Character body height in real life measurements

mikikatze

Radiance wrote: »

If we put as much thought into real life matters maybe the world wouldn't be in the state it's in.

Oh yes, let's all stop our hobbies and save the world instead... I vote for closing the forum altogether. 🙄

Syldras

Aendruu wrote: »

Indeed! I tried to find the Morrowind scale instead, but extensive searching produced nothing

Unfortunately, I didn't find anything either. Skyrim scale doesn't really work for me. How could people who are supposed to be extremely small be 1,79 or even 1,83?! Also, the height difference between the tallest and the shortest people is only 18 cm.

Radiance wrote: »

Idk why it matters and I hope the lore doesn't get so extensively complicated that they feel the need to create their own unit of measurement just to sate this insane curiosity.

I wouldn't call a simple chart saying "Altmer = 1,95, Nord = 1,85, Dunmer = 1,65,... all heights +/- 10 cm" (or whatever the measurements are) extensively complicated.

Radiance wrote: »

If we put as much thought into real life matters maybe the world wouldn't be in the state it's in.

Yes, for example we could show tolerance toward people's individual choices and interests, like what kind of distraction they prefer for their free time or vacation. Some people are binge-watching TV series the whole weekend or go drinking, others try to get an elaborate grasp of the many aspects of a fictional world they love to write stories about or roleplay in. It's everyone's own choice.

tomofhyrule

I was actually a bit annoyed with how Skyrim handled heights since there was so little variance, and there were a few changes from previous games. I'm used to Bosmer being noticeably shorter than others, with the Bosmer men being the shortest overall, but there was so little difference there, and the Bosmer were even taller than Breton or Khajiit women. Also Orcs being taller than Nords was weird.

One of the first things I downloaded was a lore heights mod.

But I have to say, I love the height slider in ESO character creation. I hope TESVI takes that. My main is an Orc at minimum height, so it's fun to see him noticeably shorter than most of the Nords he met. I've always preferred playing shorter characters.

Sylvermynx

@Syldras, I had an idea in the middle of the night. The Essential Housing Tools addon has a measuring pad when in the character or item screen in a house. You might be able to use that to measure each of your characters. Then you could maybe make some others, one at a time, to measure shortest and tallest. That might allow to come up with a base range in this game.

Actually, you don't have to be in a house. It's on screen any time you're in inventory for instance....

Aendruu

Syldras wrote: »

Unfortunately, I didn't find anything either. Skyrim scale doesn't really work for me. How could people who are supposed to be extremely small be 1,79 or even 1,83?! Also, the height difference between the tallest and the shortest people is only 18 cm.

Yes, I completely agree.

Radiance wrote: »

If we put as much thought into real life matters maybe the world wouldn't be in the state it's in.

Well, it's nice to take a break from saving the world once in a while, and apply one's mind to something frivolous.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I was actually a bit annoyed with how Skyrim handled heights [...] One of the first things I downloaded was a lore heights mod.

But I have to say, I love the height slider in ESO character creation.

That was a wonderful mod! But the height slider is an excellent addition; it always seemed ridiculous that everyone of each race was exactly the same height, compared with real-life genetics.

KMarble

Tigerseye wrote: »

For one thing, my (admittedly, fairly tall) female Bosmer's feet (easily) sit flat on the ground, when she sits on chairs.

So, that suggests they make the chairs on the smaller side, to fit the smallest chars in the game.

As opposed to in real life, where very petite adults can have their feet barely touch the ground, or even be left dangling, when they sit on a chair.

I made my female wood elf as short as I could. My male orc height slider was set at the center (because I forgot to slide it to max height). Both sit on the same chair showing the same position - feet flat on the ground, with thighs almost parallel to the floor. The same happens with my tall male dark elf (max height) and my very short female Khajiit (min height).

Chairs seem to scale up and down just like mounts.

Tigerseye

Syldras wrote: »

Tigerseye wrote: »

I don't think we should get too hung up on assumed/guessed chair measurements, either way.

What's with body proportions and head size then?

Sorry, I don't really know what you meant by that?

Oreyn_Bearclaw

The problem with this method is that a chair height exists based on the size we generally are as humans. If we were 50 feet tall on average, our chairs would probably be higher off the ground. Haha.

Syldras

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I was actually a bit annoyed with how Skyrim handled heights since there was so little variance, and there were a few changes from previous games. I'm used to Bosmer being noticeably shorter than others, with the Bosmer men being the shortest overall, but there was so little difference there, and the Bosmer were even taller than Breton or Khajiit women. Also Orcs being taller than Nords was weird.

