I've made an object that took months of building, texturing, and scripting animations that required me to make it one size. I'm getting a little tired of requests to resize it (which would take more months) simply because the person didn't realize they were tall to begin with and have now 'set all their poseballs and don't want to do them over again.' Of course, that tangent also has to do with people being thoughtless of other people's time, but simply KNOWING how tall the avatar was during the creation process would help so much in making a consistent rubric for world/item building.

Then there's the issue lately with normal sized avatars being accused of being children. Makes me want to rip out my hair. I don't CARE if people want to be big, but they should realize that they ARE big and will have a few 'big people' issues in the world, rather than finding out by trial and error or simply blaming others for being the 'wrong' size.

There is honestly no reason that SL should make the avatar's height such a mystery to the user, especially to newbies. It needs to be obvious to everyone.

"Speak-my-height shouts: At 2.3m you are too bloody tall!! ;-P

We also have Tinies and related avatars which use a deformed or compressed "meatball" pose, so that their perceived height isn't accurately reported.

But I do at least have the smug satisfaction of knowing that I'm relatively normal, and they're all disproportionate freaks

Exactly. Having a height listing 'overall' (one treating it like a prim object for height, maybe? I know those have set heights) would be very useful in the appearance settings.

We're not asking for avatars to be restricted to natural heights, or to accomodate people who knowingly smash their avatar into an unrecognizable shape. We just want to have an easily viewed reference that would assist even a brand newbie in their avatar and object design, and help keep people from making crazy assumptions about other people's avatars simply because they have no idea what the game scale is.

The only suggestion that I can make is to introduce SLeters as the unit of measurement, so people won't be bothered by the fact that avatars are over sized.

I've yet to hear about why it would be a bad thing for people to have easy access to this information.

The issue about proportions of small objects to avatars is another issue altogether. I couldn't care less if 'meters' suddenly were stretched much higher than they are now, so that you could make ant prims if you wanted, just as long as everyone could use the same measuring standard and knew what 'short' and 'tall' was.

http://uncensored.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=189108

There you go. It costs 1 linden and it will tell you the exact height of an avatar.

Its all relative after that.

Many of us know there are gadgets we can get to tell us height, or that we can build a prim and look at its parameters. This is not about people who have figured these things out, but to help the people who clearly have not; generally newbies, but also people who have been in SL for some time and are shocked to learn somewhere down the line that their avatar is 7' +, and that the people they thought were children were actually normal sized avatars.

The point of this request is to make the estimated height easily and clearly available to anyone, especially those who are in the process of building their avatar, so that pretty much everyone is aware of the height spectrum and where they (and others) fit on it.

Fiona: If this concerns you so much, go to Orientation Island and teach newbies. I think that you are missing the point that if you allow people to customize their size or shape, then the result will be a broad spectrum. By telling people what "normal/average" is, you are defeating the purpose of customization and limiting everything. Many people are in SL because they don't want to be "normal/average" or to fit into any predefined slot.

As we have discussed, an RL meter is not an SL meter. An SL meter is just a base ten unit, which is approximately the same size as an RL meter.
In order to make the sliders coincide with RL measurements, SL meters would have to coincide with RL meters, and to do that we would need a basic proportion. For example, we could change an SL meter so that the average avatar in SL meters is the size the average human in RL meters. The average avatar is about 2.1m tall, and human is about 1.7m tall. That would mean that we would have to shrink everything to about 80% of the original size to match RL proportions, which sounds reasonable. (If we shrink everything the same amount, then it would seem as though nothing were shrunk, and everything would be wonderfully proportional)
However, the standard height of an RL room (floor to ceiling) is 8 feet or about 2.4m, and the average height for an SL room is 3.8m. An SL ceiling has to be proportionally higher than an RL ceiling to avoid camera issues, because the standard camera view is from above the avatar, not first person(mouse view). An SL ceiling has to be about twice the height of an avatar. If we shrink the SL meter to 80%, then the average SL ceiling height goes from 3.8m to about 3m high or 9'10", and is still not proportional to RL measurements.
The core issue really is that computers use base 16 and humans use base 10. SL land is measured in square SL meters. An SL square meter is a base 10 unit which is equal to 1/65,536 of a region (65,536 seems strange, but it is a very nice round number in base 16). SL meters are in base 10 so humans can think about it easily, then in base 16 so computers can think about it easily (that is what really matters). If we shrink SL meters to coincide with RL meters then a region is now about 52,428.8... square meters and that is not a round number in base 16, so the computer will not be able to deal with it, and it is also not around number in base 10, so humans will not be able to deal with it. SL land is also traded on a market which is based on the current proportion. When people find out that their land is now 80% of the size that it used to be (yes, I know its just a different unit of measure) there will be an uproar.
Ah, but we were talking about sliders. A slider is assigned random values which are equal to the range of sizes (maximum size of the item minus the minimum size of the item) divided by 100. In order to assign RL values to the slider, we need to assign RL values to the range of sizes. After we have converted SL meters into RL meters, and measure things, then we can determine the range. If for example, we find that the range is 3.5 cm, then each unit of the slider will be .035 cm. Instead of the slider changing from 1 to 2 to 3, it will now change from .035cm to .07cm to .105cm. If we find that the range is larger, such as 8 cm, then the slider goes from .08 to .16 to .24. We have gone from an imaginary relative measurement with round units, to an actual specific measurement with oddball units that change from slider to slider.

