Penny Patton

I'm actually surprised by that. Given we can jump like we're on the moon, we walk at like double normal speed, and have absolutely no control over things like mass for objects I figured SL's physics would be as wonky as everything else.

> For one thing, the tape measure kit that tells people the normal sizes of things sets avatar height in such a way as to suggest the meter is closer to 2.5 feet, as it does with ceilings and door frames. You mean a resident made tape measure kit? >For another thing, consider what you get when you set avatar height to 50. Why do you get that? Um...try setting ALL the avatar sliders to 50 and see what you get. >For another thing, consider the size of the default object cube. It appears to approach one Chinese foot or one Egyptian cubit, either of which would seem to be between 14 and 16 inches, making 0.5 Linden meters something very close to 1 foot and 3 inches. You have completely left the relm of rational thought. Please remember to send a postcard. >Also, consider the only known counterargument at this point; that the Linden meter is the metric meter, and everyone is supposed to have a giant avatar living in giant buildings etc for no reason at all. Avatars were much shorter in 2003 than the average avatar now. The starter avatars were shorter when I joined than the 7' giants people start with now. Buildings, as pointed out earlier in this thread, are scaled up far more than avatars due to bad camera placement. Until late last year no official viewer listed avatar height at all. Even with the current viewers, LL has acknowledged that the height displayed in the appearance editor is wrong and needs to be fixed. So not only does your argument fail to hold any water, but you completely ignore the practical repercussions. Right now, effectively ALL content in SL is broken due to scale issues. Buildings are too large for avatars. Furniture is all made according to random creator sizes, animations are a complete mess, and everyone who owns land in SL is paying about four times more than they are getting out of the land due to rampant up-scaling. Even LL loses in this bargain because as a direct result SL is uglier (more prims devoted to structure means fewer prims allotted for content and detail) and fewer people are willing to own land at all (the common perception is that it costs far too much for any amount of land large enough to do anything worthwhile.)

> there is no escaping the fact that in SL, notwithstanding avatar height, doorways have to be wider and ceilings have to to be considerably higher than in RL to allow for ease of movement and, in particular, movement of the trailing camera. The camera is not set to a uniform height over every avatar. Larger avatars push the already too-high camera up further. Said camera can, and should, be fixed. Of course, it's up to SL to fix it for the average user, but those wishing for a better SL experience in the meantime, I recommend this thread. Whether or not you consider a better sense of scale in SL something worth achieving, a lower camera is simply more immersive. Gives you a better view of yourself and those around you, and gives you a better view of the environment in front of you as you walk/run/fly through sims. >Further, it's impossible now to turn back the clock. Objects have to be created and animations made to accommodate the majority of avatars who are oversized.  This statement is just not true. Most content is created to accomodate the shape of its creator. Given how spread out avatar sizes are, even amongst just the oversized avatars, this means the majority of content you come across is not made to fit your own avatar. Most animations are unaffected by individual height, however the difference in height between two avatars can, and in nearly all cases in SL, does break the animations involving 2 or more avatars. Ground sit poses are the animations affected by height, these are not used very often and when they are most avatars find that they are left either floating, or sinking into the ground, as it is. The phrase "better late than never" comes to mind, as pushing for a better, more universal sense of scale now would mean that over time this problem would be diminished considerably now. Properly scaled avatars have no trouble finding content that works, or can easily be made to work, with their size. Keep in mind, I'm not suggesting LL re-size all over-sized avatars without offering a choice in the matter. I'm suggesting LL should start all new users with properly scaled avatars, provide correct avatar height in the appearance editor and fix the SL camera in upcoming viewer releases. The trend is already pushing towards properly scaled avatars. These changes would make the transition faster and reduce confusion among residents. It would still not be an overnight fix, it would take time. The argument that it is somehow "too late" suggests LL should drop their mesh import project. Afterall, it's been 8 years or so of regular prim content. Too late for mesh to have any effect now.

> Prove me wrong. > How does everyone keep missing the fact that the Linden meter is not a standard meter? > It's 2.5 English feet. What are you basing this claim on? Logically, this is the claim is that requires proof, not the other way around. Where is your proof? I could go on about how the complete lack of avatar measurement up until last year (aside from conflicting scripted "height detector" measurements has skewed avatar sizes, how inconsistent scale among builders and landowners has left any given sim a mishmash of differently scaled objects, but I'll go with the simplest, most direct argument. Up-scaling, as you suggest people should, costs us all more money. Larger avatars require larger environments. Larger environments require more prims and more land. To put that last bit in perspective, to double scale a build requires four times as much land area and about double prims. If you're an efficient builder.

Just a note to the thread, Viewer 2 definitely does not have that option. Just one of the many things I miss having switched to Viewer 2. Not sure if Kirsten's has it. I should give that viewer a try again.

There's something funny in Ruth being considered a "dwarf" when she's 6'4"/2.04m tall! I'd say it's hilarious if SL's rampant scale issues weren't such a major contributing factor to so many of SL's problems.

