Disproportionate Avatars....

[Siksikas]

Here are my top 5 physical pet peeves in Second Life....

1. People with tiny heads

2. Extremely short arms.....

3. Teeny tiny feet

4. Abnormally broad shoulders

5. Gigantic hips... (I think this might be a trend among the "Cool cats' of Second Life, but I'm not so sure)

 

Can anyone explain to me why a vast majority of Second Life avatars are completely disproportionate? I understand that it's a virtual world and people can look however they want to look... but I just don't understand how looking like an alien looks better than just being proportionate. 

[Syo Emerald]

Because a lot people do not know what would be normal or can't really adjust their shape. You need a feeling for whats normal looking and whats not. Some also push a "beautystandart" to the extreme, that would be at least an explaination for some of the deformations.

The tiny feet are a result of the shoes. Tiny feet were easier to fit. i'm just using shoes or when barefeet I use meshfeet instead of the deafult ones.

[Alicia Sautereau]

Don`t forget the imvu freakish avatars

[bb166]

Tiny feet are to fit prim shoes.

Wide hips are a disturbing new trend that's hitting RL too; Thigh Gap.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Vanessa Hallison wrote:

Here are my top 5 physical pet peeves in Second Life....

1. People with tiny heads

2. Extremely short arms.....

3. Teeny tiny feet

4. Abnormally broad shoulders

5. Gigantic hips... (I think this might be a trend among the "Cool cats' of Second Life, but I'm not so sure)

 

Can anyone explain to me why a vast majority of Second Life avatars are completely disproportionate? I understand that it's a virtual world and people can look however they want to look... but I just don't understand how looking like an alien looks better than just being proportionate. 

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If you're right, and a "vast majority of Second Life avatars are completely disporportionate", I think you'd have to blame LL for producing disproportionate startar avatars, and the rest of us for being too lazy to change them. But if it's just that you notice the most egregious cases of disproportionality... there's no accounting for taste?

As for tiny feet, at least for women's shoes, they're designed for size 0 feet and laziness comes back into play. It's easier to shrink your feet than to expand all your shoes.

 

[Rihanna Irata]

My friend have shrinked herself half of my size and added gigantic booty and double the breasts. Now she thinks its sexy, i guess for some it might be but it looks just plain dumb.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

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Vanessa Hallison wrote:

Can anyone explain to me why a vast majority of Second Life avatars are completely disproportionate? I understand that it's a virtual world and people can look however they want to look... but I just don't understand how looking like an alien looks better than just being proportionate. 

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Mostly it is not done on purpose.  Not everyone is a student of anatomy or an artist and knows the right proportions.  The appearance system is to blame for a lot of it too.  Many people find it difficult to use.  There are also limitations to it, especially arm length when you have a tall avatar, and the numbers that are given have no bearing on the actual measurement.  And then the starter avatars LL provides which are flawed too.

If it is done on purpose it is just a matter of taste.  You are allowed to have your taste, but can't impose your standards on others.  There may be things about your avatar that other people don't like. Many people don't understand why you may choose to be a human with a very young and perfect body rather than have an avatar that looks like you in RL (assuming you aren't 20 and have a perfect body) or a fantasy creature of some sort. 

Live and let live.

[Teagan Tobias]

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Rihanna Irata wrote:

My friend have shrinked herself half of my size and added gigantic booty and double the breasts. Now she thinks its sexy, i guess for some it might be but it looks just plain dumb.

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I think they are just trying to brighten the day for others. I half to laugh when I see that, so, if that is the intent, then its working, it makes me laugh.

[Sidnella Riler]

I recogn everyone can look how they want, because otherwise we would also be complaining about a furry being a furry or a vampire being a vampire and so on, you can show yours here and we can discuss your proportions

[Madeline Blackbart]

It does bother me a bit when I see people with horrible proportioned avatars. Usually they have this waist that's ten miles to long or legs that are just deosturbingly long. I think the vast majority have at least close to reasonable proportioned bodies actually but just those few...UGH.

 

Have a big butt or wider hips doesn't nessicarily make you miss proportioned depending on how your avatar is done btw.

[Orca Flotta]

I wonder, has not everybody read and comprehended Penny Patton's blog yet? Not saying that everybody must follow Penny's advice but she's a graphics artist in RL and knows the proportions of a human body. So reading her statements and guides will give you some worthwile info. She's also very wise with SL technology so there's some valid info about texturing and camera settings in her blog as well.

As for myself, I largely ignored her shapes advice but have my arms corrected and set my camera viewpoint much lower than the standard SL angle. Apart from that I'm proud of my skinny malnutrioned avie. Since I'm rather tall in RL (178 cm) I'm probably one of the very few humanoid avatars who are smaller in SL (166 cm) than in reality.

[Marianne Little]

The majority of SL users will never read this forum. The few who does, maybe some read here often enough to see a post of her and bother to follow her link.