oryx : I wasn't flaming or insulting anyone. "newbie" is not an insult. I don't like your suggestion, and I'm not voting for it. In the jira system, I can't vote against your suggestion, all I can do is explain why others should not vote for it either. If you find that insulting, then I don't give a dern.

As i can tell it is so difficult....

tell the system a relation like 1slmeter = 0.5 inch (as example) and let the hud give out a simple height calculation..
and to everyone to know i would like to get a basic info in the hud, rather than different ingame..

and telling everyone they shouldnt vote for this is no way of saying "i dont vote for it"
if u dont want to vote for it, then dont do

and theres no need "shrink" some sl meters.

according to the actually avatar size that is given out u can do the same for hud..

like hey.. ur avatar is 6"4 or xxx cm

u can still customize your stuff and ava, so thats no point
and actually its not a problem for customization as its more a problem of missing know how
some ppl just dont know how "tall" they r as they simply wanted to have a casual size
did u know that a my body height on a "79" setting is almost 193 cm in sl meters?
and im kind of a kid comparing to other "casual guys" i meet sometimes
blaming other avas for ageplay in fact of their "normal" size is a point.
guess it wont be that difficult even by doing a continues calculation in the edit avatar screen.
for recalculation by changing the whole avatar size..

after all its easier for a designer to make stuff with a setting he can rely on, like

"that stuff is made with a model like 6"2 height and headsize xxxxxxx"

so noone will tell him the full body armor looks like hot pants and a top

i vote for it

I support this jira, in that the edit appearance scale should be displayed using metric values (or imperial ones if you're American). Again, it doesnt have to be exact, but at least run the height scale up to 7 and a half feet or whatever.

I agree completely with Torley that SL is a disproportionate system, however a lot of that disproportion is unintended, due to many builders incorrect assumption that their avatar is a normal size, and thus a good base for esitmating distances or other dimensions when building. Clothing, furniture etc, often has to be modified to fit, because there is no common reference to begin with... tricky if the object you just paid for is not modifyable.

Im not asking for real heights to be enforced on avatars, but make this change, and see how many avatars remain at 7 feet tall. Im sure most users would adjust their size to something they are comfortable with - if they only had a proper reference to do so.

Let the jolly green giants be jolly, green, and giant, but please at least help the clueless newbies get it right by giving us a scale that is familiar - if they want to be 3 feet tall, or 8 feet tall, they can be - the difference is that they will KNOW.

My avatar is 162cm (thats 5 foot 4 to you Americans) and I too am constantly mistaken for a child or accused of age play. I look tiny when standing next to the newbies who wander into my house. When I explain to my accuser that it is they who are actually 7 foot tall, they are most often quite surprised, and apologise.

There is a LSL command that outputs an AV's approximate height in (SL)meters (irrespective of the relationship between SL meters and RL meters, the only thing we care about is AV height in relation to SL objects, so the units are already the same). The original request seems to simply be to put the same total-height-calculation function in the bottom-right corner of the AV body shape control, updated as sliders are moved about.

No dictating what is 'normal' or what should be, just providing useful referencing information for people making their AVs.

Then people making AVs can see their height and think "Ooh, my AV is 2.3m tall, WAY COOL!!" and then go out into the virtual-world knowing that all those people with their heads at his/her stomach-height are not age-players pretending to be 6-year-olds, and that the reason they don't fit posed objects properly is their issue (well, see issue# SVC-298 for a possible solution to some of THAT one

This is something which should have been done from the start. But I think it's too late now.

