Mags Indigo Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 This is an Anti Spam Thread.I'm seeing a lot of shorter avatars in SL these days. Not so many that the giants are going to be outnumbered anytime soon - but there does seem to be more people choosing a more 'realistic' height. Is this a growing trend - or is it just that people feel more comfortable these days choosing their own style and size? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knowl Paine Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Hopefully it's a growing trend for human avatars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mags Indigo Posted March 12, 2011 Author Share Posted March 12, 2011 Yes - I'd kinda like if SL got a bit more to 'scale' builds etc would become more interesting in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceera Murakami Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 I would welcome a larger proportion of smaller, more realistically scaled avatars. As well as less spam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mags Indigo Posted March 12, 2011 Author Share Posted March 12, 2011 Ceera Murakami wrote: I would welcome a larger proportion of smaller, more realistically scaled avatars. As well as less spam. *lets my mind wander - and wonders if there's a subconscious correlation between the two... ... :smileysurprised: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adromaw Lupindo Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 I had early encouragement with being conscious about the avatar height from both role-players and a friend content creator. The more that content creators lean towards on that direction, I suspect, the more that trend could be carried. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mags Indigo Posted March 12, 2011 Author Share Posted March 12, 2011 Adromaw Lupindo wrote: I had early encouragement with being conscious about the avatar height from both role-players and a friend content creator. The more that content creators lean towards on that direction, I suspect, the more that trend could be carried. I agree Adromaw - although my builds are few and far between from here on I intend to only build within scales that are roughly close to 'realism'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caitlyn Gothly Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 I think avatars are definately getting shorter.....they used to call my avatar "the amazon" lol cos she was always around 90....but now i usually have her at 80, i know thats still tall but i am 6ft in RL so have to reflect that...lol :-) Cait Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mags Indigo Posted March 12, 2011 Author Share Posted March 12, 2011 Caitlyn Gothly wrote: I think avatars are definately getting shorter.....they used to call my avatar "the amazon" lol cos she was always around 90....but now i usually have her at 80, i know thats still tall but i am 6ft in RL so have to reflect that...lol :-) Cait Lucky you being tall in RL - I'm a shortass at 5'4" and I always dreamed of being 5'8" or so.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marianne Little Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 It is much more easy to be shorter when furniture and builds are more sophisticated and closer to RL size. I am sure that people adjust to the crowd they hang out with. My motivation for beeing the height I am in SL has always been that I want to be in scale with the builds and furniture. Many things like motorbikes are no modify, and when they are made to fit a 6'8 avatar, a 5'2 start to look odd on it. I really started to feel that I got good toys to play with when I got an Aoba car. If I had the height to max, I would have banged my head and felt like a giant in it, lol. I read fashion feeds every day, and I noticed that when I see a male and a female blogger post together, the male is often 2 heads taller than the female. I wonder why, is it harder for men to be first in a group to be shorter? Females like to feel small and cute? It was really nice to meet a guy who used a Den-Dou shape and skin. For those not familar with it, it's a Japanese skin maker and the shapes are much more lean instead of bulky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mags Indigo Posted March 12, 2011 Author Share Posted March 12, 2011 Marianne Little wrote: It is much more easy to be shorter when furniture and builds are more sophisticated and closer to RL size. I am sure that people adjust to the crowd they hang out with. My motivation for beeing the height I am in SL has always been that I want to be in scale with the builds and furniture. Many things like motorbikes are no modify, and when they are made to fit a 6'8 avatar, a 5'2 start to look odd on it. I really started to feel that I got good toys to play with when I got an Aoba car. If I had the height to max, I would have banged my head and felt like a giant in it, lol. I read fashion feeds every day, and I noticed that when I see a male and a female blogger post together, the male is often 2 heads taller than the female. I wonder why, is it harder