Modesty Layers are broken. Avatar Bundles >NEED< to have default 2D Clothing rendered on them

Hello! Around 2022, Roblox migrated from avatar Packages to avatar Bundles. In the past, these Package assets would be displayed with default 2D clothing:

Because bundles extend from Roblox’s outfit system, they rendered the actual contents of those outfits without any default clothing. This resulted in all of Roblox’s old bundles suddenly appearing naked on the website:

Funny enough, this default 2D clothing is still rendered on body parts today, as its supposed to be:


So why is this a problem? Well, it brings me to the main derailing topic of discussion in this thread:
MODESTY LAYERS

Modesty Layers are a well-intentioned, but flawed feature in Roblox’s arsenal of safety features.

In essence, Roblox requires avatar artists to put a black texture over private areas when an avatar is perceived to be a human-like individual who should not ever appear naked.

And to clarify, this is 100% fine and necessary!

It’s reasonable to expect etiquette like this for normal characters, when they don’t support 2D clothing.

HOWEVER...

There is a huge flaw in this policy. This modesty layer policy is enforced for bodies that support 2D clothing as well! That wouldn’t be a problem if say… the 2D clothing removed the modesty layer.

But… it doesn’t:

In essence, you are forced to wear black underwear on top of your clothes because Roblox can’t decide whether you’re naked or not.

Why is it okay to not have a modesty layer with 2D clothing support?

Well, as it happens… Roblox has a feature where if you aren’t wearing 2D clothing, they will automatically put 2D clothing onto your avatar to cover up nudity!

This can even be observed on the recently uploaded “Bold Animation Pack”:

Okay! So this issue has been happening ever since UGC bodies became a thing. It has been pointed out by dozens of people, and yet Roblox has still quadrupled down on moderating innocent UGC bodies. Why?

I see a few possibilities, and they are not mutually exclusive:

1. Legitimate confusion in moderation over whether these bodies are actually naked

Because of the 2D clothing not rendering on these bundles, moderators are just trying to enforce the policy based on what they are observing and what reports they are receiving, and it’s not unreasonable given the lack of context and information. If these characters were rendered with clothing, then it wouldn’t be a problem.

2. Some higher ups are grumpy?

This is speculation, but I reckon some higher ups at Roblox would prefer we all adopt hyper-realistic human avatars over the cartoony stylized avatars that we all grew up on and have a fondness for. They don’t want us to support 2D clothing period.

I hate to be cynical, but I feel like there’s some merit to this. I’ve heard the term “body paint” thrown down the grape vine, suggesting someone or some group of people with power at Roblox dislike(s) how primitive the system is. So they might deliberately be sabotaging support in favor of layered clothing.

Don’t get me wrong, layered clothing is great! But the accessibility and “filling in the gaps” simplicity of using 2D clothing has always had a charm that allows for much more creative expression with avatar bodies that support it. Instead of abandoning 2D clothing, maybe it should be expanded with higher resolution textures and PBR support? Just some random food for thought.


TL;DR?

Hey Roblox! I think this issue should be solved so legitimate non-malicious use cases of 2D clothing in new UGC bodies can be preserved.

It is infuriating to see super nice custom avatar bodies get moderated over perceived nudity when it is ENTIRELY FALSE and merely the result of Roblox neglecting to properly give necessary visual context. The excuse of people misusing 2D clothing UVs does not have any merit either, because you can do that even with modesty layers forced.

Stop arbitrarily limiting the creativity of your community, moderate things properly and concisely, and let safe creative expression thrive without any misunderstanding or confusion. Misuse of systems should be dealt with appropriately, but don’t punish people who are not doing anything wrong.

EDIT (6/12)

Some current thoughts I want to add given where everything currently is.

On one hand I’m super passionate about preserving Roblox’s identity and the aesthetics of retro avatars, but I also respect Roblox’s desire to push the medium forward. That said, I feel like the retro style has a future and should not be gatekept or discontinued. It’s incredibly frustrating how unwilling Roblox is to maintain support for one of their basic foundational avatar features.