Very few will ever read a SL blog. Very few will be on Plurk, very few use the web profiles, very few google and find some tutorials... What people learn they learn from the friends they hang out with. That is why you see avatars change to suddenly a group where all females have wide hips, or a group lower their height, or both. One person starts something, tell his/her friends about it, they do the same.

 

[Coby Foden]

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Vanessa Hallison wrote:

Here are my top 5 physical pet peeves in Second Life....

1. People with tiny heads

2. Extremely short arms.....

3. Teeny tiny feet

4. Abnormally broad shoulders

5. Gigantic hips... (I think this might be a trend among the "Cool cats' of Second Life, but I'm not so sure)

---

I would add there:

6. Extremely long legs plus extremely high heeled shoes. :smileysurprised: :smileyfrustrated:

Starts to resemble a grasshopper. :smileytongue:

 

[Perrie Juran]

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Coby Foden wrote:

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I would add there:

6. ......... extremely high heeled shoes. :smileysurprised: :smileyfrustrated:

Starts to resemble a grasshopper. :smileytongue:

 

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While out shopping with friends I have noticed that some of the best known and most popular Shoe Moguls in SL don't even carry any 'flats.'

One of them was selling a bare foot that was apparently just the base foot they build their shoes on.  If you wore it you looked like you were standing on tippy toes the whole time.

[KlistiesSeMio Ewinaga]

As already stated, I think the majority of the issue stems from malformed starter avis and simple ignorance of typical human proportion.

Very few are technically trained to learn proportions, nor do most have an eye for it at all.

They think elbows that only come to their ribcage (or, god forbid, their nipples) are perfectly fine and don't look crazy because they don't know any better and nobody told them any different. (protip: elbows line up with your belly button, wrists with your crotch, fingers with mid thigh!) A lot of people are afraid to slide their arm lengths passed 50 when really they should be upwards of 70+, what with the trend of overly long torsos and legs. (ie: t-rex syndrome)

Then we have the guys wandering around with their arm muscle sliders at 100 looking like gorillas and everyone just acts like they don't see how hilarious and malformed they look so they assume they look totally fine (they do not - however if the avi mesh wasn't so outdated, they might look a little better with arms that had muscles in the right places, but we can only wish). Don't even get me started on the leg muscles mesh because everything makes me super angry when it comes to how awful the legs look. LL, knees do not and have never looked the way they do jfc

[Coby Foden]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

 

One of them was selling a bare foot that was apparently just the base foot they build their shoes on.  If you wore it you looked like you were standing on tippy toes the whole time.

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Yeah, I wonder where this trend comes from to make extremely high heels. To my eyes they are not good looking. The sole of the foot is almost in vertical position, toes bent almost in 90 degree angle. That position makes the whole foot to look very unnatural, impossible, even silly, and distorted. Rather ugly sight in fact.

Ufff.. :smileyfrustrated:

[Gentianpoet Galtier]

Agreed but adjusting your shape in Real Life is not as easy as just right clicking and editing your shape.  Wouldn't you agree?

[Gentianpoet Galtier]

I have a friend that has a theory that the female avatars you see with gi-normous boobs and gargatuan hips and posterior cheeks are really men.  Which in her mind says this is what I want to see as opposed to this is what I want to be.  I don't know but it's as good a theory as any.

[Lewis Luminos]

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Gentianpoet Galtier wrote:

I have a friend that has a theory that the female avatars you see with gi-normous boobs and gargatuan hips and posterior cheeks are really men.  Which in her mind says this is what I want to see as opposed to this is what I want to be.  I don't know but it's as good a theory as any.

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I have noticed that a lot of female avatars with that kind of shape have users who are based in South America, particularly Brazil.  That kind of female shape is highly regarded in RL, in that part of the world. Which is probably why Brazil is second only to the USA in the number of cosmetic surgery procedures carried out. Yes the owners of those avatars might be men, I'd also lay a bet that they're South American.

 

[Hermione Lefevre]

I dont think its done by mistake..seems that most of those people really think a gigantic butt is erotic to men.

So why dont some of the guys here post their thoughts on it

Really curious

 

[Perrie Juran]

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Coby Foden wrote:

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Perrie Juran wrote:

 

One of them was selling a bare foot that was apparently just the base foot they build their shoes on.  If you wore it you looked like you were standing on tippy toes the whole time.

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Yeah, I wonder where this trend comes from to make extremely high heels. To my eyes they are not good looking. The sole of the foot is almost in vertical position, toes bent almost in 90 degree angle. That position makes the whole foot to look very unnatural, impossible, even silly, and distorted. Rather ugly sight in fact.

Ufff.. :smileyfrustrated:

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Is it bringing RL thinking into SL?

High Heels are considered by many a fashion statement.  And wearing them 'accentuates' a woman's body in certain ways.  The History of High Heels is interesting in this regard.

