llDetectGender suggestion

[BB Dubratt]

llDetectGender would be awesome for determining several things in SL most practically poseballs... but also gender contest boards... and resizeable warables... to name a few.... adding the ability to tell which option was checked in appearance (male or female) would be helpful to the content creators in world...

makes no sense that we can find out an avatar's born on date but not their avatar gender

I am sorry for all the androgynous avatars I may have offended but there is no choice for other in appearance...

 

:womanvery-happy:

[Eeyore Aeon]

Not again.

[Rolig Loon]

We have this same discussion about every 6 months. It seems to be a popular idea. :smileyvery-happy:  Take a look at this particularly rich and infomative thread from last year to see the many reasons why the idea never goes anywhere. 

[Void Singer]

 

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BB Dubratt wrote:

[...] I am sorry for all the androgynous avatars I may have offended but there is no choice for other in appearance... [...]

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sure there is.... it's called "attach"

ps
dragons think all humans look the same (best served lightly toasted)

[Darkie Minotaur]

*Darkie stops short as he reads the OP and starts to shiver - his ears flatten - and he additionally covers them with his paws as if he expected a sudden explosion* Nuhuuuu, nuhuuuuuuuuuu - not again *Darkie whimpers before he dashes off like lightning.*

[Innula Zenovka]

It's one of those things that you think might be useful, but I really don't think it is.   People who script stuff for RLV (as I do a bit) have had that functionality for ages -- @getdebug_AvatarSex -- but I've never found a use for it in practice, as opposed to theory, and I've never, in fact, seen it used.  

[Haravikk Mistral]

That's not true, I'm sure there are quite a lot of possible uses in adult content given key physical differences that are expected between the two major genders. The inability to represent less common genders is of course an issue, as the standard genders are after all only intended to give you appropriate options when building a standard, non-explicit avatar.

I think any niche areas such as adult content are better served by the adoption of a HUD system that users can make use of to enable additional features appropriate to their gender.

[Innula Zenovka]

What's not true?

It's certainly true that I've never, in practice, found a use for @getdebug_AvatarSex in any of my stuff, and that's despite the fact I can be pretty sure most of my customers use RLV.   When I first read about the function I was really pleased.   Then I started trying to think how I'd actually use it, and very rapidly realised it would be way more trouble than it was worth, since I'd have to let people override it manually anyway to allow for the many times it would give me inappropriate results.  

People are well used to having to select which gender anims they want to use from a hud or menu, as you say, or sit on an appropriate poseball, and it just seemed to mean a lot of extra work and complexity to make something I knew wasn't actually going to solve more problems than it created.   The solution Vesta and I use in our furniture at the moment is simply to either to produce separate Masters' and Mistress' editions of stuff when it matters, or provide different menus.  It's pointless trying to second-guess what gender or genders the Master or Mistress's submissives will be in any given case, so we let the person controlling the menu handle that. 

It's also true that I've never actually come across any RLV toys made by anyone else that use it.   That's not say there aren't some, and I'd love to take a look at any you suggest, 'cos I'm always looking for new ideas. but, as it is, I just haven't come across any.

[Talarus Luan]

On the face of it, it seems a simple and sensible addition to SL..

that is, until you realize that nothing about SL (and its Residents) is simple and sensible, least of all when it comes to something as subjective as gender in a virtual world of imagination.

About the closest I have seen to a "best of breed" suggestion to implement this is Argent's SVC-1115 feature request. Problem is, I think it is far too meta for LL to ever adopt.

[Haravikk Mistral]

The function could be useful in something as simple as a greeter ("Welcome sir/madam"), or in any dialogue that is capable of adapting to an avatar's gender rather than simply assuming one or the other.

Sure it wouldn't be perfect, but it'd allow the dialogue to be more accurate in most cases for general purpose devices.

 

As I noted though, for adult content it would fall short in a lot of cases; a much more flexible function could handle it better, but it's not something LL would ever likely get behind, so is more suited to an adult HUD where a user can specify what gender they are (or more likely, what parts they happen to possess).

 

But I think that a simple llDetectGender() function still has merit just for giving more option in how a script can address someone.

[Innula Zenovka]

Let's take a practical example -- and, while it's drawn from collars, which some people associate with adult content, it's quite a general one.   

Many collars have built-in AOs, which are usually configurable by the user but also come with some default male and female walks, stands and so on.    They sometimes come with emotes or cute confirmation messages that need the wearer's gender (my collar says something like, "Innula adjusts her collar" when I open the menu (though it's a sensible one, so it does it with llOwnerSay and doesn't spam people).

On the face of it, it would be cool if the collar could automatically adjust itself to your gender, so it knows whether to use the built in male or female walks and so on.  

