Second Life Avatar height

Your Second Life avatar height is a constant problem on Second Life. No matter what you scale it to, somebody is going to make comments. Scale in general, is an important factor on Second Life everywhere, and I personally prefer to stick to real-life measurement units directly 1:1.

If you wish to create an avatar shape to match the real-life scale, I offer you the following chart to help you out. (Note that most people, females included, on Second Life are over 2 meters tall, equivalent to 6 feet 7 inches, or over. They do not create on a real-life scale but use a scale for a different reality. A playscale of sorts, similar to Barbie, who is famously… Tall.)

Second Life avatar height chart with real life reference points.

In the Second Life column, I make suggestions to use as an ideal. When I say “fantasy human avatar,” I mean an avatar not created to represent the agent’s real-life self directly but to be like a photo model -type of person. When the character represents your real-life self, I assume you want to use the exact height that you are.

Feet, inches	Feet	Meters*	Second Life	RL References
4 feet 10 in		1.47 m		Height below which is, in adults, considered dwarfinism
4 feet 11 in	4.91 ft	1.5 m	Usual minimum avatar height to be considered “adult” on Second Life	Most children reach this height when becoming teenagers. This is considered the minimum adult height.
5 feet		1.52 m
5 feet 1 in		1.55 m		Lady Gaga height
5 feet 2 in		1.57 m
		1.59 m		Average Asian female height.
5 feet 3 in		1.6 m		International AVERAGE adult female height.
5 feet 4 in		1.63 m		Average American female height.
5 feet 5 in		1.65 m
5 feet 6 in		1.68 m
5 feet 7 in	5.59 ft	1.70 m	Ideal Second Life realistic fantasy human female height	Beyonce, Kate Winslet, Sandra Bullock, Audrey Hepburn, Keira Knightley, Michelle Pfeiffer, Celine Dion, Tom Cruise, Robin Williams height
		1.71 m		Average Asian male height.
5 feet 8 in		1.73 m		Sebastyne Alpha (the author) RL & SL height. (Just saying, gentlemen. 😉 ) Robert Downey Jr., Bruce Lee, Rihanna, Kanye West, Katy Perry, Zac Efron, Jennifer Garner, Ricky Gervais
5 feet 9 in		1.75 m		Minimum female runway model height. Average American male height.
5 feet 10 in		1.78 m		Johnny Depp, Princess Diana, Sylvester Stallone height.
5 feet 11 in	5.89 ft	1.8 m	GOOD CUT OFF POINT between HUMAN male and female avatars (when not based on agent’s own RL height).	Minimum height for male runway model, maximum female runway model. Taylor Swift, David Beckham, George Clooney, Brad Pitt height
6 feet	6 ft	1.83 m		6 foot male
6 feet 1 in		1.85 m
6 feet 2 in		1.88 m		“European 6-foot,” “well tall enough” guy, and top height limit for male runway models. Cristiano Ronaldo, Barack Obama, Ryan Reynolds, Will Smith, Arnold Schwarzenegger
6 feet 2.5 in		1.90 m	ideal Second Life realistic fantasy human male height, when not sized to agents’ own height.	Chris and Liam Hemsworth height, Will Ferrell, Gregory Peck
6 feet 3 in		1.91 m
6 feet 4 in		1.93 m
6 feet 5 in		1.96 m
6 feet 6 in		1.98 m		Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant height
6 feet 6.5 in	6.57 ft	2.00 m	NOT a good “standard” avi height. Not good.	The point after which a European guy replies “I’m 2 something tall,” because centimetres are completely irrelevant after this point. Tony Robbins
6 feet 7 in		2.01 m		European “too tall guy.” Hulk Hogan, Stephen Merchant (the tall guy that hangs out with Ricky Gervais). Average basketball player height.
6 feet 8 in		2.03 m
6 feet 9 in		2.06 m
6 feet 10 in		2.08 m	MY RL height scaled to “Second Life scale” (Plus  heels to this.)
6 feet 11 in		2.11 m
7 feet	7 ft	2.13 m	Second Life average avatar height – overall, giants and monsters included.	People taller than this have a condition called gigantism. People like this exist, but they are a rarity!
7 feet 1 in		2.16 m		Shaq O’Neil height
7 feet 2 in		2.18 m
7 feet 3 in		2.21 m		Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca, height
7 feet 4 in		2.24 m
7 feet 5 in		2.26 m
7 feet 6 in		2.29 m
7 feet 7 in		2.31 m
7 feet 8 in		2.34 m
7 feet 9 in	7.79 ft	2.36 m	The tallest male shape I can make if I stretch everything in size-faithful mesh body
7 feet 10 in		2.39 m
7 feet 11 in		2.41 m
8 feet		2.44 m
8 feet 1 in
8 feet 2 in
8 feet 3 in		2.72 m		Tallest man with gigantism ever lived

