Proportion guide for standard /average avatar shapes

[dayz Short]

Making or modifying one's own shape can sometimes lead you ...read me...into some strange country; where torso length and hip width look wow you're hot from one angle, to butt wait what is that a suitcase back there from another one...And knowing how long the legs or arms should be in comparison when on a shorter avatar or a taller one. And just what is the "standard" height for female avatar's these days anyway? Oh !! And head size !  OMG I went for ever trying to figure out what was up with my shouldrs ...too wide too narrow maybe the neck...when my head was only  slightly bigger than a pea brain in comparison to my overly muscled body.. oh the horror stories, and I'm sure most anyone who has created "original" shapes for themselves can tell the same.

So my question is this...who has the shape/body guide to proportions and how come it's taken me since 2007 to realize everyone must have one except for me?  You know with details like arm length and hand size relations..I think everyone has size zero feeet...naturaly...but the rest matters!!

 

Just sayin....

 

[Berlin Brinner]

Mornin Dayz;

 

Well, i never had a proportion guide. I did like you, tweaked , tweaked, tweaked, then made sure I saved, saved, saved !!! Cause it was a lot of work to get where I wanted :matte-motes-smile:

[Pussycat Catnap]

A lot of people including me have height guides.

But there may be a proportion guide at "The Forum Cartel" (which is an inworld location set up for members of these forums).

I think I got one there a while back.

You can also just import the texture of the vitruvian man and stand on a pose stand in front of it.

 

[Lilly Figgis]

I have researched through SL before I begin making shapes, in 2007, but I haven´t found anything. So I use the golden ratio.

[Jessika Rang]

Here is a rl proportion guide.  I think one of the biggest problems in SL is avatars with weirdly short arms.  There are some awesome tutorials at this blog as well (this is where I got the picture below from):

http://wehatewhatyourewearing.blogspot.com/2009/01/shaping-up-shapes-tutorial-part-1.html

http://wehatewhatyourewearing.blogspot.com/2009/03/shaping-up-shapes-tutorial-part-2.html

[dayz Short]

That's one way of staying a "head" of the game huh?...hehehe...had to had to...:matte-motes-big-grin:

[dayz Short]

now..those links you provided...That's exactly it !!!   Exactly the type of secret society info SL knowits have been with-holding from me for years...and all IO had to do was ak? 

 

who knew

 

Thank you!

[Jessika Rang]

yvw - being an "Oldbie" and a voracious reader of sl blogs helps!  Happy shape making!

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

Be as tall or short as you want.  Just be hawt doing it. =^-^=

... And, a meter = 1 meter. Watch out for that prim! ()y

 

 

[demondom]

Besides using the golden ratio that has already been said, proportion in terms of realism and non-realism depends on your preference.

If you look in art books, comic books, and so on, proportion depends on the type of charcter being pictured.

Superman who has to look impressive will have non-realisitic proportions, same as Wonder Woman.

Personally I like to be more-than-real, so my legs are a bit longer than normal and I tend to wear more skirts and dresses to accentuate my longer legs. Visually, you cannot tell, but by using the Golden Ratio, I am off-standard.

Best things to look is to either use the Golden Ratio or to use art/drawing books for proportion standards.

 

 

[Marianne Little]

I agree with you, I prefer my avatar to be slightly "better than real". I have found that I like what I see most when my avatar is 8 - 8 1/2 head. 8 heads just look better IMHO, but all over 8 1/2 head start to look "0ff". But for realistic proportions, this kit can be useful: http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/tutorials/54131-creating-well-proportioned-shape.html#post1276966

I tested this, and it was as I thought, Marianne is just over 8 heads.

[Dana Hickman]

That's a rather good, in-depth guide for using the prim / mirror method to help guide proportion... thanks for sharing it.

One of the comments was also dead correct when they said that AV's wanting to be around 5' tall will look best at 7 to 7.5 heads, and those intending to be taller should fall in the 8 to 8.5 range. There is no actual standard number of heads measurement that spans all the different heights, because if one actually takes a minute and studies others in RL, they'll see that even though taller people tend to have slightly longer heads, their bodies are also a greater number of their heads tall when compared to average height people, and a lot more than short people. Some will swear up & down that it's always 7, and that's incorrect. 7 heads tall will make a fairly short AV look like their head's too small, and make a tall AV look like a bobblehead. It's a moving scale, not a fixed one.

