Debbydo for GFC news: What the #*$% is a Micro??

Greetings all

G-Man here

MICRO’S. What are they? First let me start by stating that I am not a builder, scripter, engineer, or really anyone with a in depth knowledge of how avatar physics or really anything in this wonderful world of SL works. I am going to try and explain to the best of my ability, what Micro Avatars are. I’m sure I may get some of the intricate details wrong so please don’t write any of this blog down in stone. I will try to explain what “I” believe Micro Avatars to be.

Below is a picture of what I believe 4 of the more “standard” avatars are in SL:

Micro Tiny Furry Normal

From right to left a normal human female avatar, male furry, male tiny, and finally male Micro Avatar.

As you can easily tell, the most common difference is the size. Most people are aware of what is commonly known as the “Tiny” avatar. But as you can see, a micro is almost half again the size of a tiny. This makes for a very unique perspective of SL, especially if you use the camera view from over the shoulder of a micro avatar. Everything takes on a whole new look from way down there.

I first stumbled across the Micro Av’s almost a year ago and immediately fell in love with them. I also really thought that they would catch on in SL and they would be everywhere. Sadly, that so far has not been the case. But I am keeping my fingers crossed. Most people I think know of tinies. I’ll even bet that most of us may have a few of them in our inventory, I know I do. But for me there were 2 major drawbacks about tinies. First, because of the way they are made, they cannot use any of the normal animations that you have for your normal avatar. Things like AO’s and dances that you use everyday as a normal can’t be used with a tiny. This is what a tiny looks like when trying to use a normal dance animation:

The second drawback is clothing. You can’t just wear a pair of pants and shirt. Since the normal base avatar is deformed inside the tiny body, you wouldn’t be able to see normal clothes. So once again you have to buy “special” tiny clothes to outfit your tiny avatar. Micro’s on the other hand, solved one of these drawbacks. They are able to use all of the normal animations that a regular avatar uses. So your AO on your normal sized av will work with a micro. Your dances will all work with a micro. No need to go out and get all new animations. Also a big plus for a micro is again the size. A micro is about 5 times smaller than a normal avatar. So a normal sim is 5 times larger! I love to fly in SL. So the benefits of having a 5 times larger sim is obvious. More room to play, and less sim crossings! Also since just about everything for micro’s are smaller, that’s less prim usage on a sim, and everyone loves that.

There still is one drawback in being a micro, and that is clothing. Micro av’s are not deformed like tiny av’s. Instead the base avatar body is hidden. So what you see when you look at a micro is all prim parts. You cannot wear normal clothing on prim parts. So you have 2 options. You can texture the prim parts to look like clothing. I like this method, but must admit, it is difficult to do, takes time, and at least some knowledge of modding. The 2^nd method I think is better and that is shrinking prim clothing down to fit the micro. The shrinking part is easy. The harder part is finding stuff that you can mod. A lot of people in SL don’t like you messing with their products so they make them no mod, which means you won’t be able to shrink them. So finding clothing for micro’s can be challenging, but then again it can be done. There are a lot of talented people making stuff for them. It’s out there, you just have to find it.

A lot of people are probably asking “why are you telling us this G?” Simple. I love Micro’s. And I would love to see more people using them and seeing how much different the world looks when your so small. And truthfully, their FUN! The last few days, some members of GFC have bought the micro’s, so there has been sort of a small invasion of them here. And I hope that sometime in the future we can have some all micro events! I am in the progress of putting together a small squad of micro’s. We’ve already done one away mission to the planet Al Raqis, and I hope to do many more. Here’s a few pics of the Micro Recon Squad:

So in closing I would just like to say, it’s been a fun couple of days playing with the Micro’s. I don’t expect everyone to run out and buy one, or that everyone would become a micro full time. But I truly think that they are the one of the funest avatars in sl at the moment. The perspective alone is priceless, not to mention the attention you get when you walk into a room of normals. So if you get a chance, put one in your inventory to bring out from time to time. I definitely think it’s worth it. And who knows, you might also.