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


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Dresden Ceriano wrote:

And have you gotten anywhere with it?

 I always find this question, and similar comments, kinda odd. If I had posted a tutorial about sculpt making, efficient texture mapping, or how to do low-lag scripting, would you ask the same question? If you're really curiuous, I believe you answered your own question by the end of your post. The trend is undeniably, if slowly, towards more correctly sized avatars.

 Regarding all the other questions you asked, every single one of them is answered the first post. You'll actually find some of your questions in large, bolded lettering followed by an answer.

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This is a very well written article, Penny!

I agree totally - even if I'm currently on the tall side - with the want of a more realistic scale for both avatars and objects in world.

I suggest that this article is nominated for inclusion in the knowledge base somewhere.

- Luc -

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Penny Patton wrote:


Dresden Ceriano wrote:

And have you gotten anywhere with it?

 I always find this question, and similar comments, kinda odd. If I had posted a tutorial about sculpt making, efficient texture mapping, or how to do low-lag scripting, would you ask the same question? If you're really curiuous, I believe you answered your own question by the end of your post. The trend is undeniably, if slowly, towards more correctly sized avatars.

 Regarding all the other questions you asked, every single one of them is answered the first post. You'll actually find some of your questions in large, bolded lettering followed by an answer.

Maybe I should have phrased it differently, what I meant by that question is have you noticed that it's working? In other words, are people actually starting to build things that are scaled more realistically? I certainly wasn't questioning the content of your OP in any way. My questions were not about why or if it should be done, but how do we accomplish it?

I mean, should the system be changed some way or do we just try to educate people and eventually change their perspective on it? That's why I asked about the incentive a builder would have to create a house to scale now, when if they're trying to sell it, most people would think it's too small and not want to buy it. I didn't see the answer to that question in the OP and thought it was something worth thinking about. I was hoping you might have some thoughts on it.

And my belief is that LL has to be part of the effort for it to really take off. You make a very compelling argument as to why they should. I just wonder if they ever will.

Btw, I agree with Luc, your OP should be included the knowledge base... perhaps it should be brought up at the next CTUG. Of course that's up to you, but I'd certainly bring it up if you want me to.

...Dres

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When I joined SL over 2 years ago I noticed a few 'short' avatars and heard a few people talk about realistic scales.

Today I find measurement objects at sims, lots of real size avatars and more and more realistic scaled objects and sims.

My sim is semi realistic scaled and everything in my shop is too small for the people who are not of realistic size.

And I am not the only one doing that

Some of SL's best cars are now being sold at a more real size.

Since I first got in SL I do feel there has been some change in this isssue and more and more avatars are either changing or at least know and understand they are very very tall.

But yes, LL has to be part of the effort, making a much more realistic avatar builder and giving new people more realistic avatars would do a lot of good.

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Blaze Nielsen wrote:

Frankly, I prefer the tall look to the short, dumpy "real" proportions you are advocating. My aesthetics strongly favor the tall look. "Real" proportioned women in SLlook like midgets to me, even without a comparative avatar standing near them. When it comes to scale

 Earlier I pointed out that I in no way advocated any body type and asserted that it was possible to get the "tall look" with shorter avatars. If the avatars in this lineup look like "short, dumpy midgets" to you then...well, that would actually be kinda frightening.

scale lineup.jpg

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Dresden Ceriano wrote:

Maybe I should have phrased it differently, what I meant by that question is have you noticed that it's working? 

 Well, in 2005 avatars under 6' were practically unheard of. Most of those who thought they were under 6' were using incorrect scripted height detectors. That's not to say there were no avatars under 6' back then, only that they were extremely rare.

 Now, it's common.

Now there are at least three major RP sims/communities in SL which advocate properly scaled avatars. 1920's Berlin, Doomed Ship and The Wastelands.

 About a dozen people purchase my camera correcting HUD attachment off of the SL Marketplace every day. Many are also using the even better in-client fix I linked to in my article about scale.

Around 2007-2008 nearly every adult sim had rules against avatars under 6' tall, which were enforced with broken height detectors. Now, such sims are extremely rare.

 Pretty much every third party SL viewer displays avatar height in the appearance editor. It's become a standard feature. LL added this to the official viewer as of SL 2.1, tho LL's version is broken.

I do agree that this problem would be best solved by LL themselves. Look at the number of accounts you see these days without the old username surnames. Imagine of all those .resident accounts began with properly scaled starter avatars, an appearance editor that wasn't broken and had camera placement that was not an obsolete leftover from late 90's videogames.