Here's another one, just the tank at night. I did play with the previous one a bit in Photoshop, forgot I was going to keep this my "untouched screenshots thread" when I posted that before going to sleep, but this one is, like the first screenshots I posted, untouched. Any effects are features in the mesh beta/development viewers combined with good windlight settings and standard camera fixes you can make to any stock viewer. As a side note, the environment is only about 1500 prims spread across a quarter of a sim. The tank itself only accounts for about 26 of those prims.

Scary haunted mazes? Well, I jsut posted this place in a thread about RP destinations, but it seems to be just what you're looking for. Doomed Ship - A haunted derelict spaceship with twisting, maze-like corridors and plenty of secrets. I recommend not cheating your way past locked doors. More often than not doing so cheats you out of seeing half the ship. See if you can find the morgue, the ship's chapel and all the way down to the reactor room.

I never did get around to toying with the SL logo like I'd hoped. Wound up getting caught up in my offline life a lot lately. But I did manage to get 3DSM to play nice with my ATi card, at least enough to get some sculpt work done (tho it's butchering my baked textures now). Anyways, been making lots of new stuff lately and here's the latest. Can't wait to get the texturing and scripting completed for it!

I may be a bit biased, but Doomed Ship. Easily the biggest single-sim build in SL Loaded with detail and videogame like touchs such as interactive control panels, atmospheric sound design, and a maze-like layout of interconnecting corridors, ventilation shafts, maintenance conduits and elevators. Lots of hidden easter eggs in the environment, too. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Doomed%20Ship/127/10/413

You can provide payment info and use it for a small transaction (buy yourself a dollar or so worth of L$), this will verify your account and allow you to access most adult content. Some adult content requires specifically the ID verification and some even requires both, but this is a very small minority of adult content, and usually not very good adult content at that so you really wouldn't be missing anything. But if you verify by payment method and run into the occaissional sim that claims you're not verified, that's why. Yoiu verify a payment method by entering a bank account, credit/debit card number or Paypal on the Billing Information page and then purchasing Linden Dollars by clicking the Buy button in the little "Linden Exchange window on your SL website dashboard, or directly in-world by clicking the "Buy L$" button next to your current linden dollar balance. Remember, it doesn't have to be a lot. Like a dollar will do.

The impression I get is that you are a weak earth man, you must captivate your audience with the power and authority befitting a true man of Gor. Try wearing lots of leather loincloths and leave your chest bare. When talking to women, slap a collar on them and command them to sit and listen to your words of wisdom. Also, when someone else speaks, repeat what they just said in the form of a question. :matte-motes-silly: All joking aside, if you've turned off your typing animation, turn it back on or replace it with another sound/animation combo that signifies you're typing. When I'm typing, my avatar's mouth moves, my avatar has gesturing animations playing, and the poeople around me hear my avatar speaking Simlish, the voice chatter from The Sims. So, even tho I turned off the annoying typing animation, it is still clear, by visual and audio cues, that I'm typing. If you have not turned off your typing animation, it may be that you're taking a very long time to type something and/or the people you're typing to are just rude. I've met plenty of people who would come up, ask me a question, and seconds later they start walking off even as I'm typing an answer for them. Seconds! Now that's both pretty rude, pretty impatient, and pretty much guarantees they're going to have a difficult time ever getting any answers to whatever questions are on their mind. People tend to expect longer replies in role-play than casual conversation. If someone walks over and asks you a yes/no question, there's no need to flourish it up. Just type a simple yes or no. You also don't have to do the patient type, wait for a reply, type, wait for a reply of role-play etiquette. You can spit out several short statements before the other person responds.

I really don't see this as a problem. Some attachments won't work with avatar physics. It's up to every individual to make that call whether or not to use physics with whatever attachments they might not work well with. Or to create outfit specific physics wearables to go with the attachments they choose to wear. Saying "physics mess up attachments I made" is like saying "everyone should use my personal body shape, it looks best with the attachments I make." or "see the pose I used for these screenshots, it clips right through my attachments, no one should use animations." The correct approach is to work with the new feature. Include suggested physics wearables with your outfit maybe. If someone doesn't see that bouncing boobs don't work with prim chest attachments they're probably the sort who also doesn't resize attachments made for larger or smaller shapes, let alone read notecards.

Oh, and one other thing. Notice the seam across the belly of the avatar in Kelli's screenshot? That's not shoddy texture work, there's actually a seam there between the torso and lower body and it will always be visible unless you have an unusually flat belly. Well, unusual for the way the human body is shaped, in SL concave bellies are practically the norm. That's more an argument for why we need a new av mesh than the appearance editor, tho.

I forget if I already mentioned it in this thread, but to further confuse the appearance editor, the sliders are skewed differently between male and female avatars. Men generally have perfectly proportional arms around 60-70 on the arm length slider. Women need that same slider cranked up to 90-100 to have proportional arms. If a woman is really tall, even 100 may leave her arms a bit short. The appearance editopr is riddled with quirks like that. Without tools, or at least a good set of template shapes to start users off, it's no wonder SL's population looks like it does.

