the mesh height (prim height) of the avatar quite accurately (as accurately as can be by a calculation, which calculation is based on the agent height with a correcting factor).

Unfortunately there is no function in SL which would tell the mesh height of an avatar directly. So, to get the exact mesh height, measuring by prim is the most accurate method.

Easy way to do this is, pose the avatar on a pose where the legs are close together, body straight. Rez a cube, make it 50 per cent transparent. Center the cube on the avatar. Stretch the bottom to the lowest vertex on the foot sole. Stretch the top of the cube to the topmost vertex on the skull. Aligning the bottom and the top exactly is fairly easy as the cube is semi transparent. Just tilt the view so that you can see the top of the cube well. Zoom close. Now stretch slowly and you can see easily when the the cube top is exactly on the top of the head. Do the same with the bottom.

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that's what i was looking for..agent height and mesh height...

it must have been you that told me that in the avatar section in that other thread i was looking for hehehe

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I stand corrected.  I am not sure why I had it in my brain that the agent height was taller then the mesh height. I should know better.

I know Coby posted in the other thread:

"What Linden Lab viewer tells for the height is the "Agent Height". The agent height is shorter than the actual avatar mesh height is. Phoenix viewer and Firestorm viewer try to calculate the mesh height. And they get pretty close to the true mesh height value. Unfortunately there is no direct way of getting the mesh height (at least as far as know). Phoenix and Firestorm calculation is based on the Agent Height with some correction factor to get close to the true mesh height. Only Agent Height is well defined in SL, mesh height is not defined. Therefore mesh height must be measured with a prim or alternatively use calculation based on Agent Height to get a close approximation. The fact that viewers tell different height for avatar height is very confusing for most of the users, and leads to all kinds of arguments who's right and who's wrong. Something should be done.."

This is still why I think a best practice would be for a Merchant to list both heights and to make available a note card explaining as has also been mentioned in this thread.  It would help to end many of the arguments Coby noted.