How tall are you?

[Ceka Cianci]

yes i know i won't be able to get my exact rl sizes..i would be like a child avatar then hehehe..

i have to stay around the 5'7 maybe even 5'5 range to get what seems like 4'10 to me lol..my only concern really is just matching up with my husband in here now..he is a big man anyways and where i come up to him now is about where i want to be..

i just have to get all the bumps and dips in the right spot now LOL

[Bree Giffen]

I am about 6 feet tall. I make or buy full perm furniture so that everything is the right size in my home. Whenever I bring in new furniture, the first time I rez it in my house really shows to me how incredibly large furniture is built nowadays.

I think that what is happening with size is this. The 3rd person over-the-shoulder view that we have in SL is pretty much the 1st person view of a person who is larger than our avatar and standing behind them. It is this '3rd person' that all of our furniture and housing has been designed for.  However, upon walking our avatar around this 'embiggened' house, we find our avatar too small and unconsciously need to make them taller. This however causes the '3rd person' to also become taller and once again we find the need to make our homes larger. A vicious cycle indeed.

[Phil Deakins]

I don't agree about the "vicious cycle", Bree. Once the sizes of everything have been adjusted so that the avatar can move around inside a building and see reasonably well, no further adjustments are needed, which is why avatars, houses, furniture, and such quickly settled on the general sizes that have been in SL from the start.

Imo, it's best not to equate the SL metre with the RL metre. The SL dollar has a different value to the U.S. dollar, and both have different values to the Australian dollar; i.e. they are completely diffferent and bear no relationship to each other, except the word that is used for them. Similarly, the SL metre has a different length to the RL metre. Only the word is the same. SL is a different world to RL and everything in it could be tiny, huge, or the same when compared to RL. There's no way of knowing, since the two can't mix. The word "metre" is merely a word that is used to denote a particular length, but what that length is in comparison to RL lengths, nobody knows.

Or look at it another way. In the RL world things are made, including buildings and furniture, to suit the general size and nature (where they view from) of the inhabitants. The same is true of the SL world. Buildings and furniture are made to suit the general size and nature of the inhabitants, without any reference to any other world, including the RL world. Sizes don't keep increasing in a vicious cycle. They have been stable since the beginning.

 

ETA: I like this topic Apparently, it's a common one but I haven't seen it discussed in any depth before. Yesterday, it dawned on me that either the SL metre is a different unit to the RL metre, and only the word used is the same, or the general sizes in the SL world are naturally larger than the general sizes in the RL world - just like landing on another RL inhabited planet. That's why I like the topic.

I see that smileys are working again.

[Marianne Little]

I am surprised, since you are not new to the forums. You must have seen some of it..

(Apparently, it's a common one but I haven't seen it discussed in any depth before. Yesterday, it dawned on me that either the SL metre is a different unit to the RL metre, and only the word used is the same, or the general sizes in the SL world are naturally larger than the general sizes in the RL world - just like landing on another RL inhabited planet. That's why I like the topic. )

 

I link to a blog here, the same is also posted on this forum along with numerous other posts, even a quick and instructive guide how to set the camera angle so you get a better view. That is the top link. The rest is just a few threads, it is lots to pick from. 

http://sl.governormarley.com/?p=483 

http://pennycow.blogspot.com/2011/07/matter-of-scale.html

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Building-and-Texturing-Forum/Scale/td-p/1315605

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Building-and-Texturing-Forum/A-Matter-of-Scale-How-scale-affects-content-creation-and-land/td-p/943101

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Your-Avatar/small-in-real-life-but-not-allowed-in-SL/td-p/1061707

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Your-Avatar/Trying-to-based-off-my-real-life-height/m-p/993755#M7770

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Your-Avatar/So-what-s-up-with-this-obsession-with-realistic-avatars/td-p/946427 

 

[Phil Deakins]

Ty, Marianne. The way Dresden mentioned it, it sounded like a topic that gets thrashed about a lot, similar to the way bots and temp rezzers used to get thrashed about a lot, but none of those threads are in sub-forums that I normally look in, so I wouldn't have normally seen them. I only looked in this sub-forum because I couldn't stop my av from being a cloud and I needed advice. I'll go and have a read of those threads and, if any are reasonably current, I might join in

[Baloo Uriza]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

Imo, it's best not to equate the SL metre with the RL metre. The SL dollar has a different value to the U.S. dollar, and both have different values to the Australian dollar; i.e. they are completely diffferent and bear no relationship to each other, except the word that is used for them.

---

[citation needed].  Currency units aren't standard, but weight and measure is.