 That is also why I posted this in the content creation forums, so more content creators, seeing the benefits, would put additional pressure on LL to make changes that should have been made long ago. So, yes, feel free to bring this up at user group meetings.

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Jo Yardley wrote:

Some of SL's best cars are now being sold at a more real size.

 Actually, glad you rought up vehicles. I wanted to edit my original post to mention this but I've apparently hit the character limit.

Years ago Cubey Terra, owner of Abbott's Aerodome, one of the most successful, if not the most successful, maker of aircraft in SL put on an exhibit displaying how scale affected vehicles in SL.

Cubey created some small planes users could actually control remotely, with their avatar remaining on the ground. The planes were small enough that the interior of the aerodome became larger than multiple sims combined, from the perspective of those flying the planes.

 

I already pointed that double scaling environments effectively reduces sim sizes to 1/4th, it's worth pointing out that this affects vehicles as well. If you make your car, areoplane or boat double sized, you are reducing size of the sim relative to that vehicle. A 1=1 scale car has four times as much area to drive in as a double scaled car.

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RL scale me in RL scale sim with RL scale car.

Driving around is awesome, especially in mouse look.

I can drive it trough very narrow streets and wherever I park it, it fits into the scene.

Park it anywhere outside our sim and it looks like a toy.

Snapshot_099.jpg

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Just wanted to add to this thread that I've been following Penny's works for years. I've been proudly 5' 7 since February 2008 (except for an temporary issue with a broken height detector :P). My personal builds are always scaled realistically, and I've never been called a midget/pygmy/child av.

I've been using (a slightly modified, but that's the point) Penny's windlight day cycle, height detector and camera offsets since she posted them.

It's improved my SL, and I'm very grateful for her hard work.

Most of my friends are a similar height.

Those that aren't 'to scale' look weird to me, as opposed to being 'normal'. I think that's fine.

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Hahaha don't bump your head!

 

Oh another thing, not sure if its mentioned here, but if Herr Ceriano would visit 1920s Berlin and asked me to dance, chances are I'd be floating a few feet above the ground while dancing.

Not because I'd be walking on air or be swept of my feet, but because poseballs suffer too if avatars and builders all use a different idea of scale.

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That's right, I completely left out the impact of SL's scale issues on animations! It's not limited to poseballs, either. Almost everyone has, at one time or another, seen an AO animation either leave their avatar floating just off the ground, or sinking into it.

Most avatars tend to have extremely bad issues with ground sit poses.

I may have to write up additional sections to this article and put them all together on a blog somewhere.

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Dres. I have nominated the thread for inclusion in the KB. It could easily be brought up in the CTUG meeting as well, just to make sure.

@Thread. The animation issue strikes me as being unrelated to scale, but more to the fact that avatars are different heights, with different length legs and hip position (hip being the root bone of the avatar). Avatars scaled accurately would only help so much. Some would still hover above ground while others would sink in to the ground.

- Luc -

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A further point is that mesh objects are going to have a prim equivalent quantity that is charged against the parcel prim allowance. This is usually based on the "streaming cost" which is very dependent on size (It is actually a combination of quadratic functions). If static meshes are to become at all widerspread, reducing scale may result in have very substantial savings of prim allocation.

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Well, a very interesting opinion piece to say the least, and especially the benchmark of the average NA male...that was a joke right? I have no real problem with you wanting to make your little part of SL more 'realistic', more power to your proportionally perfect elbow, its just that in this rather odd and diverse place its not my cup of tea. I rather love the surreal side. Role playing realism fits right up there with all the other RP communities to me - hooray for everyone :)

I have seen this 'Campaign For Real Heights' (with apologies to Mr Pratchett) appearing in a lot of peoples profiles over the last two years, with such endearing bylines of the type summarised as 'I'm normal, why aren't you' and my reaction is - well indifference really. I've seen some lovely builds that are scaled correctly where I stood out like a [insert metaphor here] and, terrible though it may seem, I think thats great. I wouldn't live there but there again I don't have a 'house' here anyway.

I do agree though that there should be a finer NoMod option, allowing scaling of linksets in all three dimensions without the risk of breaking a build. 110% behind that one as a lot of those scale problems would vanish. Although like most I don't buy anything thats no Mod unless I just need it once and I'm in a hurry. ..

So go for it....but movement? Really :)

Cheerfully 1m75 and 59 kilos in RL, and what ever I feel like when I'm here..

