Men's Body Ratios

[Zurcon Zanetti]

hey all

working on a Gianna mesh body and the Catwa Dude head I got on Black Friday. I am running into a couple of problems and was hoping to get a little advice. 

• Head size: seems like the head is always too small for my body. I don't want a huge muscle physique, but nicely tone (like a runner perhaps)  Is there a ratio you use? 
• Arm Length: what is the right arm length? that never seems to look right to me for some reason 

Thanks in advance

 

[Skell Dagger]

7 hours ago, Zurcon Zanetti said:

Head size: seems like the head is always too small for my body. I don't want a huge muscle physique, but nicely tone (like a runner perhaps)  Is there a ratio you use? 

Use the head size shape slider, or decrease your body's shoulder width a little. Either will get you looking more balanced. Keep pulling your camera back to eyeball your head-to-shoulder ratio from a distance as you work.

7 hours ago, Zurcon Zanetti said:

Arm Length: what is the right arm length? that never seems to look right to me for some reason

Stand up in real life with your arms by your sides. Note where your fingertips are (depending on your own arm length they'll be either a third of the way or halfway down your thighs). As long as your avatar could realistically reach down to pee (not that we need to here, but hey) you'll be fine

If you want a visual guide, try going to Proportion Park inworld.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Skell Dagger

[ellestones]

the classic measurements for a lean-ish man is Vitruvian Man first described by Vitruvius and became well-known thru the drawing of Leonardo Da Vinci

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man

in SL a way to do this is get on a pose stand with feet together and arms outstretched

make a prim, move it to your head. Adjust your head size til you happy with it - width and height. Set the prim to the same size. Then drag copy the prim down 7 times, to get your height. then from the center of your head prim dragcopy 4 prims to the left and 4 to the right to get your arm length

then adjust your shoulder width, neck length, torso length, hip length, hip width and leg length to fit within this prim cross shape accordiing to the measurements given by Vitruvius

then tweak them slightly from there to get an individual aesthetic look that you are happy with

 

 

[Fionalein]

1 hour ago, Skell Dagger said:

If you want a visual guide, try going to Proportion Park inworld.

Nice find, I will add this LM to my tutorials LM folder

Edited December 3, 2018 by Fionalein

[Callum Meriman]

For a male:

Work out how tall you want to be. Divide by 8. This is your head size. As Elle says, make a prim this big and adjust your head to match. Drag it down 8 times.

Nipples are the base of #2, Navel is at #3, crotch is at #4, fingertips are at #5, knees are at #6

Turn the prim on it's side and put one side in the middle of your neck, the other side is your shoulders.

Hips are the same as your armpits. Waist is 85-90% of that.

This wont work if you are part of the arms race to be the tallest male in SL, the head won't become as big as it should be, you end up with a tiny pea head and huge unrealistic shoulders.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[AyelaNewLife]

11 hours ago, Zurcon Zanetti said:

hey all

working on a Gianna mesh body and the Catwa Dude head I got on Black Friday. I am running into a couple of problems and was hoping to get a little advice. 

• Head size: seems like the head is always too small for my body. I don't want a huge muscle physique, but nicely tone (like a runner perhaps)  Is there a ratio you use? 
• Arm Length: what is the right arm length? that never seems to look right to me for some reason 

Thanks in advance

Don't be afraid of having an arm length slider setting of 80 or so. There's a tendency among both male and female avatars to roleplay a T Rex, and that's partly because of the way most mesh avatars are built - 50 isn't really "average" for most.

Just remember, if your arms look too short to comfortably wipe your ass standing up, they are too short

[Fionalein]

35 minutes ago, AyelaNewLife said:

Just remember, if your arms look too short to comfortably wipe your ass standing up, they are too short

But your likelyness of findingan AO that works out of the box increases sadly. How did we end up leaving the mocap animation biz to folks with so few knowledge on the human body?

[Theresa Tennyson]

44 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

But your likelyness of findingan AO that works out of the box increases sadly. How did we end up leaving the mocap animation biz to folks with so few knowledge on the human body?

Explain to us how lack of knowledge of the human body would be a factor with mocap animations, which are made by capturing the motion of a human.

[Blush Bravin]

18 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Explain to us how lack of knowledge of the human body would be a factor with mocap animations, which are made by capturing the motion of a human.

I notice this often myself. The more recent AOs don't seem to have the issue, but there are still many older AOs out there that aren't motion capture based. Also, I see this all the time in animations for furniture. My arms almost never end up where they should be because some animator made the poses for someone with arms much too short.

[Fionalein]

1 hour ago, Blush Bravin said:

I notice this often myself. The more recent AOs don't seem to have the issue, but there are still many older AOs out there that aren't motion capture based. Also, I see this all the time in animations for furniture. My arms almost never end up where they should be because some animator made the poses for someone with arms much too short.

Oh I see it in the big name MoCap brands too, just not as often. I always have to exclude animations in the config because I do not have anorectic model size in SL. An AO should ideally work out of the box - but right now they are bubdle deal to me where the 10% bad animations that come along are still worth getting it.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Fionalein

[Rhonda Huntress]

I have a board I use with a pose stand to help with proportions.

I have one for men and one for women.  The center grid is one head height squares and the whole thing has a resize script in it so I can set it to the prim height I want the avatar to be.  As you can see, I stand on a pose pad and put the board to where it just clips into the back of the avatar head.  Of course it would look better if I had logged on a male alt but oh well.

Anyway, if you would like a copy, just IM me in world and ask.  I will send you either one or both if you want them.

[Madelaine McMasters]

10 minutes ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

I have a board I use with a pose stand to help with proportions.

Anyway, if you would like a copy, just IM me in world and ask.  I will send you either one or both if you want them.

I don't think I want a copy, that man's bum keeps lookin' at meeeee!

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Madelaine McMasters said:

I don't think I want a copy, that man's bum keeps lookin' at meeeee!

If it starts winking it’s “brown eye”, run.

[Bree Giffen]

That's good advice from Skell to pull the camera back because the SL camera has a fisheye effect that distorts your avatar. You can pull the camera back and then press ctrl-0 (zero) to zoom back in to view your avatar close up without the fisheye effect. Be sure to press ctrl-9 to reset the camera afterwards.

[Alyona Su]

On 12/3/2018 at 12:03 AM, Skell Dagger said:

Keep pulling your camera back to eyeball your head-to-shoulder ratio from a distance as you work.

 

 

21 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

That's good advice from Skell to pull the camera back because the SL camera has a fisheye effect that distorts your avatar.

 

Here's how I do it when editing my shape - precisely because of the "lens distortion":

• Alt-click directly on the pelvis, adjust the camera to be level with pelvis (not above or below)
• Hold CTRL and tap 0 (zero) 8 times to "zoom" - like a real camera this removes almost all distortion.
• Pull the camera back to see your avie head-to-toe - begin adjustments.
• When finished: CTRL+9 to reset the camera.

This way to always see your *true* shape. Stay in this "zoomed" mode as you look at your shape straight-on, profile, and 3/4 view. You can get the body proportions correct and also see the subtle changes more clearly (as they are really a lot more pronounced than you may realize). By "tweaking" your shape in this "tight field-of-view" zoom mode you will have far better accuracy at getting what you really want.

Edited December 4, 2018 by Alyona Su

[Nalates Urriah]

I made a guide for body proportions. It's in the marketplace.

Edited December 5, 2018 by Nalates Urriah