I know I fall closer to 8.5 heads than I do to 8, and may even be a little over that, but I made this shape years ago when I actually was one of the so-called amazons. Since the scale of what's considered tall has actually increased over the years, I'm now closer to average height in comparison to the masses, and the side effect is it's thrown my overall compared proportion off. Fixing it means a lot of work and I've just been lazy about it.

[Charolotte Caxton]

I am glad you asked, I am bookmarking this post for future reference.

[majestic12]

I used to be one of those tall amazons too, 8-1/2 heads tall...I did not want to be an amazon!

Worked my height down to a shorter stature, but I am still over 6 feet.

Funny, how when you shrink your height a bit, drop some muscle for a more slender look, it makes your boobs look bigger and I did not change the boob size/cleavage/gravity settings...guys keep asking me if I got some boob job.

There are some benefits to shrinking :womanvery-happy:

 

 

 

[dayz Short]

Thank you all for some really great feedback on this...and omg I am still reading and giggling with the Fug biz....oO

A few really good links inthese responses that I am finding solve all me second life shape mysteries so be sure to check them out if you haven't yet done so...I am all set to be one hot and wholesome proportionally appropriate non-watermelon butted babe and proud of it !!  Keep the feedback coming.. and thank you !!:matte-motes-sunglasses-2:

[Venus Petrov]

Here is an older proportion guide you may find useful.

http://alaskametro.blogspot.com/2006/10/proportion-and-second-life-models.html

[Melita Magic]

What's real? Barbie in real life would topple over, and have no room for her internal organs. Yet she's been a popular icon and standard of beauty, one might say an avatar of a certain ideal, for decades now. Good ol' Millicent Roberts.

Real life actors usually have heads that are oversized for their bodies. True fact (and ever see any in person? Gargantuan craniums. Oranges on toothpicks. ™ So I Married An Axe Murderer. )

My first shape for my avatar had a huge noggin as a result. I liked how it looked. Trouble was, no hair fit except Sirena size large. Eventually I made the avatar more human to look more fit in the realistic human clothes I began to wear in Second Life, but this puppet was less fun to move around in. I missed the toon aspect of the big head on a pipe cleaner body I began with. And what is more important - your Second Life, or that of those watching you?

Right now my avatar's legs look way too long whenever she's in heels or long pant cuffs but that isn't often, so I keep the shape as it now is. I just don't want to be tweaking the shape constantly because something isn't perfect.

What do you really want in Second Life? Who do you want to be? A living example of classical statuary? A toon? A caricature of your favorite icon(s)? Or just you? Only you can say, and in some of those cases a rote guide is worthless.

[Jessika Rang]

I agree that its oki to be a bit better than "perfect" proportions.  I am tall in rl so my original shape was very tall - and very long legged.  Overtime I have shrunk my height but I still have proportionately long legs and a shorter waist (yeah - call me Barbie if you must - LOL).  Its one of the beauties of SL that we can play with our shapes and make what feels "perfect" to ourselves. 

There are obvious mistakes that many people make, pinheads and watermelon butts being chief among them but I also love to see some of the more creative shapes that people come up with including curvy women (or those SL "model" shapes), chubby or skinny guys. 

(and that "What The Fug" site is hilarious!)

[dayz Short]

I so heart you responding that the true look of beauty and contentment is and will be found in meeting only the requirements of one's individual wants . And i am not striving for some medium meld of what ?"society" deems as a set beauty standard . I am an artist and a poet and have and do see beauty in the form and content of most things society often turns her back on...tyhe bent side appeals to me...but as an artist an perfectionist and knowing that thr right tools are a huge factor in whatba person creates...I want to create what I deem as ideal...I seriously doubt or care whom else will agree...except of course my SL partner ..but he is rather bound to say wow sweety you look hot...isn't he?  hehe..

Yes,,,at all times an avatar appearance  should be the individual creators expectation of self...for self's own pleasure...I am a proud utterly vain and self-centered hedonistic masochist though and I will have that guide...she smiles...  =D

[Jessika Rang]

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dayz Short wrote:

Yes,,,at all times an avatar appearance  should be the individual creators expectation of self...for self's own pleasure...I am a proud utterly vain and self-centered hedonistic masochist though and I will have that guide...she smiles...  =D

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Yes! Aren't we all... or at least we should be, this is afterall our second life, our playground...

xoxo dayz, thanks for an awesome thread (Ilearned alot too) /me smiles

[Phil Deakins]

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Jessika Rang wrote:

I think one of the biggest problems in SL is avatars with weirdly short arms.