Does wearing them give some women a sense of sexual power over men?

"The formal invention of high heels as fashion is typically attributed to the rather short-statured Catherine de Medici (1519-1589). At the age of 14, Catherine de Medici was engaged to the powerful Duke of Orleans, later the King of France. She was small (not quite five feet) relative to the Duke and hardly considered a beauty. She felt insecure in the arranged marriage knowing she would be the Queen of the French Court and in competition with the Duke’s favorite (and significantly taller) mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Looking for a way to dazzle the French nation and compensate for her perceived lack of aesthetic appeal, she donned heels two inches high that gave her a more towering physique and an alluring sway when she walked. Her heels were a wild success and soon high heels were associated with privilege."

 

[Perrie Juran]

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Hermione Lefevre wrote:

I dont think its done by mistake..seems that most of those people really think a gigantic butt is erotic to men.

So why dont some of the guys here post their thoughts on it

Really curious

 

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I'm not sure if that is a fair question.  How much of our thinking is influenced by culture and wear and how we were raised?

Self perception is an interesting thing.

I'm an avid photographer in RL and I constantly have girls tell me that "they don't photograph well," to which I always reply "bull dinky."  I have had on several occasions photos that the subject thought was a terrible shot turn out to be some of the most highly complimented pictures I have taken.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Hermione Lefevre wrote:

I dont think its done by mistake..seems that most of those people really think a gigantic butt is erotic to men.

So why dont some of the guys here post their thoughts on it

Really curious

 

---

I'm not sure if that is a fair question.  How much of our thinking is influenced by culture and wear and how we were raised?

Self perception is an interesting thing.

I'm an avid photographer in RL and I constantly have girls tell me that "they don't photograph well," to which I always reply "bull dinky."  I have had on several occasions photos that the subject thought was a terrible shot turn out to be some of the most highly complimented pictures I have taken.

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"I don't photograph well" is a sort of self fulfilling prophesy, isn't it? People who believe that are uncomfortable in front of the camera and it shows. As you've learned, if you are patient and work with them, you can get lovely images. I've become my extended family's "reunion photographer" because my antics behind the camera get good results in front of it. Or maybe they just don't want me in the picture?

[Pussycat Catnap]

SL Shape makers... suck...

There's really no other excuse.

SL users have been buying a 'bill of goods' from people with the art and anatomy skills of a 5 year old.

Most of the issues go away with a very simple proportion test:

- Make your armspan as wide as you are tall

- Made the middle of your total height your crotch

- make yourself about 7 heads tall

Make your hands about as big as your chin to forehead

Make your feet when barefoot as big as your forearm

 

Easy was to do this?

Take a prim and wear it on avatar center and move it to your crotch - right in the middle of your special spot... Stretch it to the top of your head OR the base of your feet. Now adjust your height until you fit perfectly inside an that prim is still attached and located in the same spot.

Get in a T-Pose, and your fingers should touch the edges on the sides, or your arms are too short / hands too small.

 

- ANYONE can figure out this basic stuff. But I get that not everyone is an artist.

HOWEVER, if you're going to charge people money for a shape you make, you had better sell them something worth buying, and have a duty to your customer to do these tests and corrections for them...

 

Now if you want a more detailed guide to getting all the details right, I've got on on my blog linked in my sig...

 

=There is no excuse for what we see in SL...

 

[Madeline Blackbart]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

SL Shape makers... suck...

 

There's really no other excuse.

 

SL users have been buying a 'bill of goods' from people with the art and anatomy skills of a 5 year old.

 

Most of the issues go away with a very simple proportion test:

 

- Make your armspan as wide as you are tall

- Made the middle of your total height your crotch

- make yourself about 7 heads tall

 

Make your hands about as big as your chin to forehead

Make your feet when barefoot as big as your forearm

 

Easy was to do this?

Take a prim and wear it on avatar center and move it to your crotch - right in the middle of your special spot...

Stretch it to the top of your head OR the base of your feet. Now adjust your height until you fit perfectly inside an that prim is still attached and located in the same spot.

 

Get in a T-Pose, and your fingers should touch the edges on the sides, or your arms are too short / hands too small.

 

- ANYONE can figure out this basic stuff. But I get that not everyone is an artist.

 

HOWEVER, if you're going to charge people money for a shape you make, you had better sell them something worth buying, and have a duty to your customer to do these tests and corrections for them...

 

Now if you want a more detailed guide to getting all the details right, I've got on on my blog linked in my sig...

 

=There is no excuse for what we see in SL...

 

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This EXACTLY! I typically don't do these test actually because A I give my shapes away free and B I've been studying art my whole life and can just eyeball it. But honestly if your gonna sell it for a price you aught to do these things (or have a college degree in art if you ain't gonna do it). I mean even if people could just do a simple study in anatomy before selling a shape would be good and probably improve a lot.