Yes. I also can remember that scene in Ivarstead where Gwilin the Bosmer and some Nord guy (I'm sorry, I forgot his name) were talking about delivering food to the Greybeards. During that dialogue they stand next to eachother and are almost the same height. Really strange. Or was the Nord of that infamous "old people race" (as that extra body model for, well, old people, was called in the editor)?

Sylvermynx wrote: »

@Syldras, I had an idea in the middle of the night. The Essential Housing Tools addon has a measuring pad when in the character or item screen in a house. You might be able to use that to measure each of your characters. Then you could maybe make some others, one at a time, to measure shortest and tallest. That might allow to come up with a base range in this game.

I'll have a look, thank you!

KMarble wrote: »

Chairs seem to scale up and down just like mounts.

I never noticed a difference when I saw several people sitting, but of course I didn't pay special attention to it. How does it work with seats where several chars sit next to each other? There are several for 2-3 chars, and I think there is a really long Redoran bench for even 4 or 5 people. What happens if a huge Altmer and a tiny Bosmer sit down on that?

But, even if they scale, this only happens when a person is using the chair. Otherwise it just stands there and always has the same size, right? We were not using the chairs, but just placing them for measurements.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

The problem with this method is that a chair height exists based on the size we generally are as humans. If we were 50 feet tall on average, our chairs would probably be higher off the ground.

But doesn't that specially make sense, if we try to find a scale to convert in game heights to the real world?

Sylvermynx

Syldras wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

@Syldras, I had an idea in the middle of the night. The Essential Housing Tools addon has a measuring pad when in the character or item screen in a house. You might be able to use that to measure each of your characters. Then you could maybe make some others, one at a time, to measure shortest and tallest. That might allow to come up with a base range in this game.

I'll have a look, thank you!

I realized later that you can actually see the measurement ruler in character or inventory screen without being in a house at all. Hope it helps!

willjones1122

All the discussion around chair height and scaling isn't taking a second dimension into consideration. When a bosmer sits in a chair if you turn your camera to profile you will see there is quite a bit of space between his back and the back of the chair. Sit in the same chair with an orc/altmer/nord and you will see the character's back much closer(if not touching/clipping) the back of the chair. Chair scale remains relatively constant. Now if we assume that the races of tamriel are approximately the same height and proportion as humans (with slight variations for the obvious outliers orc skulls are probably rounder while mer skulls are elongated) i think the OP's measurements are close enough for general use standards (and indeed one could build a set/prop using that scale)- now we could raise the question of which chair did they use for measurement? - i.e. a bosmer chair is obviously going to have a different height than say a breton or altmer, but i doubt it makes a difference (because in game they are probably the same size for ease of graphics/scaling/coding).

Eiagra

Hey Syldras. It so happens I was doing a measurement study of orcs in ESO, and while not fully complete (I still need to grab mid-slider measurements), I have a couple of things that may be helpful.

Methodology: My measuring object is the smallest item I could find in the game: Incense sticks. These appear to be around 1 cm thick. There are mods that show object position in the world, but the Precision Editor makes measuring much easier at this point. Thus, I use the bottom-center of the incense as my measuring point, with a +/- 1 cm margin of error. I used the /saluteloop emote to measure height, as it appeared to have the straightest posture.

Units: in-game centimeters. See observations below.

With the Height slider set to 0 (minimum), Orc male height is 226 cm, or around 7' 5"
With the Height slider set to 16 (maximum), Orc male height is 240 cm, or around 7' 10.5"

I also grabbed foot measurements, as it was the only other "flat" thing I could measure. Things like inseam/outseam I'm still trying to figure out a standard for, and my attempts to measure waist circumference was kind of a mess. I can't even try other tailor-type measurements until I can figure that out.

Something to bear in mind when looking at raw measurements (creatures, architecture, and furniture alike) is that in a 3D gaming environment there needs to be camera-swing space if third-person cameras are used. Otherwise, everything gets cramped, the camera is clipping or bumping, and third-person perspective quickly becomes cumbersome.

I suspect that ESO's in-game measurements would not precisely equate to real-life counterparts in that sense, and may require some scaling to figure out a lore/life equivalent. Does 1 ESO cm = 1 RL cm? If so, then people and objects are scaled larger than they would normally be in RL. If not, then what maths would convert 1 ESO cm to 1 RL cm?

Also, I find a 5.5" delta between min and max height to be a little unusual. Orcs are big, sure, but the min/max delta on a human ranges much wider (outliers notwithstanding). Complicating this is what I call "Undaunted Height" -- Abzag the Monster in Daggerfall is an example here. Would this be an outlier, or something to add to the normal range?

