Character Heights: Some Observations

[Eva]

S-E finally gave us some specific information so I'll paste here from Myllor's post, further down in this thread:

 

Male Roegadyn         7'0.1"    7'3.4"    7'6.7"

Female Roegadyn     6'3.6"    6'9.6"    7'3.7"

Male Elezen              6'4.4"    6'7.5"    6'10.2"

Female Elezen          6'0.2"    6'3.2"    6'6.1"    

Male Highlander        6'0.2"    6'3.8"    6'6.8"

Female Highlander    5'6.2"     5'11"     6'1.8"

Male Midlander         5'6.1"     5'8.9"    5'11.6"

Female Midlander     5'2"        5'4.5"    5'7.1"

Male Miqo'te            5'2.7"     5'5.4"    5'8.2"

Female Miqo'te        4'10.9"    5'1.4"    5'3.8"

Male Lalafell             2'10.2"    3'0.2"    3'2.2"

Female Lalafell          2'10.2"    3'0.2"    3'2.2"

 

The numbers in each row are what the game regards as minimum, average, and maximum height for each race/gender pairing (and clan in the case of hyur).

 

I'm also leaving Selene's chart since it's still accurate and derives from screenshots rather than observational data:

 

 

It seems like there might be some benefit for the creation of wikis and such to establish the approximate height ranges for each of the races (and in the case of the hyur each of the two clans).  This was hashed over awhile back in some other thread.

 

Some friends and I recently got together to discuss this in much greater detail.  We pored over some screenshots and what we knew from 1.0 coupled with the information that has been given so far about ARR and we've established the following guidelines which we hope may help during the character creation process or when trying to discern exactly how tall "tall" might be.  Please note that these are not rules etched in stone but rather a suggested guideline based on a series of observations agreed upon by several of us. We thought this might be helpful for some RPers.

 

Please take this for what it is, as this is based on the character sizes as they are represented in game.  There is nothing here to suggest that you cannot make your character taller than the maximum or shorter than the minimum if you so wish, but it may help to illustrate how the height ranges of the races intersect with one another.

 

Maybe someone will find it helpful.  

 

 

 

 

 

More Helpful Chart (courtesy of Selene Artemis):

 

Low - (Avg.) - High - Race Name

==============================

6'7" - (7'2") - 7'7" - Roegadyn Male

6'0" - (6'9") - 7'4" - Roegadyn Female

6'3" - (6'7") - 7'0" - Elezen Male

5'7" - (5'11") - 6'6" - Elezen Female

5'10" - (6'5") - 6'9" - Highlander Hyur Male

5'5" - (5'10") - 6'2" - Highlander Hyur Female

5'4" - (5'8") - 6'2" - Midlander Hyur Male

4'10" - (5'3") - 5'9" - Midlander Hyur Female

5'0" - (5'5") - 5'7" - Miqo'te Male

4'8" - (5'0") - 5'4" - Miqo'te Female

2'9" - (2'11") - 3'2" - Lalafell Male

2'9" - (2'11") - 3'2" - Lalafell Female

 

 

A super special thank you to the following people for helping me establish these figures:  Nel, Selene, Ellie, Garaf, Kylin, Isilme, Aysun, Manari, and Rora.  Also thanks to everyone on the RPC who has shown interest in this project and its progress.  Perhaps someday in the not-too-distant future we can provide a bit more detail about how we came to some of these numbers but for now we do seem in agreement of their relative accuracy.

 

 

[Gerik]

Amazebaaaaaaaalls

[Noaleth]

Awesome, I was hoping to come across something like this, and it seems you guys know what you're doing so.. a big thank you to all involved in compiling this list!

[Gossamer]

What a great reference! Thanks for putting this together!

[Rhostel]

This works perfectly for Rhostel's height.

[Fulcrum]

Thank you for working on this!

 

 

Perhaps some of the artists could get together and make one of those "line up" images like they have in various D&D books after everything is "finalized", to a point, for a more visual reference? The current graph does help, but I've noticed people tend to have an easier time connecting with the "line up" style height guides.

[Vareal]

Guess that means I gotta fix Isaac's height. It's better this way anyway, thanks!

[Rhio]

Yeah, I need to fix Rhio's height a bit as well. (She's tall for a miqo'te, but she's still short in the grand scheme of things. I aimed a bit too high despite that, mostly because everyone in a Final Fantasy game is tall by normal human standards.)

[Eva]

Thank you for working on this!

 

 

Perhaps some of the artists could get together and make one of those "line up" images like they have in various D&D books after everything is "finalized", to a point, for a more visual reference? The current graph does help, but I've noticed people tend to have an easier time connecting with the "line up" style height guides.

 

Something like this has already been done and finalized by one of the participants of this group, but we didn't want to take any chances with regards to the NDA and such.  I plan to update the OP of this thread with some more information - including that wonderful rendition to accompany the chart - once that has been lifted.  I can certainly appreciate how that might be more helpful than the bar chart provided. I will also add that it looks AWESOME and can't wait until we can do that~

 

I believe I may be adjusting my own character's height somewhat, as well.  

