A Matter of Scale - How scale affects content creation and land ownership in Second Life.

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Jo Yardley wrote:

And I reckon we'd be a good choice for a realistic historical roleplay example.

 

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You're a bad showcase not from type - but because perhaps a third or so of the grid is not allowed to go look and see - and therefore learn - from seeing scale done right. You might be a -great- showcase in a showcase for RP sims. And you might have perfect use of scale.

But in a showcase of how to do scale, a place that won't allow vast segments of the grid to explore it in depth and use it to learn is not a viable example.

If you're going to showcase scale - it needs to be in a location people are all allowed to visit.

 

[Void Singer]

I find the argument of over non-human to be a non-starter... the point is to showcase scale, not inclusiveness... any person can throw on a human av for a few minutes to wander around and see the impact scale is making, and apply that to other builds, regardless of type.

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Void Singer wrote:

I find the argument of over non-human to be a non-starter... the point is to showcase scale, not inclusiveness... any person can throw on a human av for a few minutes to wander around and see the impact scale is making, and apply that to other builds, regardless of type.

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That's a stance that could be said of anything. "You freaks just need to conform to our rules to reap this general benefit."

Fine, if I expect to go to a place to participate in its theme. But not fine for a general purpose or wider community's needs. An exclusionist place is not legitimate for use in an inclusionary purpose.

[Void Singer]

considering that and avatar in SL is easier to change than a shirt in real life, and there are expectations of attire in RL locations, I sincerely feel that you are making something out of nothing.

just because a place is being suggested as an example of one thing, does not mean it is an example of all things...  and the overall theme and limitations existed before this thread, and is integral to it's business model. It just happens to also provide an example of the things in this thread. There are other options to choose from, and it's not as if it were purpose created to serve this thread.

[Penny Patton]

I think what Pussycat is trying to say is that, regardless of how easy it is to toss on a different look, far fewer people would to go a place like 1920's Berlin to see its use of scale as opposed to a place without restrictions on appearances.

I think she's right on that count, but at the same time there simply aren't that many places on the grid that do showcase the benefits of good use of scale, especially on a full sim level. I linked to Doomed Ship, my own shop and 1920's Berlin. I believe two others have been suggested but I haven't had a chance to check them out yet.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

Suffugium used to, when it was up. Long gone, sadly. (Ironically, part of it was because at least two of the folks in the group who built the sim - myself being one of them - prefer Amazonian statures, but it's hard to stand out if everyone is.) Granted, these days I'm as likely to walk around in a seven METER tall giant avatar, so...

[leliel Mirihi]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

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Void Singer wrote:

I find the argument of over non-human to be a non-starter... the point is to showcase scale, not inclusiveness... any person can throw on a human av for a few minutes to wander around and see the impact scale is making, and apply that to other builds, regardless of type.

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That's a stance that could be said of anything. "You freaks just need to conform to our rules to reap this general benefit."

Fine, if I expect to go to a place to participate in its theme. But not fine for a general purpose or wider community's needs. An exclusionist place is not legitimate for use in an inclusionary purpose.

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Then go to Doomed Ship, they don't care what you look like. I've literally seen floating balls of meat with tentacles wandering through the corridors there.

[Josh Susanto]

1) The attempted showcasing of scale in exclusive sims in no way detracts from the basic points made about scale; it merely means that there continue to be practical limits to how well these points can be emphasized with yet more compelling specific examples. If people want to declare the arguments to be invalid on the basis of observation, there's nothing to prevent them from squeezing out a human n00b alt and going there. Refusal to do that seems to me to be an expression either of laziness or wilful ignorance; laziness not being very likely considering the amount of other energy being spent in some cases to argue the matter from less empirical angles.