I'm sleepy and rambling, but hope this helps a little.

feyii

I haven't used the hosing editor after the precision editing was included. I would be curious if it also shows the ingame height of collectible furnishings - like mounts, pets or (most relevant here) assistants?
If it is possible and we assume Tythis and Nuzime to be of average height, it would be really interesting to see what the editor says to their heigth. And maybe someone with an actual male Dunmer or female Redguard of average height could check, if these two are the same size as them.

KMarble

Syldras wrote: »

KMarble wrote: »

Chairs seem to scale up and down just like mounts.

I never noticed a difference when I saw several people sitting, but of course I didn't pay special attention to it. How does it work with seats where several chars sit next to each other? There are several for 2-3 chars, and I think there is a really long Redoran bench for even 4 or 5 people. What happens if a huge Altmer and a tiny Bosmer sit down on that?

Sorry, I can't answer this as I haven't tried it. I just mentioned what I observed with my chars.

Syldras wrote: »

KMarble wrote: »

Chairs seem to scale up and down just like mounts.

But, even if they scale, this only happens when a person is using the chair. Otherwise it just stands there and always has the same size, right? We were not using the chairs, but just placing them for measurements.

I was replying to another poster who said (emphasis mine):

Tigerseye wrote: »

For one thing, my (admittedly, fairly tall) female Bosmer's feet (easily) sit flat on the ground, when she sits on chairs.

So, that suggests they make the chairs on the smaller side, to fit the smallest chars in the game.

As opposed to in real life, where very petite adults can have their feet barely touch the ground, or even be left dangling, when they sit on a chair.

My post had nothing to do with any methodology that might be used to measure characters.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

The problem with this method is that a chair height exists based on the size we generally are as humans. If we were 50 feet tall on average, our chairs would probably be higher off the ground.

But doesn't that specially make sense, if we try to find a scale to convert in game heights to the real world?[/quote]

willjones1122 wrote: »

All the discussion around chair height and scaling isn't taking a second dimension into consideration. When a bosmer sits in a chair if you turn your camera to profile you will see there is quite a bit of space between his back and the back of the chair. Sit in the same chair with an orc/altmer/nord and you will see the character's back much closer(if not touching/clipping) the back of the chair. Chair scale remains relatively constant. Now if we assume that the races of tamriel are approximately the same height and proportion as humans (with slight variations for the obvious outliers orc skulls are probably rounder while mer skulls are elongated) i think the OP's measurements are close enough for general use standards (and indeed one could build a set/prop using that scale)- now we could raise the question of which chair did they use for measurement? - i.e. a bosmer chair is obviously going to have a different height than say a breton or altmer, but i doubt it makes a difference (because in game they are probably the same size for ease of graphics/scaling/coding).

IRL I'm short and my husband is tall. When I sit on the sofa my feet are flat on the ground (thanks to pillows to prop my back, otherwise I'd sit with my legs straight out) and the back of my knee touches the seat - my thigh is pretty much parallel to the seat. When my husband sits at the same place on the sofa his feet are flat on the floor too, but his legs are on an angle with the knee being higher than the hip joint.

The angle of the thigh is what I was using to infer that chairs scale depending on the race of the char sitting on it. Sorry for not being clearer before.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Syldras wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I was actually a bit annoyed with how Skyrim handled heights since there was so little variance, and there were a few changes from previous games. I'm used to Bosmer being noticeably shorter than others, with the Bosmer men being the shortest overall, but there was so little difference there, and the Bosmer were even taller than Breton or Khajiit women. Also Orcs being taller than Nords was weird.

Yes. I also can remember that scene in Ivarstead where Gwilin the Bosmer and some Nord guy (I'm sorry, I forgot his name) were talking about delivering food to the Greybeards. During that dialogue they stand next to eachother and are almost the same height. Really strange. Or was the Nord of that infamous "old people race" (as that extra body model for, well, old people, was called in the editor)?

Sylvermynx wrote: »

@Syldras, I had an idea in the middle of the night. The Essential Housing Tools addon has a measuring pad when in the character or item screen in a house. You might be able to use that to measure each of your characters. Then you could maybe make some others, one at a time, to measure shortest and tallest. That might allow to come up with a base range in this game.

I'll have a look, thank you!

KMarble wrote: »

Chairs seem to scale up and down just like mounts.

I never noticed a difference when I saw several people sitting, but of course I didn't pay special attention to it. How does it work with seats where several chars sit next to each other? There are several for 2-3 chars, and I think there is a really long Redoran bench for even 4 or 5 people. What happens if a huge Altmer and a tiny Bosmer sit down on that?

