Creating Tiny Avatar Shapes

[Iniq]

Is there any simple way to create tiny avatar shapes of no descript, as small as a dot?

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Iniq said:

Is there any simple way to create tiny avatar shapes of no descript, as small as a dot?

I saw a housefly avatar once.

Tiny avatars are simply full sized avatars wearing a full body alpha and a visible small object of some kind. The size limit is the same as for rezzed objects.

[Iniq]

2 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

I saw a housefly avatar once.

Tiny avatars are simply full sized avatars wearing a full body alpha and a visible small object of some kind. The size limit is the same as for rezzed objects.

Yes, I've noticed this, and even bought the fly, which was kinda fun, but you're right, take away the alpha, and body, a tall white or black human shape appears, and tinkering with it makes no difference. I'm experimenting with the size of the shape, and how that parameter affects the distance from where resistance starts from the avatar. Could it be that the smaller the shape, the shorter that distance?

[Madelaine McMasters]

3 minutes ago, Iniq said:

Yes, I've noticed this, and even bought the fly, which was kinda fun, but you're right, take away the alpha, and body, a tall white or black human shape appears, and tinkering with it makes no difference. I'm experimenting with the size of the shape, and how that parameter affects the distance from where resistance starts from the avatar. Could it be that the smaller the shape, the shorter that distance?

Your mention of "resistance" suggests you are interested in the collision volume (and perhaps shape) for the avatar. The collision volume for an SL avatar looks a bit like a coffin. I think that scales with avatar height, but you can't dial that down into "tiny" territory.

Mesh avatars have physics shapes, and you can make those small. But that sends you back to designing in Blender (GIMP is an image editing program, suitable for editing skins and textures, but not the 3D structure of an avatar).

Here's a picture of what the collision shapes are for a free-standing classic avatar (coffin looking thing) and one sitting on an object (flat top pyramid)...

[Iniq]

4 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Your mention of "resistance" suggests you are interested in the collision volume (and perhaps shape) for the avatar. The collision volume for an SL avatar looks a bit like a coffin. I think that scales with avatar height, but you can't dial that down into "tiny" territory.

Mesh avatars have physics shapes, and you can make those small. But that sends you back to designing in Blender (GIMP is an image editing program, suitable for editing skins and textures, but not the 3D structure of an avatar).

Now that is supper-duper fascinating, I'd never have figured that one. Is there a setting in Firestorm that allows the viewing of that, kinda like wire-frame or something?

[Wulfie Reanimator]

3 hours ago, Iniq said:

Now that is supper-duper fascinating, I'd never have figured that one. Is there a setting in Firestorm that allows the viewing of that, kinda like wire-frame or something?

No, that image was created with scripted ray tracing.

[ChinRey]

8 hours ago, Iniq said:

I'm experimenting with the size of the shape, and how that parameter affects the distance from where resistance starts from the avatar. Could it be that the smaller the shape, the shorter that distance?

Yes but you can only adjust it within the limits of the system body's size. The system body with its physics shape will always be there even when it's invisible and only the body shape parameters can adjust its size.

The actual physics shape for an avatar is a capsule - a cylinder capped with hemisphere - btw. You don't see that clearly in Madelaine's picture since ray tracing isn't precise enough but to the physics engine we all look like this:

[Wulfie Reanimator]

56 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

The actual physics shape for an avatar is a capsule - a cylinder capped with hemisphere - btw. You don't see that clearly in Madelaine's picture since ray tracing isn't precise enough

That's not exactly true. You can do perfectly accurate ray tracing with LSL, for example an NPC is correctly displayed as a capsule, and spheres are perfectly smooth. See:

But what raycast sees is not representative of how the engine handles certain objects in every case. For example, an avatar that is sitting on an object looks like quite a thick wall, but is actually much smaller if physical interactions are attempted. I think the standing capsule shape is also correct.

But anyway, these shapes are hard-coded, there's no way to change them.

[Iniq]

On 12/16/2019 at 5:33 AM, ChinRey said:

Yes but you can only adjust it within the limits of the system body's size. The system body with its physics shape will always be there even when it's invisible and only the body shape parameters can adjust its size.

The actual physics shape for an avatar is a capsule - a cylinder capped with hemisphere - btw. You don't see that clearly in Madelaine's picture since ray tracing isn't precise enough but to the physics engine we all look like this:

That is an actual image of what the system body's physics looks like, determining collision distance? Can you describe what determines the distance another avatar's cam can approach the avatar's body as seen when the cam is sent by radar, or from the names in the people window, and if that can be adjusted in any way?

[Iniq]

On 12/16/2019 at 6:45 AM, Wulfie Reanimator said:

That's not exactly true. You can do perfectly accurate ray tracing with LSL, for example an NPC is correctly displayed as a capsule, and spheres are perfectly smooth. See:

But what raycast sees is not representative of how the engine handles certain objects in every case. For example, an avatar that is sitting on an object looks like quite a thick wall, but is actually much smaller if physical interactions are attempted. I think the standing capsule shape is also correct.

But anyway, these shapes are hard-coded, there's no way to change them.

That is quite the interesting image of various shapes, care to describe their significance?

Does the cam, as it's sent from afar, distance it can approach an avatar be variable, determined by whether the avi is either sitting or standing?