Bringing Second Life Down to Size
6 foot 2, eyes of blue
I recently read an interesting discussion of scale in second life (tip of the hat to Tateru Nino for pointing it out). This argument did something that most arguments about size in Second Life don’t accomplish. It gave me things to actually think about regarding Scale Inworld. It was refreshing not having to read through an article that simultaneously recounted all of the ways that people of real life height are oppressed and called for some sort of forced resizing for all avatars, blind to their own hypocrisy. For once this was not just about avatars and actual human size. This article says something substantive regarding the scale of builds…something worth giving some serious thought.
I know that I will be rethinking my own builds as a result of this. I will probably attempt to make some builds that do fit “actual human scale”, but perhaps more importantly, I intend to tune my existing builds so that each build has exactly one scale that all items are built to, whether that scale is Average avatar height, average human height or something altogether different. I’ve also adopted a 6’2″ avatar to use as my primary avatar for the next month to walk a mile in the Real Height Avatar shoes and help me think about scale by giving me a new perspective from which to view it. This is just a tad taller than my RL height and roughly 6 to 8 inches shorter than my typical SL height.
If you are starting from the viewpoint that your own worldview should be compulsory, you’ve already lost me, even if I might otherwise be sympathetic to your cause. If you make some good points and give me something to think about, you might win yourself an ally, even if I don’t share your viewpoints 100%. I think this post accomplished that, and I’m going to try and practice mindful scaling going forward (though not always to real human height).