"My avatar is only 6ft3 lol. Same height as me iRL." Are you sure of that? How did you determine your height? Beyond that, even assuming you are 6'3", my avatar is only 5'7". Anything you make to fit your avatar would not fit mine and would need to be scaled down. If you used tiny prims, that would not be possible without a lot of work and advanced modding know-how. If you built to a 5' shape, then that same attachment could be made to easily fit both our normal avatar shapes with no difficulty whatsoever. "But doesn't the sculpt lose detail and such if scaled to be larger?" None whatsoever.

There was a thread on breast size a couple of months ago. One thing I've noticed is that people underestimate their breast size to an extreme degree. I've seen people who clearly have DD's talking about their "modest B cups". Then again, I think I may be the only person on the grid who has actually taken the time to measure their chest. (Which you can do by hopping on a pose stand and using tiny 10cm prims as a measuring tape.) My avatar is pretty exaggerated in that area so I'm not criticizing large breasts, but it's interesting to see people with huge breasts who seem to honestly think they're small, in the same way you tend to see 7-8' tall giants walking around stating in their profiles that they're only 6' tall. It really messes with perceptions. As far as things like arm length, human arms tend to fall within a very narrow ratio of proportion. Your arms (hands included) should be, when stretched out to either side, as long as you are tall. Within about 3 inches. Given some very odd limits to the avatar shape editor, women have a much more difficult time getting proportional arm lengths with taller avatars. My avatar is 5'7" (actual height measured by prim, not the incorrect height of the appearance editor and most scripted height detectors), and my arms are just right at about 90 on the arm length slider.

"Personally, I dislike the 'perfect' avatar. As with RL, one needs to work with flaws to create character." I agree completely with this statement. However, it is important to note that there's a huge difference between "a perfect shape" and understanding/working with good human proportions. I haven't seen it in this thread, but often when the topic comes up there are those who confuse "human proportion" with "everyone looking the same" and that's just not true. You only need to look out your window, or walk down the street to see that.

I don't offer criticism unless asked. It's generally considered impolite and most people are very attached to their appearance, taking any criticism very personally even if you've only the best intentions. That said, nearly every single avatar in SL has glaring proportion issues due to a lack of tools and poor starter shapes. We can't expect every single person in SL to have a professional artist's understanding of anatomy, which is why the appearance editor should come with tools, guides and a set of well proportioned body templates to help people create their ideal shape. Until that happens, and I'm not holding my breath, pretty much every avatar on your screen, with scant few exceptions, will have serious anatomy issues. Tiny heads, hands, and feet, absurdly long legs and stubby arms are all common. There are no built-in tools to check proportions by, no way to "lock" proportions so you don't accidentally go well beyond human norms. The only way to make an avatar with good proportions is to head to a sandbox (or land you have build rights on), set down a pose stand, and manually check/adjust your proportions using prims. This is a very time consuming process. To my knowledge, there's only 2 or 3 people in SL who have put this kind of work into their shapes.

On the up-side, considering how large most people make thier avatars it is always better to build too small than too large. If your avatar is 8' tall, and you build a detailed attachment around that, then it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for most people to shrink that attachment down to a smaller avatar's size. If you build smaller, it is always very easy to scale an attachment up.

If building accurately and to scale are important for you, it's important to note that most avatars in SL aren't made to any sort of scale themselves. Most people ignore the avatar height displayed in the appearance editor, and even when they do follow it, it's been broken since LL implemented it so they wind up much larger than they realize. I believe Prim Composer, a plug-in for 3D Studio Max, allows you to adjust prim sizes to SL scale, but with the problems mentioned, building to scale in SL means building much smaller than most avatars are scaled. This actually makes a lot of sense if you're a landowner looking to get the most for your money and willing to scale your own avatar down to do so, but if you're trying to build public spaces this presents problems.

I'd add in Hangars Liquides, another sfi-fi city like Insilico. Doomed Ship, a scary sci-fi/horror sim. It's a roleplay sim, but very relaxed atmosphere towards random visitors just there to see the place. The Great Fissure, a better Grand Canyon than the Grand Canyon, honestly. Surprised it wasn't mentioned. Another RP area with a welcoming attitude towards visitors. Cap Estel, a gorgeous safari themed sim! Plenty of others, too. Difficult to find spots with built in poseballs, especially since with the huge variety in avatar shapes and sizes, a poseball set up for one avatar won't work for most others. Best to have a small collection of poses you can draw on yourself.

The first thing I do with any new viewer install is change the windlight settings in the day cycle so SL looks tonnes better. The difference good windlight settings make is astounding, so I noticed right away the next time I started up 2.6.3 and I was back to the Linden defaults. I changed them again but the next time I restarted SL I was back again to the defaults. Each time I restarted, once again I was back to the defaults. I've since reverted to 2.6.2 as changing a whole day cycle is tedious if you have to do it over and over and over again with every log in. I've created a Jira for the issue here: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-1193

@Patricia Everyone should do that, it really helps to make it easy for your customers to re-size attachments to fit any shape. I use a 4'11"/150cm (actual height, not the Agent Height displayed in the appearance editor and most scripted height detectors) adult proportioned shape for this.

Here's a couple shots I posted to the Art and Photography forum a while back.