The reason I’ve been so charged up about this situation is because I’ve felt mislead. I was fine with the direction Roblox was taking their avatar technology, under the condition they would give the UGC community free reign to upgrade the retro avatar and utilize that technology as they please. And I deemed 2D clothing to be within that scope.

This insistence on layered clothing makes it comically inefficient to have retro styled avatars. Now if you want to have a 2D clothing fit, you’ll have to manually assemble it as a layered clothing item. And if you want it to have the same topology or you want it to look like R6, or suddenly you want to change one of the colors… or even just want to swap the shirt/pants, too bad! Now you’ve gotta upload an entire new layered clothing item to get that. It’s expensive! Have fun!

It just boggles my mind to no end how anti-consumer this is. All of the 2D clothing you’ve collected over the years is now worthless on these shiny new avatar bodies.

I can personally get over it and move on, but seeing just how many of my adult friends still use 2D clothing in my friends list, and just how many Roblox users still actively use it? All of this modesty layer moderation bs combined with a lack of public communication from Roblox over what the hell they’re doing… I can’t see it as anything other than a hostile takeover of our personal customization.

660 Likes

A strong agree from me. Hopefully Roblox or any admins see this.

79 Likes

this has been an issue for too long

57 Likes

This has been an ongoing problem that has been hurting both the creators of these packages and the people using them. Hope something is eventually done about this!!

46 Likes

Agreed, there’s really no need to have an ugly black bar on our UGC avatars when a built-in modesty layer exists in the form of default 2D clothing.

Alternatively, why can’t they just make it so that it renders underneath 2D clothing instead?? Is that really too hard for a multi billion dollar company to do?

56 Likes

arent they also telling us that theyre trying to make avatars “more customizable”??? and like, give us as much control over our avatars as possible?? clearly a lie, they want our avatars to look the way THEY want them to look which is like metaverse bs

same goes for dynamic heads, apparently they made them so we can be “more expressive!!!” or something while also putting classic faces offsale therefore making us LESS expressive for people who dont want to look like a poorly animated nightmare

48 Likes

I believe the worst part of this all is that even if you upload a bundle with the modesty layer, you’re still likely to be banned for sexual content. The moderation for UGC bundles is atrocious and something needs to be done about Roblox’s inconsistent moderation in this regard.

36 Likes

I agree, this is honest a pretty big issue when it comes to creativity of people’s avatars. It may push people away from the usage of the ugc packages which is honestly pretty sad, since a lot of them are unique.

25 Likes

I agree, This article summarize everything you need to know about the ongoing problem with UGC. I wonder if Roblox will bother to read this Devforums post. The greedy bowler hats they have on must be cooked right now.

19 Likes

agreed, this needs to be figured out

15 Likes

It’s worth noting that in some cases 2D clothing can complement 3D layered clothing, too. When using both, you can create outfits that are currently hard to achieve using only layered clothing due to the bulkiness that often appears when using many layers of 3D clothing. An example can be seen here:


(screenshots from @Karasuneth)

Offering proper support for 2D clothing on UGC avatar bundles is crucial in order to maintain the same control and creative expression that is available when using Roblox-published avatar bundles.

87 Likes

I’d say again. This seems to be a big problem.

21 Likes

I STRONGLY vouch for this response. Especially when you talked about the part where you said how the higher ups at Roblox almost expects us to move to more modern and realistic looks, and leave the old cartoony avatars we love in the past. Roblox should acknowledge that the past has made a great legacy on the platform, and if they note that, and take the advice we give them (worth a shot), then this can be a great benefit to help support this platform to be as great as it once was.

26 Likes

Absolutely. 2D clothing is something that should be utilized with layered clothing instead of left for dead in the current state that it is. Absolutely support this and hope that roblox takes action.

12 Likes

Yes PLEASE! I agree with this, we need it done!

8 Likes

Very much agreed! It doesn’t take a genius to realize that a fully clothed avatar shouldn’t keep a forced modesty layer on it. Especially when Roblox has a built in one anyways, for if the avatar isn’t wearing any clothing and is using a solid skin tone. Take notes, admins.

