How's It Going Down There?!

[Pac Lorefield]

Has anyone else noticed that avatars, especially females, are starting to get shorter and shorter?  Is there a weird new phase I didn't hear about?

[Peggy Paperdoll]

I'm one of those shorter females.........I haven't noticed all those giants getting any taller. 

[Pussycat Catnap]

Here we go again.

Just to give the usual pre-flight instructions...

The report abuse button is on the menu at top-right of the post, under options.

When refering to 1m, please remember to ask if the poster means 1m = 1 RL meter, 1 SL meter, both as equivalent, or has some conversion between them from a particular SL alt-cult.

Avatars under 6' are not child avatars. Avatars under 7' ARE child avatars. Avatars over 8' are normal. Avatars over 4' are giants. - state your positions upfront please. Undecided voters can GTFO now, or be forever scarred by the horrors soon to follow.

Please put on your own flame-retardant before applying flame retardant to the child AV seated next to you.

Popcorn will be served during the intermission. I'm sorry, but the show's already started and its too late to get up to get some.

 The 4096m high club needs to wait until we hit page 11 to qualify.

 

[Pac Lorefield]

Well I don't really care too much but I've seen a lot of friends going short as well b/c they feel like they are giants lately.  I wasn't trying to be a smart ass with the question. I was serious about it.  I may have already figured out my answer any ways -  as I start to try on mesh outfits.

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

Here we go again.

Just to give the usual pre-flight instructions...

The report abuse button is on the menu at top-right of the post, under options.

When refering to 1m, please remember to ask if the poster means 1m = 1 RL meter, 1 SL meter, both as equivalent, or has some conversion between them from a particular SL alt-cult.

Avatars under 6' are not child avatars. Avatars under 7' ARE child avatars. Avatars over 8' are normal. Avatars over 4' are giants. - state your positions upfront please. Undecided voters can GTFO now, or be forever scarred by the horrors soon to follow.

Please put on your own flame-retardant before applying flame retardant to the child AV seated next to you.

Popcorn will be served during the intermission. I'm sorry, but the show's already started and its too late to get up to get some.

 The 4096m high club needs to wait until we hit page 11 to qualify.

 

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Hahaha!!!  Well said!  /me finds her flame-retardant outfit and starts the popcorn popper.

Cinn

P.S. You should repeat this post as often as needed.

[Theresa Tennyson]

I think more people are trying to have their avatars be a "realistic" height and match their RL height. People are also using viewers that report theoretical height to the top of the head rather than bounding-box height, which is to the top of the spine and is what most height detectors report.

[Perrie Juran]

When i first read the title of the thread i glanced down and thought, looks like it's still hanging pretty good.

 

But now having read the OP's post, my humble opinion is that this 'imagined' problem will never go away until Linden Lab addresses it globally.  The reason I say 'imagined' is because it only became an issue when people decided to make it an issue.  But please do not get me wrong here, that does not mean that I do not think it needs to be fixed.

But this does bring to mind a question, I'd be curious what the default hights are of the current Avatars LL is offering to new Residents.

My current list of priorities does not allow me the time to go research this, but it would be interesting to know. 

[Kelli May]

That struck me as interesting too, Perrie, so I did a quick check. All heights without shoes, measured by prim in a fully upright pose.

Female City - 1.9m
Female Bollywood - 1.98m
Female Action - 1.98m
Female Average - 1.97m
Female Dancer - 1.89m
Female Pirate - 1.88m
Female Steampunk - 1.83m
Vampire Jayde - 1.945m
Vampire Ylara - 1.92m

For those of us still using feet and inches, that's about 6 feet tall for the shortest (Steampunk) and 6' 6" for the tallest (Bollywood... that's Bollywood in India, a country with one of the shortest average female heights in the world; the avatar looks about as Indian as Minnie Driver). The average over these nine avatars is around 1.92m (just over 6' 3.5"), so unless those I didn't try are all around the 5 foot mark, the trend for default avatars is still rather tall.

ETA: checked one male shape for comparison... male pirate 2.07m, or about 6' 9.5". That's the male equvalent of one of the shorter female shapes.

[Ceka Cianci]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

Here we go again.

Just to give the usual pre-flight instructions...

The report abuse button is on the menu at top-right of the post, under options.