First, a system that will work for everyone but the tinies etc. will be vastly superior to what we have now, i.e. nothing, or at best various tools that claim to measure one's height.

Second, LL themselves created the mapping from sizes in SL to sizes in meters--otherwise there wouldn't be any of those height measuring devices. All that's being asked for is to be supplied information about the results of slider settings, using the mapping that already exists.

Third, those height measuring devices have deficiencies:

1. They're not present when one most needs them, namely when one first adjusts one's avatar. (OK, perhaps I should just say that I didn't see them around when I first adjusted my avatar, since that's all I can reliably report.)

2. In at least some cases, they don't even agree with one another!

3. At best they measure total height; often one is interested in proportions. For example, I have wings... but really, a 7'2" (at least that's what one height measuring object says) fairy is a bit much, so I'd like to shrink--but I also want to keep my proportions! I'm happy with them as they are. Trying to accomplish that as things are is a major pain.

Nobody is telling people that they should conform to some average. I for one will continue to make myself just as tall and leggy as I possibly can; if this be Barbie, make the most of it, to paraphrase Patrick Henry. But people should have the information presented to them in a usable and convenient way so they can make an informed choice and get whatever it is they want more easily.

What I'd love to see is a continuously updated display of a reasonable set of parameters in the units of my choice, using the mapping already set up in SL, when I'm adjusting my appearance--which set would depend on which slider I'm adjusting at the time.

If an average human is X meters tall, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out that the average arm is X centimeters long, an average leg is X cm long, the average head is X cm wide, etc. I'm thinking that the facial features should remain relative, i.e. who cares if their nose is 3.5 cm wide or long or whatever, or their outside eyes have a 30 degree upward slant? Those should all remain as "relative" sliders, as they are. For the basic shape, however, I honestly don't see the difficulty in changing the sliders to metric values.

It might affect current builds, sure. But it's not like stuff in SL is set in stone. It's a fluid, dynamic world. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people complained about rewiring their RL houses when electricity was invented too. This is hardly on the scope of electricity in the Big Issues, but it IS important if LL wants SL to continue to evolve.

I see some dispute in the comments about whether this is a good idea or a bad idea. From a designer's standpoint it is a good idea. I cannot see how it would be a bad idea, all of the arguments I've seen seem misinformed, and somewhat alarmist though alarmed over what it is not clear.

Currently, we have an in-world measurement system based on our real-world metric system. However, even though this is clearly in place, we have absolutely no easy indication as to what our avatar heights are. As a result, height in SL is horribly skewed, and not at all based on any accepted SL scale. Because avatar height is horribly skewed, and many have failed to take measurement into consideration with their builds, much of the content in SL is not made to any scale whatsoever.

Allow me to say that again, most content in SL is not made to any scale whatsoever. Avatars are not all uniformly larger. Builds do not all conform to avatar scale, how can they when avatars are not in scale to each other? One moment, you are wading through a mess of misproportioned furniture, buildings, and other content. Then you wander into a place where everything is made in a uniform scale, but it is all much larger or smaller in scale than your avatar.

Also, the present situation is skewed against users being able to create tall avatars. As the average avatar height tends towards the tallest end of the scale, it is impossible to create an avatar significantly taller than average unless one resorts to prims. Even with prim-based avatars, height is limited due to the use of the avatar as your animation skeleton. I've often heard people argue that they can be whatever height they wish, but in this situation that is only true so long as they wish to be average or short.

It would be fairly simple to set the process in motion of moving SL towards having a recognized sense of scale. This does not mean everyone must become regular sized. No one expects tinies to be made larger, no one expects werewolf or minotaur avatars to shrink down to 5 feet 10 inches to fit in. In fact, one of the biggest benefits of making scale more readily apparent would be that those who want tall avatars will finally, for the first time, be able to truly tower over those with more realistic heights. It would add so much more noticeable variety to SL's avatars in that regard, and be an incredible boon to avatar creators.

I would also point out, if no one has already, at the avatar height attribute one can find via scripts is not in scale with prim scale. That needs to be fixed, so those using scripts for height purposes can have an accurate measurement. I believe this is because the avatar height attribute is linked with an avatar's bounding box, and not the avatar itself.

