Trying to solve a mystery. Rayman's height is...

[DaveRattlehead]

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This is a Russian roulette...
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Let's get to it

We had this discussion in another topic so... Instead of watching a TV series or playing a game, Dave has had the excellent/horrible/boring idea (I'll let you choose the adjective) to spend some of his free time to check if the height indicated by Michel Ancel is correct (supposedly 1.60m). Fate is curious and takes you down paths you would never have imagined to go. Measuring Rayman's height has been one of them, no doubt. It's probably not the thing I'm most proud of (free time and boredom together is not usually a good combination), but fuck it, we came here to play, Rayman stuff in a Rayman forum. Based on different references, I've tried to calculate Rayman's height in R1, R2, R3 and RL (assuming it's the same in RO, of course). In which game do you think there are discrepancies? Venture on this one-way trip, because the result is... Surprising.

Before we begin... No, I haven’t used a ruler to make this "calculation". It’s true that I was bored, but not that bored. There is a free software called ImageJ, which is quite useful for measuring the size of figures in an image when there is a scale. Here we have no scale, so we have to rely on known references to establish the scale. Of course, this made things easier.

Rayman 1

I don't even know whether to bother measuring the height of someone who is not able to look me in the face in the whole gameplay, but there was the challenge. What could I set as a scale? A beautiful butterfly began to fly across the screen... Eureka! Morpho has a wingspan of about 20cm. At last, studying insects in elementary school had served me something "useful". Well, if we establish that their wingspan is 20cm, Rayman measures... 1.10m? Am I controlling an eggplant or Frodo's distant cousin?

Rayman 2

Frodo's distant cousin has matured and has started to move into 3D. So much so that he has started interacting with people and seems to promote himself in a song. He's hired a couple of guys to sing it, but I think he probably threatened them, I wouldn't trust someone with no joints.

Vince McClenny, the singer, seems to be surprised in his photo with Rayman, maybe because of his huge features? Maybe because of this analysis? I don't blame him, I'd be surprised to read something like that too. Vince McClenny is about 1.83m and this allows us to calculate Rayman's height, which turns out to be... 1.10m again? I don't know whether to take seriously someone who is only taller than a king penguin.

Rayman 3

There is light at the end of the tunnel: they finally make things easy! The mugshot allows us to easily calculate the height of the enemies (although it can be a bit confusing, as they are not aligned with the wall and give the impression of being shorter than they really are). We can also compare it in his famous pissing photo by considering the height of the others as an average height. Wait... Why the fuck is he around 1.40m?

Rayman Legends (and Origins, I suppose...)

I have spent an hour on this and, at this point, the only thing that is clear to me is that our character without joints has become friends with Snoop Dogg (hopefully because of the song "Here comes the king"). He’s a legit guy, and he can't make it any easier when it comes to setting up the comparison!




Conclusions

1. Rayman 3 seems to be the only one inconsistent? It seems his height is around 1.10m in the rest of the games.
2. No, I'm not going to measure Rayman in Rayman Raving Rabbids. An hour doing this has been more than enough
3. I had too much time on my hands today.

[Giant Chicken]

This reminded me of something. If you go to Murray of the Deep in Rayman Origins and go out of bounds using the bubble bug, you can actually find a measuring tape for some reason.

[Greengoop]

Using that knowledge, we can prove rayman is exactly 1 meter tall (which makes sense given his age)

[Hunchman801]

Thank you Dave for this in-depth analysis which once again shows us how much care has been put into making sure that the Rayman series remain consistent across games.

This reminded me of something. If you go to Murray of the Deep in Rayman Origins and go out of bounds using the bubble bug, you can actually find a measuring tape for some reason.

Looks like he's between 1.10 and 1.20 in that game, which is consistent with Dave's findings, save for Rayman 3.

[ItzalDrake]

Maybe we can't figure out his real height, he's not human and we do not know if with age his height has changed, also he's limbless and he's able to push his hands away from his body with the telescopic fist to make them reach longer distances, so I suppose he might be able to do it with his feet as well and so change his height?
I'm not even sure if it's a good idea to think about what I just said, I'm a little confused

[Droolie]

This reminded me of something. If you go to Murray of the Deep in Rayman Origins and go out of bounds using the bubble bug, you can actually find a measuring tape for some reason.

Interesting! I never knew about this existing out of bounds. There's something similar in a Legends test map that was shown in a video once: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thpnMyNpjB0&t=340s (see timestamp: 5:40). Looks like his height didn't change.