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Amen!


What would be ways to encourage mass adoption of this?

1. Linden default AVs need to be shorter. Without this, it's a losing battle. Period.

2. The editor for avatars should show what the person's height is as one edits. "Oh, hey, 7' tall? That's a little much. Lemme scale it down a bit..."

3. Widespread ridicule of tall avatars. (Kidding. .... sort of...)

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Hiro Pendragon wrote:

Amen!


What would be ways to encourage mass adoption of this?

1. Linden default AVs need to be shorter. Without this, it's a losing battle. Period.

2. The editor for avatars should show what the person's height is as one edits. "Oh, hey, 7' tall? That's a little much. Lemme scale it down a bit..."

3. Widespread ridicule of tall avatars. (Kidding. .... sort of...)

Yes exactly that.

NOBODY cares if people want to be different have weird, unusual, fantasy, giant, barbie like or whatever kind of body.

That is one of the great things about SL, you can be what or who you want to be.

I often see avatars that I think are absolutely awesome even if they are totally unrealistic.

For me personally realism is what I want in my sim, my roleplay, my second life.

Everyone should be what they want to be.

AS LONG we know what is average and realistic.

This way people can create stuff that fits everyone OR for giants OR for tinies or whatever.

SL has a realistic scale, everyone who builds knows that, if you put a prim down it is half a meter by half a meter by half a meter.

Nothing to discuss there, it is what it is.

It is plain weird that they never considered using the same scale for the avatars.

So these 3 points are great.

The default human avatars should be realistically scaled so everyone who joins SL knows they are what they are and can then decide to be very tall or very small but at least they know.

And yes, as soon as you start playing with your avatar you should see the measurements change.

If it was up to me we would see all sorts of measurements.

I'd LOVE to just put my RL measurements into the editor and see an avatar look just like RL me, right now it is all a bit of guess work.

And yes, a little FRIENDLY FUN POLITE ridicule is always ok... sort of ;)

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Hiro Pendragon wrote:

3. Widespread ridicule of tall avatars. (Kidding. .... sort of...)

Lol... Phrased a little differently, sure. I've heard a lot about people being ridiculed for being too short and it's easy to see why some would be inclined to ridicule right back. But just informing someone that you are of appropriate scale without getting defensive about it, would do a lot of good.

I've seen a lot of those type of disclaimers, as sirhc pointed out, in profiles and some of them can sound rather defensive... perhaps those that choose to put a disclaimer in their profile could just state it clearly without lashing out and even add a link to this thread (or the article when it's published, whether on a blog or in the KB). Then maybe it wouldn't come off as us against them, but still get the message out.

...Dres

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Jo Yardley wrote:

If it was up to me we would see all sorts of measurements.

Oh I wish, how nice would it be to have measurements on the sliders instead of just numbers. This in itself would probably go a long way to not only encourage proper scale but better proportions as well. I wonder how hard it would be for LL to change that. I know nothing about code and all that stuff, but it seems like it would be quite possible even if it is a bit complicated.

My thought about the possibility of this actually happening, is that a TPV would probably do it long before LL would, if they could, that is. I have no idea myself, but I want it... now... lol.

...Dres

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Dresden Ceriano wrote:


Hiro Pendragon wrote:

3. Widespread ridicule of tall avatars. (Kidding. .... sort of...)

Lol... Phrased a little differently, sure. I've heard a lot about people being ridiculed for being too short and it's easy to see why some would be inclined to ridicule right back. But just informing someone that you are of appropriate scale without getting defensive about it, would do a lot of good.

 This.

I've never been a fan of harassing, mocking, or otherwise getting snarky ("I'm normal, why aren't you?") with other avatars just because they're giant sized.

We see the results of that in this thread from a couple of posters where baggage from those kinds of experiences confuses the issue in their minds and makes them more defensive than open to understanding exactly "why" it's an issue. It leads people to focus on the "realistic sizes" (Maybe I don't WANT to be realistic!) while ignoring the impacts on diversity (their ability to be "unrealistic"), the money they pay for land, aqnd our ability to create within SL's limits.

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The thing is, most people just don't understand why they'd be better off at scale. I just had a conversation about it with my RL roommate, who's been in SL as long as I have, and it took a while for me to explain it to her so that she understood. That's what makes your OP so great... it lays it all out in a way that people can comprehend. I should have just told her to come here and read it... lol.

...Dres

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