Removing ThumbnailConfigurations During Character Loading

Updates Announcements
#1

Hello Developers,

We will release a change to remove ThumbnailConfiguration objects during the character loading process in the coming weeks. Once we have a date, we will be sure to give you a heads-up before officially removing the feature.

These instances are used to configure accessories thumbnails and don’t have a use-case at runtime. Removing these instances will reduce the bandwidth needed to replicate an avatar by reducing the number of instances inside avatars. As an avatar with a maximum 17 accessories (including hats, layered clothing, hair and eyebrows/eyelashes) could have up to 51 instances just for thumbnail configuration, this will reduce the worst-case number of instances in an avatar by a large number.

ThumbnailConfiguration instances will still be inside accessories when using InsertService:LoadAsset to insert them. If your workflow does rely on ThumbnailConfiguration, as an alternative, you can insert Avatar assets using InsertService as part of your workflow.

We don’t think this should have a negative impact on experiences because we don’t think experiences are using these ThumbnailConfigurations inside avatars.

Please let us know if there is some use case we are unaware of and if your game does use these instances.

Thanks!

180 Likes
#2

This topic was automatically opened after 10 minutes.

#3

now our character’s hats dont need to be flying all over the place, yay!

21 Likes
#8

Wait, so no more spam hats that ruin the profile pictures?!?! YAY!

12 Likes
#9

I didn’t understand anything at all, can you explain?

8 Likes
#10

You misunderstood, they are not removing the feature that allows you to set the thumbnail for the accessory.

To sum it up, they are removing unneccessary “Instances” which are ThumbnailConfigurations whenever your character model loads in to the game. That is done in order to save bandwith in packets that are sent to your client, resulting in less lag.

21 Likes
#11

Wow, thats way better than I thought it would be!

9 Likes
#12

Speaking of that, give us access to use ThumbnailGenerator in our games please thank you

3 Likes
#13

Woah, but this is actually pretty nice!

4 Likes
#14

Interesting update roblox. Will you be removing other instances like Holes?

2 Likes
#15

They are not removing an instance type, they are removing the fact that ThumbnailConfiguration will be loaded in a player’s avatar to reduce bandwidth

8 Likes
#16

I hope this means i’ll no longer have to reset my character upwards of 3 times in order for my avatar to actually load :yum:

1 Like
#17

A few years ago this post was made about changing the load order of characters: Avatar Loading Event Ordering Improvements

There hasn’t been an update on this in 4+ years and I’m wondering if this is still planned for release? This would be a great improvement to character loading.

2 Likes
#18

We would still like to fix this, but we don’t have any current plans. We ran into some problems when we originally tried to ship this and other work has taken higher priority so we haven’t gotten a chance to go back and fix this.

1 Like
#19

How do you insert catalog items using the InsertService:LoadAsset() method without loading ThumbnailConfiguration?

I’m asking this because I use this method to insert items from the catalog and it would be nice if I could know a way to insert things without it.

1 Like
#20

If you use InsertService:LoadAsset() and you don’t need the ThumbnailConfigurations, you can destroy them before moving the accessory into the world. For example:

local asset = game:GetService("InsertService"):LoadAsset(14339718570)
local thumbnailConfiguration = asset:FindFirstChild("ThumbnailConfiguration", true)
if thumbnailConfiguration then
	thumbnailConfiguration:Destroy()
end

asset.Parent = game.Workspace
2 Likes
#22

We are planning on releasing this on Wednesday, 17th of January. We expect this shouldn’t negatively affect any games, but if it does affect your game, speak now!

2 Likes
#23

This change has now been shipped!

1 Like