Pronzilla's guide to XML Body part sizes

[pronzilla]

Jak's tutorials have covered most of the character XML file contents, but not playing with the body part sizes, so here's a summary of what I've found out about them while working on the People Permutor.

Disclaimer: I may be wrong about some of this stuff.  For starters, what "looks  good" is pretty subjective.  For seconds, I've not exhaustively researched this (doing a really thorough job of this would take a loooong time) and I do make mistakes.

For now, I've only included range values for body 1, which is where I've focused my attention so far (stop giggling at the back).  I'll post my findings for the  other bodies as and when I get that far (don't hold your breath - this stuff takes quite a bit of time).  Most of these numbers (particularly the non-face stuff) should be good for body 2 as well.

In general, the values given here I what I think looks OK, and doesn't wreck any animation in a way I've noticed yet.  Other people may have different opinions, particularly if they're fans of big-headed anime girls.


Body
Overall scale.  Rule 1: leave X at 1.0 unless you want to totally wreck the animations.  Beyond that, you can play with y/z a bit if you're feeling brave.

value	what it changes	sensible values for body1
x	up/down	1.0
y	front/back	0.9-1.1
z	side/side	0.9-1.1

Head

value	what	body1
x	up/down	0.96-1.1
y	front/back	0.95-1.05
z	side/side	0.9-1.0

cheeks
Cheeks are a bit odd.  I've never been entirely able to figure out what the XML values do, and how they inter-relate. I think that while the y/z values do change the size of the cheeks, they don't stretch the head; rather they re-arrange the rest of the head to make room; so, changing the z value seems to make the nose narrower/wider.

Also, compared to other body areas, making large changes to these values has a (relatively) subtle effect.  As such, I'm probably less sure about these limits than about many of the others.  I particular, the smaller value limits seem to be very fuzzy.

I think things work best if you keep the x/y/z values relatively close to each other.  So if you push x/y to high values, and z to lower values (or vice versa), it gets a bit wacky.

value	what	body1
x	front/back	0.85-1.2
y	up/down?	0.7-1.3
z	side/side?	0.6-1.2

lips
I've found that, order to keep things sensible, you probably want to keep the upper/lower lips the same.  Things seem to work best if the z value, and especially the x value, don't get too different from the others   

Also, there appear to be some combinations near the limits that can end up being particularly wacky. 

value	what	body1
x	front/back	0.85-1.2
y	up/down	1.0-1.1
z	side/side	0.7-1.35

jaw
x-values here are really sensitive - adjustments that would be barely noticeable on other body parts result in a huge under/overbite.  Watch it on z, too - low values can end up looking really crazy in any animation involving blowjobs.
 

value	what	body1
x	front/back	0.985-1.015
y	up/down	0.95-1.2
z	side/side	0.9-1.08

boobs
A nice easy one to play with, that mostly doesn't mess up the animations, though larger sizes can cause problems when the characters try to handle them.

For realism, you probably want to ensure that:

• the x/y/z values are all in the same ballpark, to avoid strange shapes
• that the x values are less than the y values, to avoid boobs that look like they have anti-gravity generators built in (probably a useful feature, but alas, not currently very realistic)

value	what	body1
x	front/back	0.65-1.5
y	up/down	0.65-1.5
z	side/side	0.8-1.4

clavicle (shoulders)
Ok, now this one is really crazy.  The really major thing to watch out for here is that changes to the sizes here also affect the arms, sometimes in really non-intuitive ways.  These effects can also change depending on the position of the arm.

If you do change these, you want to do two things:

• stay close to 1.0 unless you want really nutzoid arms
• compensate by tweaking the upperarm values in the opposite direction

value	what	compensate on	body1
x	front/back	upper arm z	0.95-1.1
y	up/down	upper arm y	0.95-1.05
z	side/side	upper arm x	0.9-1.1

Compensating: if you set ClavicleZ to 1.1, you should set upperarmX to (1/1.1) or about 0.9

upper arms
Again, you want to stay really close to 1.0 here. 

value	what	body1
x	up/down (length)	0.95-1.05
y	front/back	0.95-1.05
z	side/side	0.95-1.05

forearms
Stick close to 1.0 again.

value	what	body1
x	up/down (length)	0.98-1.02
y	front/back	0.98-1.02
z	side/side	0.98-1.02

hands
Stick close to 1.0 if you want the handjob animations to work. 

value	what	body1
x	up/down (length)	0.95-1.05
y	front/back	0.9-1.1
z	side/side	0.95-1.05

butt
This is another funny one.  While you can make pretty substantial changes and still end up with something that looks OK, it's almost certainly going to mess up the animations.  Tweaking X at all is probably going to wreck anything involving her performing oral sex.   Y is more subtle, but messes up at least the 69 animations; it may do bad things elsewhere, too.

Note that if you change Y or Z:

• you probably want to make similar changes to the thigh values, so they match
• you should compensate on the feet

value	what	body1
x	up/down	1.0
y	front/back	1.0
z	side/side	0.95-1.1

thighs
Work much like the arms; you probably want to set y/z to values similar to the butt y/z.   

value	what	body1
x	up/down length	0.95-1.05
y	front/back	0.95-1.05
z	side/side	0.95-1.1

calf
Again, much like the arms.   

value	what	body1
x	up/down length	0.95-1.05
y	front/back	0.95-1.05
z	side/side	0.95-1.1

feet
If you've tweaked Y/Z values on the butt, you should compensate here, unless you want freaky feet.

value	what	body1
x	up/down length	1.0
y	front/back	0.95-1.05
z	side/side	0.95-1.05

symmetry
Just a general note for those making girls based on this stuff: real people  aren't symmetrical.  Seriously.  Take a full-frontal picture of a human face (any face will do).  Cut it in half down the centreline, then mirror the two halves, and you end up with two surprisingly different faces. 

Feel free to make your creations asymmetric too; you'll be surprised how much you can get away with before it starts to look "wrong".

[Jak (ripened peach)]

Awesome tips.  I've stickied this thread so it stays near the top.

[Tarakis]

In my experimentation earlier today with Boobs, I did play with the Butt size and was able to drop it to .7 - .9 with no "weird effects". 

[Jak (ripened peach)]

Butt size is tied in fairly closely with body size so if you tweak one you can sometimes tweak the other to balance them out somewhat.

[pronzilla]

I did play with the Butt size and was able to drop it to .7 - .9 with no "weird effects". 

It does depend a lot on what animations you're looking at.  The oral sex pack really gets hammered if you change ButtX, for instance.  On the other hand, if you're not using the oral sex pack...

Butt size is tied in fairly closely with body size so if you tweak one you can sometimes tweak the other to balance them out somewhat.

Hmmm.  Eeeeenterestink.

[Jak (ripened peach)]

Maybe this will help...

From the body sizing code:

body.transform.localScale = Vector3 ( (bodyX / buttX), (bodyY / buttY), (bodyZ / buttZ) );

Because of how the underlying character skeletons are set up, I did it this way to keep the body and butt in balance.  Otherwise when I sized the body it would throw the butt all off and vice versa.

[CapnKlutz]

I have to agree with Pronzilla about asymmetry.

Even subtle changes can add a noticeable amount of realism.

Cap'n.