SL Study 1: Investigating human and humanoid avatar heights in Second Life

[Alex0Eagle]

Hello,

I'm conducting a survey to investigate and identify core average heights for human (and other humanoid) males, females and non-binary SL avatar characters in Second Life. This information will provide animators a set of target shape heights and bodytypes they can use to optimize their animations.

The purpose of the study is to collect descriptive statistics, primarily average heights, for various sample subcategories (primarily the gender and height categories), and this information will help provide animators with a set of target shape heights and bodytypes that they can use to optimize their animations.

If you use a human (or humanoid) avatar, please visit the following link to answer 6 short questions. No RL information will be asked, the survey is completely anonymous:

https://s.surveyplanet.com/oANLJX9Im

 

I already have some preliminary findings, form an initial sample of 50 participants, and here are some early results:

 

Current total number of participants:  50

Current participant proportional gender distribution:
    Female: 41%
    Male: 36%
    Non-binary: 23%

Current participant average heights of females males and non-binaries, in meters (and feet):
    Female: 1m87 (6′13″)
    Male: 1m90 (6′24″)
    Non-binary: 1m90 (6′23″)

Current average height (and standard deviation) of all participants:
    1.89 (σ=27.42) 

Current participant weighted* average heights for general height categories of ‘generally short’ height, ‘generally medium’ height and ‘generally very tall’ heights:
    Generally short: 1m53 (5ft02)
    Generally medium: 1m92 (6ft29)
    Generally very tall: 2m27 (7ft44)

* Weighted values calculated from proportioning of collapsed categories based on subcategory percentage counts.

The above average heights would be considered preliminary target heights for animators to use when creating animations for either short, medium and/or tall avatars.

 

I have set up a figshare.com account that hosts the following information:

- A study overview file that describes an overview of the study, which is ongoing.

- The current datasat Excel data file for data exported from the surveyplanet.com survey website.

- The current data report outlining up-to-date findings from the data set.

The SL Study 1 files can be accessed from the following link:

https://figshare.com/s/f2b0e6f3872fdff300dc

 

I kept the survey as concise and simple as possible, and specifically avoided asking participants their RL gender. I also acknowledge that contemporary concepts of 'gender' have been simplified for the sake of simplicity, but the study is orientated towards identifying optinal shape and height metrics for animation designers, so only key relevant information that would help animators is being sought in the study.

[Lucia Nightfire]

3 hours ago, Alex0Eagle said:

This information will provide animators a set of target shape heights and bodytypes they can use to optimize their animations.

The standard height for couple's animation creation has been 180 cm for over a decade. Animation makers have quoted this height in their product notecards.

If LL would evolve animation protocol to finally allow more flexible IK control or even make use of IK's outside of system animations, like many of today's MMO's/games do then body/limb lengths wouldn't be much of a factor with any use case, especially couples/interactive poses/scenes.

The male body shape flag adds an additional 0.0848 meters to height.

I think you should include what mesh body is worn as "natural propotions" will affect what overall height a user will decide on.

Also, with certain furry avatars and certain hybrid avatars (half human / half animal) leg options can result in people being taller than "average".