*) For those just as confused about the Metric System as I am of the Imperial System; a meter is divided by 100, and these units are called centimetres. Therefore, when someone says they’re “175 (centimetres)” it also means “1.75 meters.”

Just for reference

Here’s 2.01 meter Stephen Merchant and his 5 foot 6″ girlfriend. Now, Stephen is the exact height as the AVERAGE Second Life avatar, women included. So if you know people “exaggerate the height a little” this is how little we’re talking about.

How to edit (or create) a shape?

Most shapes you get are editable, if not, the following cannot be done:

Right click your avatar and choose “Appearance => edit shape.”

To create a NEW shape based on this one, make a copy of your shape in your inventory, wear it and edit that, or make a small edit to the shape you’re wearing to activate the save as button, and then save it as something new. Now you can safely make tweaks to this shape without messing the original. Make sure you’re now wearing this new shape before making further edits.

First, make sure your gender is appropriately set, usually it is but it’s not a given. (Male is the one with an arrow: circle and an arrow – Field of vision narrow, constant source of sorrow, right?) If you have to change it, your shape will significantly change, so it’ll take some more time to fix, but you’ll notice some things not working right, such as automatic selection of gendered seats with AV-sitter.

Now, right under the name of the shape, there is the Height-indicator. Notice that it does not show feet and inches, it shows fractions of feet. (The ‘left overs’ are ‘how many tenths of a foot’, not inches.) Therefore, to get the right height, you’ll have to first use the above chart to convert it to meters, or use this tool to convert feet and inches to just feet.

The slider is not “a general SL percentage” slider, as it depends on your shape/mesh body combination how tall you can make yourself. Sometimes, us girls can go well over 2 meters, sometimes, not – therefore, you know it can’t be used as generic percentages, especially as fantasy characters must have extra room in there. It’s a percentage of what’s available in YOUR current worn avatar. (Gotta love SL level individualism, you special little snowflake, you.)

The slide indicator no longer matches the inbuilt measurements. It throws you off by a full 10 centimetres. (I’ll let you know if it’s fixed in later viewer releases.) To correctly match a scale, you’ll need to compare yourself to an inworld object created to match your own height.

The most important sliders

Body height – slide until it matches your goal height.

Body Thickness – due to your height change, you might want to make yourself thinner.

Head size – you’ll probably want it smaller.

From Torso -> Arm Length – you want to check your arms look about normal.

Hand size

From Legs -> Foot size. (Lara -bodied ladies should always keep this as 0, as the shoes don’t scale well. This also causes the fact that over-sized Laras seem to have disproportionally small feet.)

Obviously, for perfect results, you’ll want to tweak every slider to perfection, but start with these, to get your bearings with the new shape. (You might want to do it on ZEN METAL location, too, to give yourself confidence that you will, actually, fit a 1:1 sim quite nicely. I’ve got a sandbox with sized objects around.)

To help you build to 1:1 scale; ZEN METAL Systematic package

I have put together a package of objects scaled directly to match real life. I call it the Zen Metal Systematic package. It is free to pick up and use, and is available on the Marketplace.

ZEN METAL Bums Back On Seats is a NEW tool to adjust animation positions to a newly resized AV-sitter furniture in minutes rather than hours. Full instructions included.