2) The English foot is what was used for official architectural measure before the metric system, which is to say for most of the colonial period, thus explaining why it remains ubiquitous in various forms throughout all former UK colonies including North America, Australia, India, South Africa, and even other places including Hong Kong, where the Chinese foot had already been in use before the arrival of English people. The 0.5 meter cube seems closer to me in concept (in the way it tends to be used, that is) to 1 Chinese foot than to 1.25 English feet. But that could just be my own eyes lying to me. It hardly matters. ANY official standard would be better than what we have now in SL. I don't consider meter parity to be an official standard at this time because of various inconsistencies of use committed by the Lindens, themselves. Whatever standard emerges, there will have to be sacrifices of some kind. It's my hope that they will be the least lamentable set of sacrifices, and that, with some simple technical permissions changes, also the smallest possible set of sacrifices. In any case, we're already sacrificing a lot by effectively having no standard. It's not about people being taller or shorter; it's about other things being compatible or incompatible in scale. 

3)@Penny: I have considered further the "broken scripts" issue with a universal resize permission. It occurs to me that moddable scripted objects already present this problem, and that opening one more mod as universal only extends the problem to objects that would otherwise continue to list/show as "no mod". BUT... if a limitation to universal resizing were that objects default to the no-mod size upon return to inventory, then "broken" objects could then at least be re-rezzed without the size mod (which is not promised to "work"; only to be possible, which is, as I said, already true of moddables).  And, again, BUT... If this limit could be applied exclusively to "no mod" objects, and not to "mod" objects, it would also not create any new problem with instantaneous resizing of wiped objects other than those which would otherwise not have changed size in the first place without the universal mod. The result is not ultimately a true universal utility, but a substantially extended utility. It might at least reduce the number of IM's that builders already get about "fixing" scripted moddables or modding scripted objects for people who can't even resize them 25% just to see what happens because they don't have any permissions.

Is this sounding any closer to an idea with no downside (as compared to just letting things continue as-is)?

 

[Jo Yardley]

I'm very happy with the metric system being used in SL, saves me a lot of time converting all sorts of measurements all the time.

But of course if you are in a country with they use another system it is the other wat around.

Whatever system you use there will always be people who prefer another... imagine leaving the choice to the user!

Imagine us being able to set our SL viewer to metric or imperial or whatever...

Until that option is here, lets stick to what we've got.

Isnt the metric system used by more people anyway?

[Dresden Ceriano]

LL will never go against the perms set by the builders... that would be crazy (If I set something to certain perms only to have LL step in and change it, I'd be infuriated). Though it would be nice for consumers, it's a dream that will never come true.

Opening up perms for resizing or anything else will never be excepted by the vast majority of merchants, and for good reason. When you create something and set perms on it, those are what you specifically want the perms to be. For anyone to come in and change that would be overriding your initial decision. Think of how that would effect the trust factor, which isn't that great to begin with, between merchants and LL.

The only thing that can be done is to educate people and eventually things will start getting built either to scale or mod and scalable. I've even thought of how beneficial it might be if builders would make two versions of their buildings. One to scale and another to the larger scale that SL is used to atm. A lot won't want to take the trouble of doing that, but maybe a trend could get started and eventually become the norm.

But that process will be slow, and anyone who advocates for it has to live with the fact that there will be people that will criticize you for your beliefs, and accuse you of things you never even thought of. All I can say is keep up the good work, don't stray from what you believe so deeply to be true; and know that no matter what, everything will work out, one way or the other.

Of course the advent of mesh my change the whole playing field... only time will tell.

...Dres

[Dresden Ceriano]

I wish the U.S. would get on the ball and adopt the metric system. But we are simply too lazy to go through the trouble of learning anything new and unknown. Most of America still believes Pluto is a planet and, in fact, are emotionally involved in the concept that it is, even though it's been proven differently. Then there are the hordes of ignoramuses that believe that the blind faith acceptance of creationism actually equates to the scientifically backed up theory of evolution and continue to try to get this voodoo nonsense taught in our already struggling schools. Outrageous!

...Dres

[Void Singer]

pluto's planethood probably isn't a good example... it wasn't "proven" not to be, the scientific definition of what a planet is was changed, and the change excluded it.... and it's not just people in the US that find the change odd (people get attached to common definitions and forget that scientific definitions aren't the same thing)

as for the US... yes there should be more of a push to actually use metric, it's included nearly everywhere, but seldom expressed in those terms. there is a slight argument for imperial measure, in that it's roughly based on common fractions, but because those fractions don't often follow a linear sequence it would be more trouble to rework it to do so than to convert to metric.