Now, some have also mentioned that ceilings are really tall due to the SL camera. This is only partially true. Many people do tend to build tall, and justify it with the camera, however these people build much taller than one needs to even for accommodating the SL camera. My own build has an average ceiling height of 3.6 to 4 meters. I have neither experienced any camera issues nor heard any complaints from my visitors whatsoever. It is a moderately popular role-play area, with many tall avatars. There's really no reason anyone needs to go with the 8-10 meter ceilings we often see. And around 4 meters, or even up to 6 meters or so, you can furnish a room with furniture in realistic scale that does not look too out of place.

As Jheryd points out, avatar and clothing designers, and their customers, would also benefit from this. Many SL designers already care about scale, as scale and proportion are both important elements of design. However, there is no way to build a prim armour that will fit all or most avatars out of the box. I often see avatars well over 2 metres tall walking around wearing armor or other attachments made for an avatar half their size. Those designers who do not take scale into consideration also often build to their own height, after all if one ignores scale what other basis are they going to build by? So things they make can be scaled up, but it's much more difficult to scale them down. That's if they allow their items to be modded at all.

Encouraging a universally accepted scale allows creators to build in a uniform scale that will work with most avatars. Those who choose to be smaller or larger are then conscious of their height difference, and more likely to take the appropriate measures to re-size attachments to fit properly.

As Tegg points out, adding a height indicator would have no negative impact on anyone (except those people who choose to harass shorter avatars), but would eventually have a very positive impact visually.

The only concern I would have would be more important to fix another issue with Second Life, by allowing avatars to actually be able to adjust their physical height by crouching and crawling. This would prevent the potential issue of a tall avatar having problems accessing a realistically sized room. There is currently a Jira ticket for that as well.

It bears repeating, no one is suggesting that everyone be forced into a realistically sized avatar. The suggestion being made is making the already existing form of measurement immediately visible to those who are editing their avatar, so they can achieve the height they intend. Most people do not realize how tall they are, and as the default avatars tend to be just under 7 feet tall people tend to push the high end of the scale. Bringing the average height down simply by providing avatars sized to scale, and providing a way for the casual user to see their avatar height would eventually bring the average hight more to where it should be, and therefore allow a wider range of avatar heights.

As for content creators, I imagine LL would have some kind of conversion/notification/easement period. Most wearable objects I've seen require position adjustment anyway, and clothes should be scaleable (it's not an exact science!), so I don't really see the issue.

Off-topic, as soemone who is 6'7", I find all the enormous 7' avatars amusing. If people were really that tall, finding clothes would be about impossible!

I do not support this request out of some irrational idea that all avatars must conform to real world measurements, nor do I believe that all 7-8 foot tall avatars ought to reduce their height. However, as a designer in SL I realize that scale and proportion are integral aspects of design. A considerable amount of SL's well deserved reputation for poor visuals can be attributed to the complete lack of consideration given to this. I feel that starting with the most personal element of SL, the avatar, more thought to this aspect of content creation can be fostered.

All of the arguments against this request seem to stem from misunderstanding. Several of the arguments against this idea seem to believe that it calls for measurements in SL to be changed, this is not the case at all. What is being requested is for the avatar editor to display the height of one's avatar. It has been pointed out that many sliders affect the height of the avatar, so it stands to reason that such an indicator should be kept separate of the sliders. Also, given the international nature of SL, it is only reasonable that it should display avatar height in both english and metric units.

The that there are so many discrepancies between SL and the real world that this should not be an issue, and that avatars which use animation tricks and other ways to create shorter or taller prim avatars would not work with such a tool anyways, seem to miss the point entirely. The idea that SL is a virtual world, and so an SL metre is meaningless anyways also misses the point. All systems of measurement are arbitrary and man-made, and yet also necessary for a variety of reasons. A number of reasons have been given as to why this feature is necessary, and would benefit SL. Yes, SL is a virtual world where things do not need to be quite as they are in real life. However, it is a virtual world that relies heavily on visual design elements, and this is a request for a visual design tool to be used in avatar creation and editing.

That there are user created tools for checking avatar height also misses the point. As recently as this morning I encountered a resident from 2005 who had no idea how tall their avatar was. Also, many of the existing tools display an incorrect measurement based off the Agent Height attribute. New users have a difficult enough time acclimating to SL that it is unreasonable to expect them to actively seek out a resident created height detector, let alone discern one that displays a correct height, from one that displays an incorrect height.