When refering to 1m, please remember to ask if the poster means 1m = 1 RL meter, 1 SL meter, both as equivalent, or has some conversion between them from a particular SL alt-cult.

Avatars under 6' are not child avatars. Avatars under 7' ARE child avatars. Avatars over 8' are normal. Avatars over 4' are giants. - state your positions upfront please. Undecided voters can GTFO now, or be forever scarred by the horrors soon to follow.

Please put on your own flame-retardant before applying flame retardant to the child AV seated next to you.

Popcorn will be served during the intermission. I'm sorry, but the show's already started and its too late to get up to get some.

 The 4096m high club needs to wait until we hit page 11 to qualify.

 

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LOL i'm not getting in this one hehehehehe

i figure with mesh and most people not able to see half my body beause of it..i'm in a good shape this time around hehehehe

[LoveAngeL Lyre]

Hello Pac. They are no so short really. In SL avatars use to be giants, maybe 8'' tall. There is a big difference when you count height in Viewer 2-3 and when you count it in Phoenix. Phoenix counts right and you can check it if you use an accurate height detector. My height is 2.09cm (6'10'') with heels / 1.98cm (6'6'') without, and i am shorter than the most of my friends.

[Ceera Murakami]

I recently starteed trying to adjust my avatars to "realistic proportions", using a very nice prim height ruler that I found in the 1920's Berlin sim. That ruler measures actual height to top of head, and not eye height, as most avatar rulers measure, or some strange calculated offset as the current V3 and Phoenix et al try to do.

That dropped about 8 inched off my height, placing me at an exact 5'7" tall, without shoes on, as compared to the in-world measurement of prims.

The jury is still out, for me, as to whether or not I'll keep this size.

Much of the furniture that I own looks too big compared to my smaller scaled size, and I think I have noted a few issues with using very standard animations in pose balls. But I haven't gone "out and about" or interacted very much with others yet in this new size.

[MuffinUnsane1488303563]

I enjoy being 'short' and a five foot person. It makes me feel less like a giant tripping over my feet. Plus it means I use up less room when doing things.

 

Everyone just needs to do what their comfortable with and not care about the height of others. Besides, I've seen 'child' avatars that were taller than me.

[Marigold Devin]

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MuffinUnsane wrote:

I enjoy being 'short' and a five foot person. It makes me feel less like a giant tripping over my feet.

Plus it means I use up less room when doing things.

 

Everyone just needs to do what their comfortable with and not care about the height of others.

Besides, I've seen 'child' avatars that were taller than me.

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I agree.

Luckily for us in Second Life, we can choose the height/dimensions/proportions we want to be, unlike in real life, where certain things are more set in stone, such as genetics dictating skin tone, height, eye colour, that even drastic plastic surgery won't fix.

Just like in real life, in Second Life, one person's "out of proportion" can be someone else's ideal. It's why hat sizes, collar sizes, trouser lengths, etc., all vary so much.

*****

To the OP:

No. I can't say that I have noticed that avatars, especially female, are getting shorter and shorter in SL.  My partner is quite petite, but most of my friends are still about a foot taller than me, except for those who are robots, furries and child avatars. They do tend to vary quite a lot in all dimensions. (I am 6'8" in SL. I feel the right size for my little house and it's furniture).

 

Edited to add the word "is" in final paragraph.



[Pac Lorefield]

I hope folks don't think I'm trying to discriminate against size here.  I was just truly curious.  I've been here 3 years and this is the first time I'm noticing the differences.  I think as a builder I worry about proportion when it comes to building and poses.  I agree as well that you just make yourself how you want and are comfortable with!  Thanks for everyone's input!

[Pac Lorefield]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

When i first read the title of the thread i glanced down and thought, looks like it's still hanging pretty good.

 

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Oh goodness, that could be a whole seperate discussion.  There are a lot of men out there that need a crash course on color matching! Lol.

 

[Myth Valeska]

When I first started SL my Avi was  like 7 feet tall lol so I went a bit shorter because I felt like being somewhat "normal" (RL normal) but I'm still close to 6 feet tall. In some situations I feel like a shortie compared to Avi's around me which is pretty funny.

[Theresa Tennyson]

I don't know if this would be feasible, but it would be great if built items came with a resize script like many prim shoes and hair do, especially if it would adjust animation positions at the same time.

