What Does Mesh Mean for Tinies?

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So I heard this at the Mesh meeting the other day: “Now we can have real Tinies!” And this is an idea I’ve heard off and on for a while now — concerning the joint deformers/displacements and the mesh skeleton and blah blah blah. But I stopped to think about this a second. What does that mean? “Real Tinies”?

Let me interrupt with a flashback to a conversation I had in another (non-Tiny) group chat. Someone was asking about Tinies. The question was, were they all animals? Being somewhat of an expert, I tried to help this person out.

“No,” I said. “There are robots, and food items, and some monsters and aliens and vehicles and such.”

“Well, are there any humans?” she wanted to know.

I had to think about that for a second. What Tiny would want to be a human?? “Well…,” I said; “If you go to one of the Elf markets, you can get a Tiny fairy.” That uses the human avatar head and skin, with a Tiny AO. Toss on a dress, some prim shoes and hands, the wings and all, and there you have it. “Or,” I added, “there are Tiny babies.” Which are TRULY hideous! I swear, these things are scarier than prim babies!

She didn’t seem satisfied with that. “Well how small does one have to be to be considered a Tiny? Is there a height requirement?”

I said, “No, it’s not a height per se. It’s a special AO that folds up the body and the limbs. Tinies don’t have joints like normal folks. They don’t have knees or elbows, and the torso is all folded down compactly.”

Well, she didn’t like that idea. She couldn’t do without her knees and all. “I think I’ll just stick to my big-boobed self,” she said.

“That’s probably for the best,” I agreed.

 

Why would a normal person want to become a Tiny? And not a “Tiny – TM” Tiny, but just… a tiny normal person. I’m not even going to venture a guess on that one. And why do they think that “Real” Tinies, with all the joints intact, are going to be better than Tinies as they are now?

Because I always describe Tinies as “teddy bears,” or “stuffed animals (plushies).” And, they are. If you get an articulated teddy bear, it doesn’t have elbows and wrists and knees, it just has joints at the hips and shoulders where the limbs attach to the body. Heck, their heads don’t usually move, and Tiny’s heads do.

This so-called “Real” Tiny would just be… a shrunken furry. But to me, that’s not what a Tiny is. Heck, that’s a micro. Shrunken smaller than Tinies, but with all the limbs and torso joints intact. They can use all the standard animations of normal avatars. Tinies can’t.

Now we’ve all had frustrations with the Tiny avatars. Like trying to animate them to shoot a bow and arrow. Ever tried to do that with no elbows or wrists? And if your lateral arm movements are restricted by a rotund body? (Okay, not everybody has. :X ) And clothing? Oh, in the old days where the left foot would flop around as you walked, and you had to attach pantlegs to the lower legs while your real legs were on the upper legs, and if they got out of line…. Oh, and trying to use biggie chairs and vehicles and dance balls and constantly unfolding….! Oh, the Tiny-anity! And just eating and drinking animations are a trick.

Although fully-articulated “Tiny” avatars would get rid of all these issues… do we really want to? I mean, to me, a shrunken furry is NOT a Tiny. A shrunken human is not a Tiny. Micros are not Tinies. It’s the teddy-bear-esque-ness of Tinies that makes a Tiny. I don’t see as losing that would be something to value.

It could just be me. Do other Tinies have knee-envy? Loco Poco Tinies had separate hands, and Grendel’s Tinies have fully articulated arms — did this really improve their quality of life? (Actually, it made it kinda a nightmare to create holdable attachments for them, but with the new ‘add as many attachments to one point as you want’ feature, that’s no longer a concern.)

Do we even need full mesh Tiny avatars? Spheres are real easy to dress. :X But I will grant, that the new sculpty heads are really nice. Somebody will no doubt make a Tiny mesh avatar. But I don’t see “old style” Tinies going out of fashion any time soon. My only wonder is, can the avatar be squished so that the upper arms/forearms/hands overlap, all the torso pieces overlap, and the upper/lower legs overlap. If that could be arranged, then the Tiny wouldn’t have to be folded up with limbs at 180 degrees to normal. Then we could probably stop unfolding with all those Biggie animations.

 

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