Once avatar scale has been better established, it will be far easier to give thought to scale for furniture, environments, animation , and avatar attachments. It will also be easier for content creators to cater to avatars of specific height ranges, and easier for others to shop for their own avatars, armed with the knowledge of what to look for in content suited to their avatar's own appearance. In addition, as has been previously pointed out, it would significantly expand the potential variety for avatars.

I urge the Lindens to consider this request seriously.

Scale is an incredibly important element of design, yet is largely ignored by the majority of residents simply due to the fact that they do not know any better. Instead, residents are forced to eye things until their avatar looks right to them. People then create items around this avatar by again, eying things until they look right. With so many residents creating avatars and items in this manner, the grid is a horribly inconsistent mess.

It's obvious most people are going for an attractive human form, but when they do not have a reference to how tall they are and on a related note, how humans are proportioned, the results are often rather poor. After all, the taller an avatar is, the harder is becomes to create a decently proportioned realistic human form due to the slider limits.

Most residents I've come across do care about height to some extent. I cannot count the number of times I've seen people shocked at how tall they are, and even readjust themselves to the height they had in mind. If more were aware of their height, the scale for builds would be more consistent overall. Having content built to a consistent scale makes things look far more professional than the guess work I mentioned above. Not to mention that if people took their avatar's height into consideration upon creation, many of the current animation issues people have wouldn't be near as much of a problem.

The "it's a fantasy world" argument isn't any good either. It may be a fantasy world, but the majority of people still try to create avatars, homes and other items around their real world counterparts, just look around, even the Second Life website promotes this. I don't think very many people are actually wanting everything to be disproportional to each other. Unfortunately, even the starter avatars are giant.

Go here, take a look at script and use it for yourselves:
http://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=1149435

Really, it's not very hard create something rather accurate. If it can be done with LSL (of all languages) , surely similar can be added to the client itself.

The avatar is the base which everything is created around, adding an accurate height indicator in the appearance window can only have a positive effect.

Many, including myself, have attempted to explain why the requested feature, or a variation thereof, is a necessary design tool, and how the peculiar lack of such basic design information has irreparably damaged over five years' worth of SL content. Professional artists realize this, and attempt to find ways around Linden Lab's oversight.

However, most content creators within SL do not have professional art and design backgrounds. Many do not even have a hobbyist's experience in art before delving into content creation within SL. As such, it is understandable that many do not grasp the necessity here. Their artistic endeavours within SL are a fun past time that they never intend to take seriously. Linden Lab, on the other hand, should certainly not take such a cavalier and unprofessional approach if you truly wish to present SL as an engaging and immersive platform for either business or entertainment. When you do, it sets the bar for design very low, and makes it much more difficult for those with the talent and drive to make the most of what SL is capable of. Even those who do attempt to work around the lack of this feature often wind up victims of misinformation, such as the incorrect height detectors which are so prevalent within SL.

The lack of such a simple feature throws into stark contrast the frustrating disparity between Linden Lab's stated goals for Second Life, and the understanding necessary to achieve those goals. It is my sincere hope that there are those within LL who do understand this, and will be given the opportunity to correct this long standing mistake, and to also give attention to other problems with SL's design tools of which many might be just as easily fixed.

The five years' worth of content affected by the lack of scale information within SL will not be fixed overnight, but the sooner this information is provided to all residents, the sooner improvements will be seen in the form of new content filling the grid.

"We also have Tinies and related avatars which use a deformed or compressed "meatball" pose, so that their perceived height isn't accurately reported."

Perhaps the solution to that is to provide sufficient flexibility in the avatar model that such dodges aren't required.

Very much agreed! But that's sort of a different issue than this one, which just has to do with the actual measurements used. Maybe the issue you're interested in is VWR-7538.

http://lib.openmetaverse.org/wiki/AgentSetAppearance

I agree with the concept in principle, in any case. There are those who want to be realistic, value it as a part of their avatar appearance, but never realize that their avatars are anything but. Naturally, those who enjoy the fantasy of 8' avatars with 5' shoulders and 1' waists will ignore it, and more power to them.

The more people who see SL's visuals in such a poor light, I would argue more due to issues such as this than even the technical limitations of the platform, the fewer who will join SL. This affects us all, as the fewer people in SL, the smaller the economy.