for men to be first in a group to be shorter? Females like to feel small and cute? It was really nice to meet a guy who used a Den-Dou shape and skin. For those not familar with it, it's a Japanese skin maker and the shapes are much more lean instead of bulky. I agree with pretty much everything you say Marianne, and I do think guys are a bit more 'sensitive' about seeming 'weaker' - not all of them of course but they do like their 'bulk' in SL :smileyhappy: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maryanne Solo Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 I have actually been shortening the length of my legs. No it isn't because of the heavy spam burden, I just want to be more realistic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mags Indigo Posted March 12, 2011 Author Share Posted March 12, 2011 Maryanne Solo wrote: I have actually been shortening the length of my legs. No it isn't because of the heavy spam burden, I just want to be more realistic. :smileyvery-happy: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylie Jaxxon Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Mags Indigo wrote: Caitlyn Gothly wrote: I think avatars are definately getting shorter.....they used to call my avatar "the amazon" lol cos she was always around 90....but now i usually have her at 80, i know thats still tall but i am 6ft in RL so have to reflect that...lol :-) Cait Lucky you being tall in RL - I'm a shortass at 5'4" and I always dreamed of being 5'8" or so.... I'm 5' 1" in real and have always like being petite :smileytongue: My avatar is short also to what I think looks to be about my RL height, but I think it comes in around 5'6" or something like that in SL. I buy a lot of my houses from Modest House...not sure if it's intentional or not, but the houses seem to suit my avi's height better....doorknobs are not up to my chest, etc....:smileysurprised: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mags Indigo Posted March 12, 2011 Author Share Posted March 12, 2011 @ Kylie - I'm about 5'6" in SL too... it feels more 'natural to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seraphiel Galaxy Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Kylie Jaxxon wrote: I'm 5' 1" in real and have always like being petite :smileytongue: My avatar is short also to what I think looks to be about my RL height, but I think it comes in around 5'6" or something like that... Snap :robothappy: I'm also 5'1" in RL and around 5'6 or 7" in SL although I have to admit to being a virtual giant up to a couple of months ago so *some* avatars are most definitely shrinking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lyra Blackthorne Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 There is greater range now I think...back in 06 and 07 almost all of our shop clients wanted shapes 90+ on the tall scale. We had some shorter avies but not as many. About 08 we began getting more requests for shorter styles(but still relative, in the 80 range) and began using our own scale of SL-RL heights (the height finders all just seemed wrong to us). Now clients ask for everything from very short to the very tall. Same with weight, used to be everyone wanted to be skinny but curvier looks are also in more demand. I love the diversity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mags Indigo Posted March 12, 2011 Author Share Posted March 12, 2011 Lyra Blackthorne wrote:<snip> Now clients ask for everything from very short to the very tall. Same with weight, used to be everyone wanted to be skinny but curvier looks are also in more demand. I love the diversity. I love the diversity too - apart from furries and other 'non-human' avis for a long time all the avis in SL seemed to follow the same basic pattern - tall and leggy (for the girls) big and bulky (for the guys) - these days I seem to be seeing a lot of people choosing to depart from that. It's very cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Celestiall Nightfire Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 I hope so! I'm 5'1" in RL and have always had a somewhat shorter SL avatar as that just feels like "me". But, even though I've made my SL avatar a ginoramus 5'5"....I'm still shorter than most other avatars. Once when Zindra first opened and people were raging about child avatars being on the adult continent...a pack of child avatars went to Zindra. At that time I was there exploring the newly opened continent..and a couple of the child avies spotted me and flew over to check me out. I think that they thought I was a child compadre...: ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penny Patton Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Definitely a growing (pardon the pun) trend towards shorter avatars. It's a slow movement, but it's definitely happening. I suspect a part of that is due to most TPVs displaying avatar height in the appearance editor. For the longest time hardly anyone on the grid had any idea how tall they were and few people realized they could measure themselves with a pose stand and a prim. The official viewer shows height now, too, which contributes