Avatar sliders = Real world measurements?

[Kit Helix]

Does anyone know the formula (if there is one) that the avatar shape sliders correspond with as far as real life measurements?

 

Such as a 19 inch head is 19 on the sliders?  (It isn't as far as I can tell)

 

 

[Void Singer]

I don't know if anyone has bothered to build a formula for it, but if they did it would be complex since several sliders also affect others

[Kit Helix]

I figured LL had some basis for the numbering system and maybe someone knew it....*crosses fingers*

[Penny Patton]

There is no way to easily equate the sliders with real world measurements.

For example, the height slider is one of about four sliders which affects your height. I've made shapes with a height of 0 on the height slider which were taller than shapes with a height of about 10. 

 

 Also if you play with certain sliders, again the "height" slider is a good example, you'll notice that it is not a smooth rise in height as you move the slider towards the tallest end of the scale. In certain places it "jumps".

[Penny Patton]

Also, the sliders are not consistent between the male and female meshes.

A perfectly proportional 5'5" woman would need the arm length slider set between 90 and 100 to have proportional arms. 

A perfectly proportional 6' tall man would need the arm length slider set between 60-70 to achieve the same proportions.

[Pikachu Nakamura]

As far as I can tell, there is no real life basis for the measurements. Women are wasp-waisted barbie dolls, men are built like giant gorillas. Too much wishful thinking goes into most avatar designs. As for proportions,

[Pussycat Catnap]

The SL avatars meshes just plain out baffle me.

At the time SL was in development I was very active in using tools like Poser and Carrara and Bryce... amatuer 3D tools. There were a -lot- of free human body meshes online in various levels of polygon detail. And for Poser there was a lot of work on making figures with simple easy to use and understandable morphing to make all kinds of different looks with them.

3D gaming was and still is very big. But at the time a lot of people still believed you could get into it on the cheap - so there were a lot of amatuer efforts that again made decent human figures for as low a polygon count as they could.

In short there was a vibrant community of people who 'got it' about what was needed.

SL looks like it was made by people who consulted absolutely no one in the 3D art and gaming communities. Not a soul.

I imagine a pack of code geeks who were making a mental 'networking excercise' combined with a text based MUD. At the last minute somebody though - hey, why don't we put graphics on this thing? And a week later SL was in open beta.

It just looks that hacked together.

 

Someday there might be a virtual world that is accepted all over the world by a great number of people, but I don't think SL has the ability to be it. The networking standards are too slow, and the attention was not made to artistic needs at the critical early point in its life cycle. Its the precursor, not the arrival. And the eventual virtual world is going to be a lot more like a game - because the 'net' is moving to augmented reality rather than virtual reality. Virtual reality will be where we go to get entertained.