[Phil Deakins]

Not in this world. It's an entirely different world, y'know. Or perhaps I should ask you to prove it

[Baloo Uriza]

The Linden Dollar is officially documented as being different.  The meter isn't.

[Kelli May]

Gravity is pegged at 9.8m/s^2 in SL physics, just as in RL. I don't think that proves that metres are the same, but it's pretty strong evidence they are intended to be.

[Phil Deakins]

That doesn't make any difference.

I'm saying that the word "metre" is just a word. If it's treated as being the same as an RL metre, then things in SL are huge. That's fine too because SL can be thought of as a world where things are huge. But, since it's just a word, it can be treated as having no relationship at all with the RL metre, other than the word that's used to denote a particular length, which makes SL sizes to be perfectly fine. It doesn't need an official stamp to treat the SL metre as being different to the RL metre.

The only size problems that occur are because the SL metre is taken to be the same as the RL meter, but if they are thought of as being different, then there aren't any size problems. If LL hadn't called it a "metre", but called is something completely different to any RL unit of length, then nobody would find any problems with sizes. It's only when trying to equate SL sizes with RL sizes that people find problems.

[Phil Deakins]

---

Kelli May wrote:

Gravity is pegged at 9.8m/s^2 

in SL physics, just as in RL. I don't think that proves that metres are the same, but it's pretty strong evidence they are intended to be.

---

I've no doubt that SL metres were, and still are, intended by LL to be the same as RL metres, but that's not the point. The point is that, if you, as an individual, treat SL metres as being totally unrelated to RL metres, then you won't find any size problems in SL. You won't find avatars, buildings or furniture to be unrealistically big because they have developed to be realistically sized in the SL world, which is not the RL world. It's only that word "metres" that stops people seeing it for what it really is.

[Baloo Uriza]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

I've no doubt that SL metres were, and still are, intended by LL to be the same as RL metres, but that's not the point. The point is that, if you, as an individual, treat SL metres as being totally unrelated to RL metres, then you won't find any size problems in SL.

---

Or if you understand scale and proportion and what a freaking meter is, you don't have this problem either.  Knowing what the base unit of measure is should be fundamental to anybody making content.  Ignoring it is just making it harder on yourself.  Ignoring it and saying it doesn't matter is just blaming the world for self-created problems.

[Phil Deakins]

You don't seem to understand why things are bigger in SL than they are in RL. It's solely because of your view, which makes it necessary to make bigger things. We went through all that earlier in the thread.

Or if you think that things of realistic RL sizes can work in SL, perhaps you will explain to me how an avatar can move around normally in a 12' x 12' furnished living room in SL, and actually be able to see in there. I don't mind if you make the room slightly bigger and use a 4m x 4m room.

[Baloo Uriza]

Yeah, you seemed to ignore the overarching message from multiple posters in this thread that it's not necessarily a good thing, and the recent trends towards 1:1 scale with prototypical reality.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Kelli May wrote:

Gravity is pegged at 9.8m/s^2 

in SL physics, just as in RL. I don't think that proves that metres are the same, but it's pretty strong evidence they are intended to be.

---

That reminds me of the old question, "Which falls faster, a pound of cotton or a pound of steel?"

But speaking in general here to the overall discussion, I don't think that there is any question that all the problems began with decisions that were made by LL way back when.  When the transition from Primitar to Avatar happened, at that moment when the Linden gods hit the "enter' key on their keyboard, I don't think they realized the long term effects of some of the choices they made. 

If in the early days of Second Life the Linden gods had caused a deep sleep to fall upon the Avatar while they took from it a rib and made a new body for it to dwell in, today we would not be seeing the scaling and related problems that we see. 

But today, should the Linden gods attempt to fix, I think we would see something on the scale of the great flood.  Only two Avatars, six of their children, and two of every kind of Furry, a male and a female of each, would survive.

Could it happen by attrition as one OP I know has suggested?  Possibly.  But there is just too much dang content right now that would break if an attempt was made to fix it in one swoop.

I have also heard it suggested that the Linden gods 'shrink' the Avatars given to new residents as a way to start correcting the problem.  But how will those people feel when they sign up for SL and find themselves thrust into a land of giants.

Maybe there is a Linden god smart enough to fix this.  I just don't know.

[Phil Deakins]

I added this to the previous post while you were writing yours so you probably haven't seen it:-

Or if you think that things of realistic RL sizes can work in SL, perhaps you will explain to me how an avatar can move around normally in a 12' x 12' furnished living room in SL, and actually be able to see in there. I don't mind if you make the room slightly bigger and use a 4m x 4m room.

 

Now to your latest post...