[Josh Susanto]

I am by no means suggesting the opening of permissions other than a total resize permission, and, as I have said, I think it should default on no-mod items when the item is returned to the iventory.

I don't see how it's really so different from the rotation mod which is already open (yes, rotation IS a mod).

I'm from the U.S, but I don't live there. I grew up using both metric and that other crap, because my father is a science teacher who also liked to build things. Among people who build things in the U.S., nobody wants to be the first one to put a metric extension on a nonmetric building. Building codes are also not written in metric, and to switch to metric would mean massive retooling of lumber processing etc. etc. etc. 

The only reason I ever suggested using the English foot in SL is that it already seems to be in implicit use, at least assuming that the meter is not a meter. If people can't be persuaded to go metric in SL, though, I would prefer to see the Chinese foot used rather than the English foot, since the default cubes that litter sandboxes already seem to be so similar in size to the Chinese foot when compared to average avatar sizes, or the size implied by the Linden tape measure (which, yes, I know is "wrong").

Better still would be the Egyptian cubit, which is about the same size as the Chinese foot, but with fewer modern political implications. In fact, we could just have a viewer option that measures everything either in meters or in cubits, with a conspicuous explanation that these are actually two totally different scales of modeling.

Regarding Pluto: the definition was "changed" mostly only by making it no longer totally inconsistent and arbitrary.

For one thing, if you want to be a planet, you should really stop screwing around and get your ass onto the ecliptic.

 

[Luc Starsider]

Funnily enough, even if metric is the standard in european countries, non-metric measurements are still used in certain areas (at least where I live) - Boats and caravans are measured in feet, distance at sea in (nautical) miles, speed at sea are often measured in knots. Building materials - wooden planks specifically - in inches. Even some of the tools a car mechanic use are measured in inches.

- Luc -

[Void Singer]

cooking is another one... nautical culture is slow to change.. they have a heave emphasis on tradition. cooking is slow to change because common measure don't convert easily, and no one wants to put in that mush work converting old recipes to metric

[Drongle McMahon]

Ah. You might be able to answer this - How many soupcons are there in a pinch? :matte-motes-smile:

[Void Singer]

what's a soupcon?

[Dresden Ceriano]

Isn't it obvious? Someone that was put in prison for stealing soup... lol.

...Dres

[Void Singer]

I actually had to look it up... it's from french meaning "suspicion"... basically, a trace amount... but since a pinch isn't an accurate measurement... ::shrug::

[Drongle McMahon]

Yes. Sorry, I was too lazy to find out how to add the cedilla. :matte-motes-yawn:

[Uallas Borgin]

The literal translation of soupçon is suspicision. In the case of cooking it would be better translated by a "a hint of"; meaning just enough to leave someone who tastes your recepy doubting wether or not you put in that ingredient.

[Uallas Borgin]

A bit like going to listen live music on a weekend on SL:

 

2 cups of organically grown talent

250 ml of fun and good times (yes I am on metric)

a pinch of annoying gestures

and a slight hint of lag

 

 

[Dresden Ceriano]

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Uallas Borgin wrote:

A bit like going to listen live music on a weekend on SL:

 

2 cups of organically grown talent

250 ml of fun and good times (yes I am on metric)

a pinch of annoying gestures

and a slight hint of lag

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Warning: measurements my vary greatly by serving.

...Dres

[Josh Susanto]

"My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's how I like it!"

-Abe Simpson

[Penny Patton]

 I've posted a more complete version of this article on my blog.

Basically, I've compiled all of the additions and screenshots that would not fit into the original post here after I hit the character limit. Some of the stuff like the screenshots showing camera placement comparisons and a few more details about avatar proportion I had to cut to fit changes into the post here have all been compiled into a single, comprehensive article about scale in SL.

Also, I now have a blog!