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 I totally agree! And I'm told they exist in the Library too. The trouble is that arms don't "look" too short on an avatar when they are seriously short, and would look really weird, in RL. I discovered it when I made some animations, assuming that arms would be of a realistic length, but I saw too many people using the animations with their hands ending up where they definitely shouldn't have been. A number of times, I've suggested to people to stand up in RL, hang their arms by their sides and note where on the thighs the tips of their fingers are. Then do the same with the avatar. They soon realise how unrealistically short their avatar's arms are. I've actually seen avs whose hands are pretty much on their hips.

[Penny Patton]

Hee, if only everyone had a proportions guide, unfortunately nearly every avatar in SL has weirdly bad proportions because the appearance editor itself lacks basic tools for achieving good proportions.

If you are serious about achieving good proportions you'll need a basic understanding of human body proportions, a pose stand and a place (like a sandbox) where you can rez a bunch of prims. I'll try and lay out proportion in a way that is good for creating an avatar shape.

 

 Keep in mind that all of the measurements provided in this guide can be altered by about 2-3 inches to achieve desired body types. All typical human bodies conform to these proportions regardless of height, weight, etcetera. Only when you get into exceptionally short/tall or deformed individuals do you see greater discrepency.  For example, the average person is 7.5 heads tall. The world's tallest man may be 9 heads tall and the world's shortest only 3 heads tall due to their respective heights.  These proportions also reflect adult shapes, there is plenty of material online describing how human proportions change from baby to adult.

 

 You will also notice that to achieve correct proportions often requires extreme slider settings at either end! To be realistically sized, your height slider should be pretty close to 0. Correctly proportioned arms need to be around 90 on the arm length slider. "50" is not supposed to represent "average" on any of the sliders.

 Here is an image of a "T" pose, an "arms at sides" pose and how I use prims to measure myself and my proportions.

 Hop on your pose stand. You'll want one that gives you a classic "t-pose". Legs straight up and down, arms stretched out to either side.

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First thing you want to start with is your height. Don't worry about being exact, just more or less around where you want your height to be. rez a prim, align it with the top of your avatar's skull (remove your hair!) and stretch it down so it is flush with the button of your feet.

Look at the height of the prim, that is your avatar's current height in metres, which you can convert to feet and inches using Google. You'll note it does not match what the appearance editor says. The height shown in the appearance editor is broken. The real world average height for a man is 5'10"/1.78m and for women the average is 5'5"/1.65m. Most women avatars are around 6'8"/2.03m and most men avatars are anywhere from 7'/2.13 to 8'/2.44m or taller.

This is due to a combination of social pressure/insecurity and the fact that the male starter avatars provided by LL are 7' tall. It is more likely to see a realistically sized woman avatar than a man.In fact, it's becoming more and more common to see realistically sized women avatars. There are significant benefits to having a smaller avatar (especially if you own land) but it is up to you and your social circles. Large or small, choose an avatar size that works for you.

 More important, for getting a good looking avatar at least, is proportion! So once you have your avatar at about the height you're aiming for (again, does not need to be exact yet, you'll be messing it up as you change individual proportions) you want to get your head size.

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To get your head size, rez a cube, line the top of it up with the top of your skull, then stretch the other side until it is flush with the underside of your chin. That is 1 head length. drag another copy and line it up with the button of that first prim. Keep doing that until you have a line of boxes from the top of your skull to at least the bottom of your feet. It's okay if the last box extends past the bottom of your feet.

Count the head length boxes. That is how many "heads tall" you are. You should be anywhere from 7 to 8 heads tall. No more and no less for an adult shape. 7.5 is considered average. 7 to 7.5 is considered "realistic" and 8 heads tall is considered "ideal". 8 heads tall is for super models and other idealistically shaped bodies. 8 to 8.5 would be the realm of super heroes with large, muscular bodies that make their heads seem small in comparison. This is well outside the realm of reality and if your body isn't proportionate it risks making you look pin-headed.

 If you're aiming for attractive, I recommend aiming for 7.5 to 8 heads tall. This is a bit tedious but re-size your head and re-size the prim/repeat the head measurement until you get where you want to be.

 Once you are an appropriate number of heads tall (you'll notice this leaves you with a larger head than you're used to, SL avatars tend to have tiny pin heads) you'll want to re-check your height and adjust the height slider as necessary. Still does not have to be perfect, but try to keep it round about where you'd like to be.