 

Thank you for the feedback so far.  I'm glad this was worth the effort.

[Satisiun]

Like I said in my +Rep to you, Eva, great work. It's obvious you put a lot of thought and consideration in to this, and once the NDA is lifted and images of comparison can be better pored over without issues of disclosure, it'll be fun to test the accuracy of this.

 

I'm oddly surprised at one or two of the results, particularly how Elezen Female can be dwarfed by Highlander Hyur Males. That definitely throws me for a loop considering how the rest of the scale progressively slides down by race for the most part.  Male Miqo'te height also surprises me, though I guess not too much if they had to keep them within a similar range as their female counterparts.

 

If this holds up during Open Beta, looks like Sati will be getting a bit off the top to better accommodate to the high end of the scale. :lol:  Do you intend to also put out more specific numbers to all five height options we've seen in Character Creation videos SE has put out, or just keep it to Low/Avg/High?

[Aysun]

Like I said in my +Rep to you, Eva, great work. It's obvious you put a lot of thought and consideration in to this, and once the NDA is lifted and images of comparison can be better pored over without issues of disclosure, it'll be fun to test the accuracy of this.

 

To clarify, it has been tested. These heights were derived in a complicated way based on a series of planned screenshots of every race/gender at the average and extreme heights given to us as options in game. Using the "average male height," others heights (very short and very tall) were determined. The testing is done, and it is SO accurate. Very proud of Eva for all the work she put into this in measuring and determining heights.

 

This deserves a sticky~

[YesGood]

Agreed. It'll be very helpful for new people who are having height issues. Now if only someone could explain weight to me... O_O

[Rhio]

Weight is the result of the force gravity exerts upon your body mass. Due to the strong gravitational force of the planet, weight is constant on the Earth's surface and provides a constant force pulling you downward toward the planet, meaning in essence that you are always exerting a force equal to your mass multiplied by acceleration due to gravity. The metric unit for weight is the newton, the imperial unit for weight is the pound.

 

A common misconception among Americans is that grams measure weight, when in fact they measure mass. Thus, while your mass in kilograms would be constant if you moved from the Earth to the moon, your weight in pounds would not.

 

If you need weight explained further, I'm sure I could offer some suggestions.

[Aysun]

Lol, really, Rhio? Really?

[YesGood]

Weight is the result of the force gravity exerts upon your body mass.  Due to the strong gravitational force of the planet, weight is constant on the Earth's surface and provides a constant force pulling you downward toward the planet, meaning in essence that you are always exerting a force equal to your mass multiplied by acceleration due to gravity.  The metric unit for weight is the newton, the imperial unit for weight is the pound.

 

A common misconception among Americans is that grams measure weight, when in fact they measure mass.  Thus, while your mass in kilograms would be constant if you moved from the Earth to the moon, your weight in pounds would not.

 

If you need weight explained further, I'm sure I could offer some suggestions.

 

Touche....

 

In the future, I'll be more specific. For now, I suppose I'll writhe in my own shame.

[Rhio]

Lol, really, Rhio? Really?

 

Really! The imperial unit of mass is the slug, which has fallen out of common use as the scientific community has largely moved over to the metric system. Most people will refer to mass as if it was weight under metric as well, since the equation for measuring mass is fairly simple (measure force and divide by acceleration due to gravity, which is 9.83 m/s^2).

[Aysun]

Damn you are so good at Wikipedia.

[Rhio]

Touche....

 

In the future, I'll be more specific. For now, I suppose I'll writhe in my own shame.

 

Aw, shame-writhing is no fun.

 

Unfortunately, weight is a bit harder to calculate reliably simply because there are gaps in our knowledge about character mass. But we can still use some awkward math to figure out some ranges based on height, armed with a bit of BMI. Which is a terrible indicator in general, but it can work out well enough for these purposes.

 

A normal healthy adult is considered by the CDC to be someone with a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9. The lower end is skinnier, the higher end is fitter or more muscular. (Or heavier and softer, depending on taste.) The formula used is:

 

[align=center]weight in pounds / ( height in inches ^ 2) X 703 = BMI[/align]

 

Except we don't want to find BMI, we want to work backwards from it. So let's just adjust this equation a little bit for what we actually want:

 

[align=center](BMI / 703) * height ^ 2 = weight[/align]

 

So. Let's figure this out with an average muscular Roegadyn woman with a BMI of 23 (fairly bulky) and a height of 7' (tall side of average). 7' is, of course, 84". We plug all that in and...

 

[align=center](23/703) * 84^2 = 231[/align]

 

So she'd be around 231 ponz, which certainly sounds reasonable for a tall and muscular woman. It's not perfect, but it's a worthy kludge without more hard data.

 

Edit: I managed to misspell "writhing," so good work getting math right when you're a writer. Derp me.

[Deirdre]

Hm I was looking at this height chart and I'm kind of curious...

 

I stood Deirdre (Shortest Wildwood Elezen Female) next to Bancroft (Tallest Moonkeeper Miqo'te Male) and he is significantly shorter... but the graph says they are the same height.