But, even if they scale, this only happens when a person is using the chair. Otherwise it just stands there and always has the same size, right? We were not using the chairs, but just placing them for measurements.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

The problem with this method is that a chair height exists based on the size we generally are as humans. If we were 50 feet tall on average, our chairs would probably be higher off the ground.

But doesn't that specially make sense, if we try to find a scale to convert in game heights to the real world?

It does, but better to use something that is not man made. A chair is a bad thing to use, because you are presumably going to get ranges for typical humans, which is exactly what happened. Your Dunmer is on the shorter side and your Altmer is on the taller side.

Best thing to use would be something that is not man mad that exists in the real world. Perhaps something like a potato or an apple.

JobooAGS

I’m sure someone can take advantage of the given 5m range of skills and the /playdead command

Syldras

Actually I wanted to reply after I've done some more testing, but unfortunately I didn't get far within the last 2 weeks. First, I was really busy with rl concerns, now there are problems with ESO... I get logged off literally at almost every location change. It took me several attempts to get into the thieves den, and now, after selling all the junk, the problem is getting out again... It's no fun this way. Hope it will change again. Soon, hopefully.

willjones1122 wrote: »

now we could raise the question of which chair did they use for measurement? - i.e. a bosmer chair is obviously going to have a different height than say a breton or altmer, but i doubt it makes a difference (because in game they are probably the same size for ease of graphics/scaling/coding).

I tried several chairs, randomly - just what I found in my bank One was a Clockwork chair, the others Breton and Nord, I think. They indeed had the same height.

Eiagra wrote: »

I suspect that ESO's in-game measurements would not precisely equate to real-life counterparts in that sense, and may require some scaling to figure out a lore/life equivalent. Does 1 ESO cm = 1 RL cm? If so, then people and objects are scaled larger than they would normally be in RL. If not, then what maths would convert 1 ESO cm to 1 RL cm?

This is exactly my impression, 1 cm in the editor can't be 1 cm rl. Except for if we would accept that every person on Nirn is a giant. Even male Bosmer would be, I think, about 1,80 m tall then, and most other people over 2 m, some even 2,50 m. That's why we had to think about a scale and used the standard rl measurements of a chair I'm not even sure if it was a good idea, but at least it was an idea to start with...

feyii wrote: »

If it is possible and we assume Tythis and Nuzime to be of average height, it would be really interesting to see what the editor says to their heigth. And maybe someone with an actual male Dunmer or female Redguard of average height could check, if these two are the same size as them.

Maybe someone else could do that? I can't, as I don't have any other assistants than the Alfiq banker.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Best thing to use would be something that is not man mad that exists in the real world. Perhaps something like a potato or an apple.

I have thought about this. But what exactly to use? It's not that a potato or an apple neccessarily has a standard size... I've thought about animals before, the shoulder height of dogs maybe, but then I realized that the wolf dog is extremely tiny (for a wolf dog, at least), and other pets also aren't always their adult standard rl size.

Scaling is generally a bit weird in ESO. Some alchemy ingredients (flowers, mushrooms...) are extremely big if compared to persons (probably so you can see them better). Also, have you realized how huge bath tubs and some of the beds are?

JobooAGS wrote: »

I’m sure someone can take advantage of the given 5m range of skills and the /playdead command

I think someone else already tried that. With the conclusion, that ESO 5 m aren't really 5 m rl.

Finedaible

Wouldn't a chair be designed around Tamriel's different racial attributes? High Elves are pretty tall which would mean a larger chair or table dimensions. Not that I've compared chair sizes in the game, I'm just thinking of how a chair would be designed in real life. Perhaps there is a better, more universal object to be used for scale.

Syldras

Finedaible wrote: »

Wouldn't a chair be designed around Tamriel's different racial attributes? High Elves are pretty tall which would mean a larger chair or table dimensions. Not that I've compared chair sizes in the game, I'm just thinking of how a chair would be designed in real life. Perhaps there is a better, more universal object to be used for scale.

That's what you would think. But I compared them. The ones I tried were all the same size.

alexoop

A similar topic got posted on reddit about a year ago. Here’s a link to an image comparing all of the male race types by min and max height, proportional to one another. It doesn’t have height gages on it though:
https://i.imgur.com/aQnGFfv.jpg
I did not create this; I take no credit for it.

Syldras

To end the "Do chairs resize according to the char who sits on them?" and "Do chairs have different heights?" mystery:

(from another thread)

supersonic_kitten wrote: »

Only the sitting position changes.

Raudgrani

Well the measurement is really off in this game. When retrieving objects, it's like "168 meters away", while it's like 50 meters by normal "eyesight measurement standards". Same with the reach of abilities. Like 5 meters? It seems more like 10 to me.