Monday, January 09, 2012

Giantess avatars

Yesterday, Susyn Stenvaag kindly invited me over to see some amazing work on giantess avatars. I am embarrassed to say that I don't know whether this is new; clearly I've not been keeping up.

I should say that the photos here show stationary figures, but I believe them to use the same constructs as are used for the giantess avatars--I met someone using the avatar to amazing effect. (Hi, J4ne!)

In particular, we visited the Giantess Avatar Shop... here's a photo I took later on:


The boots are sold separately. Note in particular the array of faces one can choose from. That's been an issue with giant avatars--you'd like to be unique, and the face is the main way we recognize individuals. (Of course, one always wants more; I'd love to be able to hand over my head slider settings and get a customized head that is me.) The faces are even better than this 2-D photo would indicate. If you go to the shop and walk around, you can see them in three dimensions.


One of the issues with avatar shapes built up from prims is joints. I think that the unadorned mannequin in the poster shows improvement... though of course the modest clothing and standing pose hides and minimizes joint issues.

Thank you, Susyn, and thank you to the lovely people I met for the first time.

UPDATE: Read the comments--you owe it to yourself to check out the image of Aliasi Stonebender's impressive work!

UPDATE #2: Definitely check out Ms. Stonebender's latest comment, and the images linked to. You'll be amazed, as I was.

9 comments:

Aliasi Stonebender said...

and whoops, that wasn't intended to be anonymous! This is Aliasi Stonebender, if this sign in doesn't work out properly...

Melissa Yeuxdoux said...

Thanks, Aliasi... I appreciate your comments, though alas, the first one is no longer present. If you are willing, I'd love to see what you come up with and would happily put up a photo here in the blog.

grildrig said...

Hey now, that's cool, pics from the field trip... :)

I'm still reasonably new to SL, but it's been clear from the start, and from the friends I've made that they are keen to push any limit to achieve the most realistic effects possible.

It's a blast to see all that creativity unleashed in a fun (and admittedly squirrelly) thing like the giantess fantasy... :)

Aliasi Stonebender said...

Ah, let's try this again, then.

I've known of the store, although honestly I'm not really hyped about the quality. On the other hand, I build myself so I'm fully aware I'm occupying the same doubtful space a microbrew drinker looking down their nose at someone with a Bud. (Okay, giant avatars are a bit specialty... so looking down at someone with a Blue Moon? :) )

Anyway, I like the 'big and brawny' school of giants, so I use a customized version of the 1st Act werewolf that I've modded into humanity. There's quite a few suitable prim-body kits out there, and of course the BIGAVS kit for deformers and animations. I'm really wanting to experiment with mesh, as I've seen some very promising giant avatars made with it already. It's just a lot trickier than even 'conventional' mesh clothing or avatars, so... not very common yet.

Anyway, I was just posting a (year old) screenshot of what I use as a comparison. Not everyone will like the cartoony face, but in lieu of a really good animated face I'd rather stay on the left side of the uncanny valley!

http://aliasi.us/images/ali%20in%20camo_001.jpg

Melissa Yeuxdoux said...

Very nice work, Aliasi!

grildrig said...

That's a great pic (and a suitable size for car juggling). The cartoony face works well, I'm surprised I haven't seen anybody else try that route...

Aliasi Stonebender said...

Update to the update: I have successfully made my first giant avatar based on my normal SL one. (Making one using my own mesh body is proving a little trickier, although I'm getting there.)

Just as a comparison:

My normal av: http://aliasi.us/images/aliasi_for_web.jpg

My slightly giant av, with one of Yadni's builder's measuring tapes and a deck chair for scale: http://aliasi.us/images/giant%20mesh%20aliasi_001.png

It's even using MY PERSONAL SHAPE, and that is AWESOME. :)

Melissa Yeuxdoux said...

Awesome indeed! Thank you so much for the update.

grildrig said...

Nice work... :)

I've yet to see a giant mesh human, though I have one friend who was merrily pounding her head against the wall trying to make it happen.

(one can learn the most colorful phrases during those moments of creative effort)