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 Next, we check leg to body ratio. Your legs should make up half your height. Stretch a prim from the bottom oif your feet to your avatar's crotch.  Drag a copy of that prim to stack on top and see how it measures to your upper body (including your head).  The top prim should be more or less flush with the top of your skull. If not, you'll want to shorten your legs or increase your torso length. Leg length affects height, torso length does not, but stretching your torso too much can leave it looking oddly stretched. Try to strike a balance.

 If you are a woman and want to achieve that "long leg" look, allow your legs about 2-3 inches over your upper body (the top prim coming to about 2-3 inches (0.05m to 0.07m) over the top of your skull). This may not seem like a lot, but it has a greater effect than you might imagine at first.

 After you get your leg ratio to where you like it, check your height again.

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At this stage we want to check the body width. Take your head length prim and make sure the head length is applied to all sides.  You'll need to switch to an arms at sides pose for just a moment as your upper body should be approximately 2 head lengths wide from the outside of your arm to the otuside of your other arm. A difference of 2-3 inches can achieve a "slender" or "broad shouldered" look but don't go too far beyond that.

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Now, we want to check the size of your hand. Your hand should measure, from the base of your palm to the top of your middle finger, from your chin to halfway between your eyebrows and hair line. Place a prim near your face and measure that area, then move that prim over one of your hands. Adjust hand size until your hand fits in the prim defined area.

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Once your hands are the right size we can check arm length. On humans, our arm length, fingertip to fingertip when stretched out to either side, should match our height to within 2-3 inches. Most avatars have scary short arms so having correctly sized arms may seem odd at first, but it quickly becomes natural as it matches what you see in the real world.

Since your arm length includes your hands you can't skip the hand size step first or it will skew the results.

Take your current height prim, the one that stretches from the base of your feet to the top of your skull, and drag a copy of it. Centre it with the pose stand and flip it on its side. Level it with your arms and then begin adjusting your arm length until your fingertips reach each end of the prim. You'll notice if you switch to an "arms at sides" pose that your fingertips will now reach to about mid-thigh, which is correct.

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 Now that we have properly sized arms we can adjust the foot size. Now, I know that most people shrink their feet to the smallest size to work with too-small no-mod footwear. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a world of people with freakishly small feet. In reality the length of your foot should match the length of your forearm, when measuring from your elbow to the base of your wrist, not including any part of the hand at all.

 If is perfectly fine to mask out feet for footwear, but avoid no-mod footwear. You'll want your shoes to be large enough that properly sized feet coujld actually fit inside of them. You can also re-size prim feet to match this size guide.

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 Congratulations, your avatar is now proportional! Make any find adjustments to height and physical characteristics at this stage. Not only do properly proportioned avatars look better, but animations are more likely to work better for them as most animations are made in third party programmes which use correctly proportioned models.

 I recommend not going with 0 body fat. You want at least a little muscle and a little fat to round out otherwise harsh edges in the mesh.

 Extgreme body shapes (obese, hyper muscled) are difficult/impossible to pull off with just the avatar mesh and may require prims (or in the future, avatar meshes created in third party programmes)

[Penny Patton]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

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Jessika Rang wrote:

I think one of the biggest problems in SL is avatars with weirdly short arms.

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 I totally agree! And I'm told they exist in the Library too. The trouble is that arms don't "look" too short on an avatar when they are seriously short, and would look really weird, in RL. 

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 Actually, they really do look too short in SL, it's just that short arms are so prevalent in SL that it's the avatars with correctly proportioned arms that stand out. Not only do short-armed shapes exist in the library, but every single female starter avatar LL has porvided to new users has freakishly short arms.

Male avatars are better about this because the arm slides on men are skewed towards long arms whereas the arm sliders on women are skewed towards short arms.

Actually, for the typical 7' female avatar it is impossible to get correct arm length because you'd have to go higher than 100 on the slider. For a realistically sized female the arms should be anywhere from about 90 to 100.

[majestic12]

Excellent visual guide, Penny!

I will use it for my own avis.

[dayz Short]

Again, another excellent, well-explained guide.

As I follow this and the other responder guides to a well-proportioned avatar, I truly do realize and become more aware of the oddity of shape in so many other avatrs that I had previously thought was what I should be aiming for.  No wonder I was so dis-satisfied and kept fiddling with it all again and again..Now I realize I have been an overly tall sucked-in pin-headed chick with a flat ass and tiny pig feet who thought she was looking damned hot ! Hey, I bought/buy high-end skins and that's all one needs, right?  NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU  ...  and I rarely find the provided shape that comes with skins to my liking...am I alone there?

 

This truly is a well-presented and easy to follow guide..Thank you