I'm not ignoring anyone in this thread. I've responded to everyone who's been in this discussion. Not agreeing doesn't mean ignoring, and responding definitely isn't ignoring.

I don;t care what the latest "trend" may be. 1:1 sizes of buildings, furniture and avatars (i.e. same sizes as the real world) cannot work in SL. There is absolutely no doubt about that. If you wish to prove me wrong, please do as I asked and explain to me how a 12' x 12' living room can work in SL. Bear in mind that adjusting the camera position isn't an option. It has to work with the default.

[Phil Deakins]

Really, nothing needs fixing. All it takes is to treat the SL metre as being unrelated in size to the RL metre, and there isn't a problem.

[Coby Foden]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

Bear in mind that adjusting the camera position isn't an option. It has to work with the default.

---

Phil, why are you so stubborn with the default camera position? And insist on building things bigger because of the bad default camera position? Why changing it is not an option in your mind?

It can be adjusted, a new default can be put in all viewers (if there is a will). In addition to the third person view it is possible to add also good first person view (if Linden Lab is willing to do so) which works well in small places.

I agree to some extent, as avatars are clumsy in movement, that a bit bigger rooms than in RL would be nice. But I don't agree to your view that everything must be built bigger. It just isn't true. Which fact you can check in places which actually are built to RL scale. Naturally you need to wear RL sized avatar and have adjusted your viewer's default camera settings before you can enjoy the RL sized things. RL sized things do work in SL, there is no question about it.

What is totally silly in present situation is that some designers make designs in 1:1 scale, some make things 1.25 times bigger, some make things 1.5 times bigger. Some might make them even bigger. Thus the scale of things is not consistent. Which is not so nice thing when you explore places a lot.

 

 

[Phil Deakins]

---

Coby Foden wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

Bear in mind that adjusting the camera position isn't an option. It has to work with the default.

---

Phil, why are you so stubborn with the default camera position?

And insist on building things bigger

because

of the bad default camera position? Why changing it is not an option in your mind?

---

Because the norm is to use the default camera position. It doesn't make sense to make things for sale that are only any good for a minority (those who have adjusted their camera position). Well, I suppose it does make sense if you are content to only to sell to the minority, but most creators/sellers make things for the majority. I'm not being stubborn. I'm being realistic.

You said yourself that rooms need to be bigger and I agree with that. But then put an RL-size sofa against the wall in the bigger room and suddenly it looks much too small for the room, perhaps unless the room is in an RL-type mansion, but in a typical living room, it's too small. So make the sofa's size suitable for the living room, and then the av looks too small on it. So make the av suitable for the sofa, and it works. The sizes of room, sofa and person are suited to each other and life in the SL world works well.

The thing is, real world sizes are irrelevant because SL isn't the real world. Just as sizes of rooms and furniture in the real world were developed to suit the sizes of people there, so the sizes of rooms, furniture AND people (avs) in SL have developed to suit the SL world where they exist - the world where people's seeing organ is behind and above the head. Trying to force the sizes of things in one world to match the sizes of thngs in another world doesn't make sense to me, because they are different worlds. What does make sense to me is having the sizes of things in this world suitable for this world. I don't see any point in trying to force them to be any different when they work perfectly well together as they are.

---

What is totally silly in present situation is that some designers make designs in 1:1 scale, some make things 1.25 times bigger, some make things 1.5 times bigger. Some might make them even bigger. Thus the scale of things is not consistent. Which is not so nice thing when you explore places a lot.

---

I agree with that. If everyone accepted that SL is not the real world, and that the sizes of things in the SL world should actually suit the SL world, just as the sizes of things in the real world suit the real world, then it wouldn't come up for discussion. What's "silly", imo, is the very idea that SL sizes ought to be RL sizes. As long as people's seeing organ is behind and above the head, there's no sense in trying to pretend it's not so, imo, and things should generally be made to suit that condition. Most people accept it, of course. It's just the few who seem to want it to be different.

 

ETA: One more thing. In the SL world there are all sorts of animals that move around on 2 feet and talk, there are martians (hi Perrie), there are humans, there are all sorts of beings, not to mention all sorts of objects that don't exist in the real world. The SL world is not a copy of the RL world, so why try to think of it as a copy? It doesn't make sense to me.

[Nova Convair]

---

Coby Foden wrote:

It can be adjusted, a new default can be put in all viewers (if there is a will). In addition to the third person view it is possible to add also good first person view (if Linden Lab is willing to do so) which works well in small places.

 

---

There is absolutely no reason to do this and theres is no will to do this. By the way - suggestions like this try to force that sight of things on everyone.

