[Feedback Requested] Should "Measure Avatar by Height" be the new default on release?
Kung
Note: this does not mean that I intend to remove the toggle option. This is just a question of what people should have as their first experience of IK2.0 before they learn about the options.
Possible Pros/Cons:
By-height new default Pros:
- Fewer issues with floor height for new users.
- Better general fit for FBT
- New IK2.0 arm scale factor had both positive and negative reactions / was confusing people about scale.
By-height new default Cons:
- Avatar arm length will now vary per avatar (instead of leg length) this might confuse people.
- More users are in 3pt, by-height gives them a better floor height, but less accurate arms, which is what has tracking data.
- Users who don't use/set User Real Height as their IRL height will have more issues.
I'm inclined to set it as the new default but I want to ask the community about this, because defaults are all about new users and what is or isn't confusing.
Please feel free to discuss this beyond just a yes/no response as well. Any other pros/cons etc would be useful. Thanks!
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Livb
Personally I love height scale and I'm never going back to armspan. I've always hated how with the later I could not fully stretch my arms be it 3 or 6 point tracking
FloydianSound
As many other have said. For 3pt tracking, Armspan measurement is the way to go, a more "true" option should be given in the option menu in that case. "ArmSpanLength" = measure of your controllers position in relation to the spline
for FBT6-8-10, "HMDHeight" = Measure of your headset in relation to the Origin (Floor) is more meaningful, and gives a real impression of space as a volume.
maybe in a future update considering a "FBTNormalizedScaler" script that "tunes" avatars Mesh scales and bone length as variable, so that it also rescales the avatar and/or bones in relation to the many trackers at play ? :)
(might sound weird at first, since most avatar in VRChat have unproportionnal legs, but for properly proportionned avatar, this would effectively do minor adjustments to offset the disparity in RL vs Model proportions... maybe it's already a thing that i haven't noticed yet >< )
Waai!
I've found that other games where armspan is not the default prioritization to be a poor initial experience. "Measure Avatar by Height" is a useful tool (especially when using avatars that are not your own) and should be treated as such, and not as the default.
Rakㅤ
Given that your hands are your primary tool for interaction in VR, I think that by default the avatar's arm span should be scaled to match that of the user.
NotAKidoS
The thing that annoyed me the most when I first got into VR was not being able to reach the floor or that my virtual/irl floor didnt line up. Measure by height helps a lot with that so I would not mind if it became default.
DrBlackRat
I have to say that one upside from scaling by height is that changing your height in the settings does exactly what it says to do, it changes your height. Arm-Span in comparison changes your arm-span which can be a bit confusing if the setting you are changing is called "User Real Height". At lot of people (me included) always changed their height with the old IK so that the length of their feet is fitting and not that the length of their arms are fitting.
To get around that confusion you could consider adding a tool tip when looking at the IK settings for the first time which tells people that scaling by height means their avatar height will always fit and that scaling by arm-span will always make the length of their arms fit.
Adeon Writer
Its all about the first impressions.
I don't think measure by height should be the default for non-fullbody.
In 3 point tracking, the arms matching is vital for first timers. That's where the magic is. The wingspan matching even for non-proportioned avatars is vital for the vast majority of users, who are not FBT and really don't care about the floor height.
There are many avatars with short or crazy long arms and having these arms feel right in 3PT is way more important than you think.
FBT is a power user feature. We know how to change it to measure by height.
ZenithVal
I think arm length should be the default still since a majority of users are 3pt & that's more accurate to the tracking data they have. It'd be nice if there was a prompt for first time FBT users about the alternate option.
knah
ZenithVal: totally agree.
For 3-point, arm span makes more sense because it aligns the only two present tracking points nicely with the avatar.
For FBT, both modes make sense depending on user preference, and hinting the user at the existence of height scaling might be useful (or perhaps hint at the entire FBT settings menu?)
Floatharr
I'm strongly opposed to the others saying arm length should be default. Scale by height is much easier to understand, much more consistent between avatars and makes User Real Height as a setting make sense.
Based on my experience I believe it should be default.
When I starting out easily the most confusing part was that floor position never matched up, and varied per avatar. Even as a tech savvy creator it took a lot of mental gymnastics to realize world scale is dependent on arm length. I feel like aligning the virtual floor with the real floor is VR application design 101.
As a both long time 3pt tracking user, and a relatively new 6pt tracking user I felt a sigh of relief when I realized every single avatar I use is now properly fitted with scale by height, and the User Real Height setting makes sense and needs to be at my actual real height, not some arbitrary number that's a compromise between arm length and hips/feet/floor position. Hands detaching due to arms being too short is easy to understand and it's really not as big of a deal as people make it out to be, feels sort of like how it would make sense to build a costume in real life.
Also I would argue that height does have tracking data: the HMD. Scale is relative in VR so the only measure in addition to horizontal translation you have is distance off the floor, so it's important that the floor position matches or you feel like you're floating.
Errorvator
Floatharr: I was about to leave a comment in favor of keeping the default as arm-scale, but after reading your comment I’m not sure.
Like you, when I started VRChat for the first time, I immediately noticed the incongruous floor heights (especially perceivable with permanent floor bounds enabled in chaperone) and assumed it was a bug, since none of my other VR games behaved this way. While searching for a fix, I learned about arm-scaling.
The reason behind the mismatched floors was not immediately intuitive for me, and looking back, I probably would have been less confused with height-scaling and short in-game arms.
Height-scaling isn’t perfect though. For avatars with inhuman legs, the world looking so small or big is unsettling. With arm-scaling, the floor difference for these avatars is so large that I think it is not as unintuitive as more reasonably proportioned avatars.
Adeon Writer
Floatharr: Making short/long arm avatars feel right by default is more important than making the floor height correct for new users, in my opinion.
If you care about the floor you're a power user and can figure out how to change it. Most people just want the arms to work and will think the avatars are broken if they don't just work out of the box.
bd_
I'd agree with the folks in this thread saying that defaulting to something that works well for 3pt - ie arm scaling - is probably best. However I think there is a need to call out these new options, both for 6+pt users, and for 3pt users who are trying to grab something on the floor. I definitely don't think this would necessarily be in scope for this release, but having some sort of mechanism to detect the first time someone is in stilts but their controllers are on/near the real floor, or on/near their foot trackers, and ping them to look at that setting, would be a nice (albeit admittedly ambitious) tutorial feature to have at some point.
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