even more, since that is what most people will see when they first go to customize their avatar. Unfortunately, the official viewer displays incorrect height, telling you you're much shorter than you actually are. Still, where most people used to be 7, 8 or even close to 9' tall, being 6 and a half to 7' tall is still shorter. I do think a part of it is social, too and that's why you see scaling down done more by women, who aren't insecure about their height, as opposed to men who may get insecure about being a midget compared to the 7-8' tall giants wandering around. Even women get insecure about this, in large part due to the "age-play" hysteria of years past. Few of my friends would shrink smaller than myself when I was 5'10". When I shrunk down to 5'7" many of them shrunk down, too. A couple even mentioned that they felt odd being taller than me so that's why they shrunk. These days you see more and more shorter avatars, so more and more people feel comfortable making their own avatar that short. The biggest non-social obstacles to shorter avatars are attachments made around large size bodies, a difficult and obtuse appearance editor and the fact that the starter and default shapes LL provides are all around 7' tall and very poorly proportioned. As far as attachments go, any content creator should be designing attachments for the smallest body shape they can manage. It's extremely easy to scale a small attachment up for a larger avatar, but it can be practically impossible to scale an attachment made for a larger avatar down without forcing the person to practically rebuild it entirely. Not to mention I've seen maybe one or two shops selling properly scaled shapes. I've seen plenty claiming to sell shapes at 5'5"-6' tall, but upon buying the shapes or trying the demo you then find that they're either half a foot taller, meaning they were measured incorrectly, or they are the same typical 7'-8' shapes we're used to, meaning the creator didn't measure them at all, but just made up a number (why would anyone do this?). These days, when I build an avatar, all of the attachments are made around a shape that's under 5' tall. I then scale them up for the shape I include with the outfit. The exception being things that shouldn't be scaled. Things like guns only come in one size. If a small person is holding a large handgun it SHOULD look oversized! I also only know of two full sims designed to scale. Berlin Project, a historical recreation of early 20th centure Berlin and Doomed Ship, a sci-fi/horror roll-playing sim. These two sims do demonstrate how much "larger" a single sim can be when everything is build "smaller". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caitlyn Gothly Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Wouldnt say i was lucky....it can be handy to get served in a packed bar lol I would like to be shorter sometimes....so i could blend in the background a bit Cait Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mags Indigo Posted March 12, 2011 Author Share Posted March 12, 2011 Caitlyn Gothly wrote: Wouldnt say i was lucky....it can be handy to get served in a packed bar lol I would like to be shorter sometimes....so i could blend in the background a bit Cait I guess each of us 'envies' something about others - I'd like to be a wee bit taller - and I understand your 'blend in' wish. Aren't we a funny old lot - people I mean! :smileyindifferent: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mags Indigo Posted March 12, 2011 Author Share Posted March 12, 2011 Celestiall Nightfire wrote: I hope so! I'm 5'1" in RL and have always had a somewhat shorter SL avatar as that just feels like "me". But, even though I've made my SL avatar a ginoramus 5'5"....I'm still shorter than most other avatars. <snipped> I hope so too celestiall - smaller avis just look more 'natural' - though I do think somewhere between 5'6" and 6' is the 'average short' still. :smileyhappy: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mags Indigo Posted March 12, 2011 Author Share Posted March 12, 2011 @Penny - really good points - all of them. I do think that as 'short' avis become more and more common more people will adapt - now the clothing and attachment isse is something else entirely. I do think the introduction of Mesh might offer an opportunity to look at things differently. Thanks for the detailed reply :smileyhappy: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrish Ashbourne Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 I remember I first started trying to make more realistic shapes, after reading about the shapes an animator used, By making similar size shapes you have a better chance of animations looking right. Later I redid all the hats and monocles I sell using a shape with the head size set to 00 so I know my items wll scale down to fit any one now. One thing I think is helping is that you now can see the actual height of you avatar as you edit you shape, before that you had to use a script to find out your height. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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