 

Subsequently, Gospel (Shortest Midlander Hyur Male) next to Bancroft, they are also the same height. The graph there says Gospel should be taller...

 

... will be interesting to see the comparison with the screenshots once NDA is over.

[YesGood]

Touche....

 

In the future, I'll be more specific. For now, I suppose I'll writhe in my own shame.

 

Aw, shame-writhing is no fun.

 

Unfortunately, weight is a bit harder to calculate reliably simply because there are gaps in our knowledge about character mass.  But we can still use some awkward math to figure out some ranges based on height, armed with a bit of BMI.  Which is a terrible indicator in general, but it can work out well enough for these purposes.

 

A normal healthy adult is considered by the CDC to be someone with a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9.  The lower end is skinnier, the higher end is fitter or more muscular.  (Or heavier and softer, depending on taste.)  The formula used is:

 

[align=center]weight in pounds / ( height in inches ^ 2) X 703 = BMI[/align]

 

Except we don't want to find BMI, we want to work backwards from it.  So let's just adjust this equation a little bit for what we actually want:

 

[align=center](BMI / 703) * height ^ 2 = weight[/align]

 

So.  Let's figure this out with an average muscular Roegadyn woman with a BMI of 23 (fairly bulky) and a height of 7' (tall side of average).  7' is, of course, 84".  We plug all that in and...

 

[align=center](23/703) * 84^2 = 231[/align]

 

So she'd be around 231 ponz, which certainly sounds reasonable for a tall and muscular woman.  It's not perfect, but it's a worthy kludge without more hard data.

 

Edit: I managed to misspell "writhing," so good work getting math right when you're a writer.  Derp me.

 

Thank you so much! I am pretty terrible at math so that just blew my mind. I will attempt to learn things better (but that end number is very nearly what I was looking for). Thank you again!

[Eva]

Hm I was looking at this height chart and I'm kind of curious...

 

I stood Deirdre (Shortest Wildwood Elezen Female) next to Bancroft (Tallest Moonkeeper Miqo'te Male) and he is significantly shorter... but the graph says they are the same height.

 

Subsequently, Gospel (Shortest Midlander Hyur Male) next to Bancroft, they are also the same height. The graph there says Gospel should be taller...

 

... will be interesting to see the comparison with the screenshots once NDA is over.

Just curious, but were you factoring in the miqo'te ears in the height?  For the purposes of our initial observations, I was not including the ears.  You said 'significantly' though, so I'm not sure.  Also hair adds height as well, and that's something else to be aware of.

 

EDIT:  I took another look at our data, and confirmed that what you say is accurate to our observations.  What had been done for the sake of determine ranges was max heights rounded up to the next inch/ilm, and min heights rounded down rather than up.  As such, there is kind of a +/- 2" difference between minimums and maximums for the purposes of establishing an appropriate range difference between two character.

 

More exact numbers will come when the NDA is lifted and I'll be glad to "show all my work" as it were.  This chart is intended to be used as a guideline for what would be reasonable height ranges for characters.  It is not exact and rounds down on the low end and rounds up on the high end, but not drastically so.

 

EDITAGAIN:

 

TL;DR version - Heights were rounded up on the tall end and rounded down on the low end based on different comparisons - so the overall ranges will be a bit larger, which in turn means that comparisons between tallest of one race and shortest of another may be skewed - but not by much.

[Deirdre]

I see what you're saying, but the top of Ban's head (and for measurements sake I suppose the models used should have the least puff in hairstyle, so as not to skew data) only just barely comes up to Deirdre's eyes. So I understand rounding but don't understand how such a difference can be answered with it.

 

Just an observation.

[Eva]

Again, different metrics were used to calculate the tallest values for a race than what was used for the lowest.  Moreover, the rounding up at the tall end and rounding down at the low end added a bit.  We do have more accurate numbers and they do match more closely to what you experienced, however we broadened the ranges by what we figured was maybe an inch at each end, which we felt was reasonable.

 

When NDA lifts I can post a much more accurate representation of things, but for right now it's not worth the risk and I have no desire to violate S-E's terms.

 

This chart is intended to be used as a guideline for an individual character to determine his or her approximate height based on those observations.  It was not intended to be used as a metric to compare between two different races.  I'm sorry for any confusion in that regard.

[Nel Celestine]

Necro Bump since NDA is lifted

[Eva]

Thanks Nel.  I'll post some specific information later as I'm on my way out the door to my parents' for Father's Day.

 

The screenshots used came from Phase 1 Beta, so according to the NDA I cannot post those.  From using the character creator extensively I pretty firmly believe that the values for "Shortest", "Average" and "Tallest" correspond with height slider values of 0, 50, and 100 - but I can't really confirm this yet.  We will probably take a closer look at this with the next beta window.

 

I do have some specific numbers and information to post when I get back, and these ought to help outline our conclusions in greater detail.

 

In the meantime, Selene was kind enough to create a more helpful chart (which I'm adding to the original post as well) which illustrates the variations.