SL is made in the way it is and that way has nothing to do with RL. It's ok for me - you just can't rebuild RL things 100% accurate  in a way that fits into the SL world but thats no reason to change SL for everyone.

In the future things can and will change but the existing SL world is a big weight that will prevent big or rapid changes.

Another point I noticed is that there is more space if everything is smaller. Well, thats not quite true. It's not the space that limits it's the number of prims that limits. If i have more space to fill i need more prims. So do i need more space at the moment? Not me - give me more prims and then I'll think about the space.

 

[Coby Foden]

---

Nova Convair wrote:

Coby Foden wrote:

It can be adjusted, a new default can be put in all viewers (if there is a will). In addition to the third person view it is possible to add also good first person view (if Linden Lab is willing to do so) which works well in small places.

---

There is absolutely no reason to do this and theres is no will to do this. By the way - suggestions like this try to force that sight of things on everyone.

---

There is very good reason to do this. The present default camera location is a design flaw by a bad decision which has been made in the past.

I have kept my camera location, now for over one year, in a lot lower location than the viewer default is. With that setting,  the perspective of the world and the things in it, is much better than with the default setting. The perspective looks a lot more natural. At first this new view might look a bit strange. But after a while, there is no going back to the default view. The new view is so much better.

When I try the viewer default location, the world looks weird with distorted perspective. What else can a "camera on a tree top view" produce than a distorted perspective? This distorted perspective is also one cause which enhances the need to make and use oversized human avatars, because you are looking at yourself in steep angle from behind. Just look at the many ladies with crasshopper like very long legs. Distorted view tends to produce distorted avatars.

 

PS.

I'm not trying to "force" anything. Just making suggestions how the SL world could look better in perspective and in consistent scale. :smileywink:

[Marigold Devin]

I always find threads about height and proportion fascinating.  They are as fascinating to me as watching 'Escape to the Country' on BBC TV, where often the presenter, who is asked to find a selection of prospective perfect new homes for a couple.  They give them their requirements, likes and dislikes, and then they are shown three properties.  As the older cottages have very low ceilings and smaller doorways (because people were shorter in real life hundreds of years ago, and humans have evolved over the ensuing years), many times the prospective buyer has to actually duck to get under the doorways, and there is very little head room when they get into a room or two.

In Second Life, I do not have the hangups that a lot of people seem to have.  My avatar(s) all vary in shape and size (and species), as do real people.  Photograph a room full of people and you will see exactly what I mean.

Going back to the 'Escape to the Country' programme, one couple consisted of a man who was 6'4" tall, who was married to a woman only 4'12" height.  Rude and ignorant people would undoubtedly make negative remarks about/towards them.  They are in real life and can only change their height by stooping, wearing heels, or standing on boxes.  In Second Life we are so very very lucky that we can change the height, shape, dimensions of everything.

And my own height in RL is 5'5", in SL I am 6'8". My partner is probably around a foot shorter (but I can't quite fit her into my pocket :matte-motes-wink-tongue: )

[Coby Foden]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

ETA: One more thing. In the SL world there are all sorts of animals that move around on 2 feet and talk, there are martians (hi Perrie), there are humans, there are all sorts of beings, not to mention all sorts of objects that don't exist in the real world. The SL world is not a copy of the RL world, so why try to think of it as a copy? It doesn't make sense to me.

---

Sure Phil, there are all kinds of creatures in SL. Tiny ones, big ones, huge ones. Which is very nice indeed as it adds variety and "awsomeness" to this virtual world.

However the slogan "Your World - Your Imagination" should not be interpreted as "Your World - Your Random Whatever Inconsistent Scale". <-- (Here I'm referring to items in regard to human avatars and things for them.)

Right, SL is not a copy of RL. Nevertheless what SL lacks now is consistent scale. One designer uses whatever random scale which they think would look good. Other designer uses their random scale what they think looks ok. So, the end result is that SL is filled with randomly scaled things. This is not a good thing as I already mentioned earlier.

 

[Ian Undercroft]

 

I find Phil's line of reasoning compelling.

I'd challenge anyone to recreate in SL their RL own home and furniture to exact scale and then to try and navigate around that home. Unless you happen in RL to live in a very sparsely furnished mansion, it would be as good as impossible no matter what your camera angle!

SL rooms have to be larger than in RL in order to enable navigation and viewing through a trailing camera. Furniture has to be larger than in RL so that those rooms don't then look empty. 

 

 

 

[Phil Deakins]

---

Coby Foden wrote:

I have kept my camera location, now for over one year, in a lot lower location than the viewer default is.

---

Just out of interest, how close to the back of your head is your camera? It's the distance behind that makes RL-size rooms too small.