Becoming Micro...

Micro's. I had heard about them for a while now, mostly through this blog. They sounded like fun, and when I saw Gokyu being chased by spiders as a micro, I knew I had to get me one too. So when I logged onto SL, I bought myself a micro fox!

Micro fox...

Yeah, I look cute (and that sounds so wrong), but I had some trouble with the HUD. Luckily after an update, I wasn't stuck in the ground anymore, all the time. Anyway, time to see what it was like being a micro. Well, for one thing, you're much smaller than anyone else!

Much smaller than anyone else...

You do walk as fast as everyone else though... which is odd, since the legs of a micro are *way* shorter. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong? Anyway, objects around me which didn't seem all that big at first, were now gigantic! A ramp leading up to the shuttlecraft for instance, looked like a mountain!

Mountain!

And then there's things you cannot do. Well, you can, but it just looks odd. Ever tried to fly a regular sized Gryphon as a micro-fox? I couldn't see where I was going!

Yes, I'm the orange dot on the chair...

All in all, I think I'm going to enjoy being this small!

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.

Until next time

G-man

MicroAv's hit the skies

Anti MicroAv SL law came into force today and the AAC were forced under duress to allow very small av into the division, many dissenting voices claimed it made a mocker of the aircorp and some builders moaned "We'll have to make the seats biggers now".

Debates have raged over whether they should just put a steering wheel on the dashboard and forego raising the seats at all. An arranged interview with one of the MicroAv's had to be cancelled because our reporter couldn't find a magnify glass strong each to see them or safe enough not to set them alight when the sun was reflected through it.

A spokes person for the "MicroAv's Right to be heard campaign group" speech was thought to have sounded so low that no one could hear them, but  afew people claimed they heared a squeak, a burp and a rat like nibbling sound.

It has been reported that two demonstrations will be held in the GFC next week, the "Don't step on me campaign" followed later in the day by the "Don't kick sand on me" march which is rumored to be taking place somewhere in the sandbox....if you can find them..

More Mini Pictures Click HERE

Micro Recon

Greetings all

G-man here

It was a quiet sunday evening in the GFC sims. Strategic operations Director Phedre Aonifal and I were sitting around not doing much of anything, when we decided it was time for a "small" recon of the Al Raqis area. Not wanting to be to conspicuous we donned our "micro" persona's, armed ourselves, and got ready for our away mission:

Donning goggles to protect our eyes from the harsh winds of the desert planet, we beamed down to Al Raqis start our recon.

It didn't take long for us to find some of the locals. There appeared to be some sort of "trial" in prograss. We  slipped into the courtroom and quietly watched the proceedings.

 

We listened quietly for a bit, but with no understanding of what was going on, we decided it was the better part of valor to leave as quietly as we had entered. On our way out however, we were stopped by a couple of the locals. They were very curious about us as they had never seen any of our race before.

 

We chatted for a bit, explaining who we were and where we had come from. We were then invited to visit their home planet Praxis. We took the co-ordinates to their home planet and promised to visit them in the near future. We then beamed back to the station and sat down to write up the report on our "little" recon, looking forward to our next meeting with our new friends.

Until next time:

Micro Phe

Micro G

Signing off