12 Likes

It legitimately bothers me that people within the company appear hold this sentiment…over a feature that at least 50-60% of the active playerbase are still happily using.

Rather than abandoning it completely, I think it’s somewhat important for Roblox to preserve their ‘core identity’ so to speak, while they continue to evolve the avatar past the point of 2D clothing.

They (Roblox) also need to realize that from an accessibility standpoint, it’s still FAR easier to open up your image editor of choice and work off the 2D template they provide you, versus going into Blender and creating your own clothing and UV maps entirely from scratch…

…that being said, 2D clothing has also always been rampant with questionable assets and copyrighted imagery. Its much harder to protect what people are creating from a copyright standpoint when they’re basically able to copy and paste any png from the web and make it a t-shirt. I can understand why they might want to get rid of the feature just from that standpoint alone…

I feel like this, and MANY other current issues, would benefit from a complete overhaul of the current moderation system, but that’s a conversation for another thread.

37 Likes

They stated that the reason modesty layers are enforced is because avatar body UV maps can be arbitrarily unwrapped by creators. One example they gave was in response to ev1’s “Steven” bundle which pixelates users’ 2D clothing, overriding the default 2D clothing. The pixelation can be used for good, but it can also be abused to warp seemingly “innocent” 2D clothing into something that’s difficult to moderate.

11 Likes

As I mentioned, I find this excuse moot because this is just as true with the modesty layer versus without. I genuinely don’t know what they think people could pull off that wouldn’t be visible in the topology.

When it’s clear as day that it is being used correctly, it should not be moderated. When it’s found to be misused, it should be. It’s not rocket science.

This policy is garbage.

46 Likes

Okay, Ooh boy, This is a big one

I really do not understand why ROBLOX is insistent on forcing this metaverse garbage down its userbases throat, NONE of us want it, and yet despite that, they insist on forcing us to try and engage with it because “Our stocks!”, But hey, greedy CEOs! The reason your stocks and profits are going down is BECAUSE YOU’RE DRIVING YOUR PLATFORM INTO THE GROUND!

I knew the second they introduced Rthro it was a death sentence for what we used to love and really care about, and it’s so incredibly unfortunate. They’re deprecating systems they told us they’d never deprecate, and are basically spitting in the players faces because all of the heart that ROBLOX used to have is completely gone, they now only care about what makes them look good to old fart investors that really couldn’t care less about the game.

This may seem somewhat out of place, but Max, Whenever I see your twitter posts defending modern day ROBLOX’s actions, I get a similar vibe i get with the ROBLOX higher ups, a lot of us want to keep the integrity of what makes ROBLOX, ROBLOX! And yet when I see you fighting tooth and nail for Rtho or the awfully implemented Layered clothing system (Which i thought would be amazing, stupid on me for assuming ROBLOX would release something competent for once!) It comes off as somewhat tonedeaf, when ROBLOX sees folks like you, who are somewhat big in our community, saying “Yup! This is great!” It sets a presidence for them to assume all of us share your opinion, a lot of the replies under your tweets are usually really, really negative and disagree with you. I’ve seen it myself.

I dunno, I doubt ROBLOX is EVER going to do anything about this, because lets be real, its ROBLOX. Heart doesn’t exist for them anymore, it’s only “Money money money!” to them. The higher ups have 0 understanding of what the playerbase want and only want to make as much money as possible, even when those options are driving their money down the sink.

I truly do wish that ROBLOX gets a new, more understanding CEO/higher up, that cares about the integrity of the game, and not trying to be the “next big metaverse game”, when the metaverse has no real leg to stand on in our modern world. And NEVER will.

Anyways, rant over, I sorta think this kinda post broke me for a second, It’s just complete incompetence on the side of ROBLOX, and they effectively doubled down on keeping the modesty layer on 2D clothing, because they no longer consider 2D clothing a long-term option that’ll stay on the platform forever, they’re deprecating the things we love, and eventually I don’t see ROBLOX even looking like ROBLOX anymore. They’re already trying their hardest to get rid of it. I can see it ending up being fully gone in the future. And man, that future makes me REALLY upset.

37 Likes