[Ceka Cianci]

can feel the lag already hehehehe

[Theresa Tennyson]

Most resize scripts are now a single deletable scriipt rather than the scripts in each prim like they used to be.

[Ceka Cianci]

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

Most resize scripts are now a single deletable scriipt rather than the scripts in each prim like they used to be.

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that would be wonderful if most or all of the creators decided to update to that..there are a lot still using the old way because scripting may not be their skill..

hopefully over time word of mouth will get around to them and they do switch =)

but really i guess a resize script in a build or in furniture would probably be one of the lessor evils in builds like that hehehe

 

 

[Senobia Xenga]

I'm glad to see it. I can't see how anyone would find those freakishly tall avatars with legs up to my forehead at all appealing, but eh - to each his own. I prefer a more 'realistic' look.

[Lanas Criss]

I've been looking for all the little people but there aren't any down here.  I'll ask them how it's going as soon as I find them...

(Sorry everyone... I was looking for a Picture Pose theme and this was too easy.  I'm done with my turn on night shifts and finished with my SL 'work' that buried me the last few weeks so I'm free to play.  Hopefully there will be plenty of inspiration this week)

Enjoy getting to know all the little ones running out and about!

Lanas

[Pac Lorefield]

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Lanas Criss wrote:

I've been looking for all the little people but there aren't any down here.  I'll ask them how it's going as soon as I find them...

(Sorry everyone... I was looking for a Picture Pose theme and this was too easy.  I'm done with my turn on night shifts and finished with my SL 'work' that buried me the last few weeks so I'm free to play.  Hopefully there will be plenty of inspiration this week)

Enjoy getting to know all the little ones running out and about!

Lanas

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Be careful some might see that as an advertisement.

[Ariel Vuissent]

Somehow I missed this one. It's nice to see someone mentioning this side of things, instead of "OMG!!! Why is everyone so tall?!?! You all look like freaks!" Which is the usual height post of late.

You've noticed the same thing I have - there is most definitely a trend towards "realistic" avatars, in terms of both height and proportion. (Which, by the way, are certainly correlated but not necessarily synonymous.) My own avi has acutally shrunk by about 4 or 5 inches recently, since I realized that as I tweaked her little by little, her proportions had gotten out of whack; eventually so much so that I noticed a significant difference from the shape I had originally liked.

It seems the longer people are in SL, the more they realize exactly how tall they actually are. And since 8, or even 7, feet is HUGE by RL standards, they want to shift to something more "normal," something that feels more realistic to them. And then other people see these shorter avi's and feel out of place and "freakish," so they shorten their own heights to more realistic standards.

My personal feeling is "to each their own." I didn't mind being nearly 7 feet tall, and I don't mind being just a little over 6 feet tall. It's all what looks good to each individual person, and I won't make fun of you if you won't make fun of me!

[Penny Patton]

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Pac Lorefield wrote:

I hope folks don't think I'm trying to discriminate against size here.  I was just truly curious.  I've been here 3 years and this is the first time I'm noticing the differences.  I think as a builder I worry about proportion when it comes to building and poses.  I agree as well that you just make yourself how you want and are comfortable with!  Thanks for everyone's input!

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It tends to be a bit of a touchy subject for several irrational reasons.

 First, there's the fact that so many people have no idea how tall they are, leading to the incorrect assumption that "short" avatars are children which in turn can lead to shorter avatars on the recieving end of some undeserved harrasment.

 That has lead to shorter avatars becoming irritable about the topic and harassing taller avatars for being giants. Understandable but not at all helpful.

 

 That said, there's actually some pretty good reasons to scale down and it's mind boggling that Linden Lab continues to provide gigantic starter avatars to new users and has failed to fix a bug in avatar size reporting which has lead to a lot of unecessary confusion. The whole situation is pretty inexcusable and remains one of SL's biggest obstacles to seeing real growth, if you'll pardon the pun, because of both the social issues and how it affects the quality of content created in SL.

 

 Here's an article I wrote on the topic some time ago, to give some perspective from someone who actually does visual design for a living. The scale issue affects pretty much everything, from animations to how much you pay for land. The impact has been huge and would be considered a "showstopper" level problem for any company other than LL.