[Hunchman801]

I was thinking that we could use Mario as a reference (via the Rabbids) to estimate Rayman's height in the Mario + Rabbids DLC, but of course, a quick look at Mario Wiki shows that the latter's height is just as inconsistent as Rayman's.

[Big J]

I really don’t give a damn in finding out how tall Rayman supposedly is cuz through and through, to me at least, he will always be short. Tiny. Little. Mini. Smol.

Small enough to punt like a football.

Small enough to hold up in the air like Simba in The Lion King’s introductory scene.

Small enough to sit on a stack of books at the dinner table.

Small enough to easily disguise as an elementary school kid and plot a villainous scheme.

[DaveRattlehead]

This reminded me of something. If you go to Murray of the Deep in Rayman Origins and go out of bounds using the bubble bug, you can actually find a measuring tape for some reason.

I didn't know this! At least the result (around 1.15-1.20m? I haven't used the software to measure it exactly ) is consistent! We got you, Michel Ancel...

Thank you Dave for this in-depth analysis which once again shows us how much care has been put into making sure that the Rayman series remain consistent across games.

Not gonna lie, I find somehow surprising that the series are at least consistent with the character design

Maybe we can't figure out his real height, he's not human and we do not know if with age his height has changed, also he's limbless and he's able to push his hands away from his body with the telescopic fist to make them reach longer distances, so I suppose he might be able to do it with his feet as well and so change his height?
I'm not even sure if it's a good idea to think about what I just said, I'm a little confused

I understand that one thing is his default height and another one would be his ability to stretch, but I don't know if it would be fair to set 50 different measurements depending on what he stretches and how much he stretches. That would be crazy, man .

Kid Buu just popped in my mind and I think it's a perfect example for this. If I remember correctly, the character stretched his arms and legs very often, but he was always considered a character with a small stature. I think we would have the same case here.

Interesting! I never knew about this existing out of bounds. There's something similar in a Legends test map that was shown in a video once: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thpnMyNpjB0&t=340s (see timestamp: 5:40). Looks like his height didn't change.

I think I'm more and more convinced that Michel Ancel said he was 1.60m just to say something and not leave the answer blank

I don't know if in the promotion of Rayman Origins they placed Rayman next to a real person, it would be cool to see a comparison like the one we had between Rayman and Snoop Dogg. I'm still shocked they were consistent with his height even in that promotional video

Small enough to sit on a stack of books at the dinner table.

That image killed me, ngl xDDDDD

[Hunchman801]

I think I'm more and more convinced that Michel Ancel said he was 1.60m just to say something and not leave the answer blank

He probably never even thought about it before, which is understandable as there wasn't a need for a common measure between Rayman's world and ours until they had the bad idea of introducing humans and other elements from Earth into the Glade.

Speaking of which, Barbara appears to be roughly the same height as Rayman, right? Looks like a case of proportionate(-ish?) dwarfism...

[Greengoop]

Just jumping back to this, but since rayman 3 is height 1.40 and the others are 1.10, and also the fact that the 3D raymen seem to be a lot older than the 2D ones, couldn’t it be possible that each game has a different rayman, like each Zelda has a different link?

[Hunchman801]

I'm not too familiar with the Zelda series but at least, there is some continuity between the first three games, so it has to be the same character. As for the UbiArt games taking place in an alternate universe... it's certainly the only way to make sense of all this mess!

[PluMGMK]

I think I'm more and more convinced that Michel Ancel said he was 1.60m just to say something and not leave the answer blank

Speaking of which, Barbara appears to be roughly the same height as Rayman, right? Looks like a case of proportionate(-ish?) dwarfism...

I guess her head always looked way too big anyway… I mean, she's clearly not a human, as she can glide using telepathically-controlled wings in her helmet. She's probably descended from some human and some fairy lineage. A bit like the Archenlanders in the Narnia books…

[Mantidil]

According to the trivia section on Razorbeard's page, Razorbeard is under 1.20 meters, so it would make sense Rayman is around that range.

[pompom454]

Tip: If the game is 3D, download or rip the model, get the closest you can without Rayman's other parts leaving view, and then measure. For 2D games, screenshot Rayman (just Rayman) and then measure.

[DaveRattlehead]

If Rayman is around 1.10-1.20m tall, then... How tall is Globox? He probably isn't as tall as we always thought

[Greengoop]

Probably 140cm? Still big for a frog…