But, since you'd have to allow for the fact it's going to get your gender wrong a lot of the time -- many people who make their own shapes start out with the default settings for the opposite sex, not for any gender-bending purposes but because it's often easier to make the shape you want that way (particularly if you are a smaller guy, I understand) -- you'd have to let people over-ride the script's decision about your gender.  

So my attitude is, in that case, why bother to try to read something in the first place?   It's as simple, and far more accurate, to tell the user, "by default, this item assumes a Male (or Female) user.   If you want to change this, please do it via the menu".   I suspect the maker's guess in setting the default is usually going to be almost as good as would be detecting it by script.

As to the greeter, yeah.. I see the point, but I wouldn't use a greeter -- if I used them at all -- that I knew was certainly going to get people's gender wrong in some cases, because I don't want to embarrass them or make myself look stupid (plenty of people will confirm I'm perfectly capable of making a fool of myself without scripted assistance).  

If it could be guaranteed that llDetectGender would be completely accurate, then yes, I agree it would be useful.  But since it can't be, I think it's more trouble than it's worth.    As I said, I could detect the gender of many of my customers with RLV, and have been able to for some time, but I've never, in practice, found a situation in which it seems the most sensible way of determining their gender when I need to know it.

 

[Ishtara Rothschild]

This is something that could easily be implemented, since gender is obviously a shape-related flag. But people have been asking for it ever since I joined SL, and LL don't seem inclined to add this function.

[Ishtara Rothschild]

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Haravikk Mistral wrote:

That's not true, I'm sure there are quite a lot of possible uses in adult content given key physical differences that are expected between the two major genders. The inability to represent less common genders is of course an issue, as the standard genders are after all only intended to give you appropriate options when building a standard, non-explicit avatar.

I think any niche areas such as adult content are better served by the adoption of a HUD system that users can make use of to enable additional features appropriate to their gender.

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As far as animations go, I'd find this feature very useful too.

It doesn't matter as what gender people identify. Fact is, the female avatar mesh behaves different from the male-based one. For example, the arms will be closer together if the same animation is applied to male- and female-based avis.

Good animated furniture should be able to compensate for that, and it doesn't matter if my female-based avatar is supposed to represent a woman, transsexual, herm, androgyne or whatever. In any of these cases, I'd want my arms to be somewhere outside the body of my partner when playing a couple animation. But since most couple anims are optimized for one male-based body, I always end up sticking my hands in someone else's shoulders.

[Innula Zenovka]

 

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Ishtara Rothschild wrote:

As far as animations go, I'd find this feature very useful too.

It doesn't matter as what gender people identify. Fact is, the female avatar mesh behaves different from the male-based one. For example, the arms will be closer together if the same animation is applied to male- and female-based avis.

Good animated furniture should be able to compensate for that, and it doesn't matter if my female-based avatar is supposed to represent a woman, transsexual, herm, androgyne or whatever. In any of these cases, I'd want my arms to be somewhere outside the body of my partner when playing a couple animation. But since most couple anims are optimized for one male-based body, I always end up sticking my hands in someone else's shoulders.

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I don't know enough about animations to be sure if I'm understanding you.   Aren't you going to have to correct the offsets for the users' own bodyshapes anyway, by moving the poseballs about or using llSetLinkPrimitiveParams, regardless of what their AvatarSex is in debug settings?  

[Ishtara Rothschild]

What I mean is that the arms and shoulders of a typical male avatar are further apart than those of almost all female-based avatars.

Imagine a couple animation where the male (by default) partner A holds the female partner B, and the hands or arms of avatar A approximate or touch the body of avatar B. If now both partners have a feminine shape, the hands or arms of avatar A will instead be stuck in the body of avatar B. Unless one of the female-based avis has the shape of a bodybuilder of course.

The creator could avoid this problem by optimizing the couple anim for two females, but then it will look weird if avatar A happens to be male, and reaches around avatar B in a wide circle without touching her. The only solution are two different animations for avatar A, depending on the gender flag.

[Innula Zenovka]

I see, I think.   So, assuming "hug" and "hugged by" are different, do I need 8 animations for each partner (male hugs female, male hugs male, male hugged by male, male hugged by female, female hugs male, female hugs female, female hugged by male, female hugged by female), and let the script figure out which pair to use?

[Ishtara Rothschild]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

I see, I think.   So, assuming "hug" and "hugged by" are different, do I need 8 animations for each partner (male hugs female, male hugs male, male hugged by male, male hugged by female, female hugs male, female hugs female, female hugged by male, female hugged by female), and let the script figure out which pair to use?

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Exactly If you want to be all-inclusive, you would indeed need 8 animations in total, 4 for each poseball. That's a lot of work though. Personally, I'd only include the two most common combinations, which is either two females or a male hugger with a female huggee. That would only require three animations, while it would still work for the vast majority of customers.