UGC Program: Expanding Creation and Monetization with Avatar Bodies and Heads

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#264

This. I really don’t see why they don’t want 2D clothing to be supported with UGC avatars. (other than forcing people to make use of LC to use those bundles) For UGC bundles that 100% support 2D clothing, I don’t see why the modesty layer would be needed considering that Roblox forces you to wear those default clothes if you aren’t wearing any shirts/pants. If anything, being forced to wear some underwear ontop of your clothes just looks even weirder imo.

100% agree. If 2D clothing was supported on UGC bundles that would allow for SO much more customization options. 2D clothing has existed for years and there’s a ton of clothes to choose from, and literally anyone can make/design 2D clothing, whereas LC is relatively newer & there isn’t as much to customize with, not to mention it is significantly harder to make LC.
Additionally, the minimum pricing for LC is 50 robux compared to just 5 for 2D clothes. A lot of people might not have much robux at all and could be more likely to buy 2D clothing as it’s cheaper. Maybe they just want to try and promote LC more with UGC bundles as Roblox takes 70% of LC sales (and bundle sales, too) compared to just 30% of 2D clothing.

Bundles like this are really cool. I would love to see bundles like these which can support 2D clothing.

12 Likes
#265

It’s Roblox’s fault for not letting UGC creators make 2d faces. They’ve had to resort to face masks and transparent images for god knows how long. I genuinely hope someone bypasses all of the old faces that were put off sale. Those who bypass 2d faces do no wrong.

13 Likes
#266

For how attached I am to R6, I can understand how it is dated technology that Roblox may not necessarily want to promote. But I just find it silly how Roblox likes to force a certain type of avatar, one that only works with dynamic faces, layered clothing, and set at RTHRO proportions. No support for Classic faces even though 2d faces are a giant market in UGC and 2d bypasses are popular as hell. Discouraging support for 2d clothing even though LC has a significantly higher barrier of entry. Roblox seems to have a vision for realistic avatars that literally cannot tolerate anything not made with the latest tech. It’s disappointing.

8 Likes
#267

I strongly agree with 100% of the criticism here. The execution on this is pretty bad. A lot of the creative potential of UGC avatars that I expected I frankly no longer expect unless Roblox makes some decently thought out changes.

To me it just looks like Roblox is going “ooga booga all the stuff you guys overwhelmingly enjoy is legacy or classic now because it doesn’t involve complicated meshes and skinning, you shall appear scuffed if you ever attempt to use it in combination with anything interesting we allow on our platform”

But classic shirts/pants are objectively the only way to add custom texture to an avatar. It adds a lot of possibility and allows for some very cool looking avatars.

This is currently the latest version of my avatar, it’s an attempt to make something cool looking with UGC:
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Here’s what happens to it with most bodies:

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I can’t do anything about this. I use all the accessory slots and utilize some with limited capacities in particularly creative ways. The classic shirt/pants are the textures of my avatar. Without them, I must have a flat colored character, which I don’t want. It doesn’t match the aesthetic at all.

The only interesting avatars I have found so far are by the user Soulskor. So far, their UGC is comparable in quality to some of the better Roblox packages. This is my favorite avatar so far: Werewolf - Black - Roblox

And here is what it looks like with my character:
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Excluding the head, this avatar fits. But only because the base colors and textures already match quite well with my character and the aesthetic already. I can’t make my own avatars, so I can’t really utilize any UGC avatars to improve the aesthetic of my own character.

I don’t really understand why Roblox appears to want to be so restrictive when their motto is “powering imagination” and they have a platform entirely comprised of UGC.

P.s.

I bought the werewolf package for fun and because the creator is the only one who has uploaded anything of any real quality and it looks goofy in the best way possible:
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13 Likes
#268

There’s a few UGC bundles already that don’t even have a modesty layer at all and they’re actually proportioned more like a human, yet a few extruded cubes aren’t allowed?
I hope the uploader takes it down and tries again; moderation is definitely not very consistent at the moment.

4 Likes
#269

What happened to “be anything” line from the old Roblox commercial? Aren’t classic shirts and pants giving more freedom of customization?

If the market is going to be UGC-creator-exclusive, then RIP.

  • 2D clothing makers will feel robbed.
  • You cannot customize 3D clothes to look personal.
  • 2D clothing allows for fan merchandise.
  • In R6 games or games with disabled layered clothing, you’re going to end up (almost) naked. This accounts to packages uploaded by Roblox, because UGC doesn’t allow for R6 at the time.
16 Likes
Dogu15 Rig [Layered]
#270

and a small thing that sort of ticks me off, is the fact that it doesnt show that cyan & blue grid to indicate that classic clothing can be used on a certain bundle.

3 Likes
#271

I totally agree with you, I hate how Roblox is completely throwing out well over a decade of visual style, now even including a decade of user-made shirts and pants. If people want to keep using the old clothing, why stop them? It’s a thousand times easier to make than the new stuff, anyway; do you really think a child can learn how to properly model, rig, and texture a quality 3D clothing model? Of course not, they’re going to stick to the 2D stuff you can easily make with the default paint programs that come with every computer. Attempting to discourage users from mapping for 2D clothing, and not including 2D clothing support into their new “modesty” system in the first place, seems an awful lot like them trying to bury it under the rug to me.

Then, due to not wanting people to use this old-style clothing, they broke their old “modesty” system, so they needed a new one. In my opinion, the approach they took is quite idiotic. Could they really not come up with a better solution than forcing creators to add black underpants to everything? They couldn’t have made a super basic one-size-fits-all layered tank-top and shorts? Even just giving them that blue checkerboard texture from way back in the day until you put an article of clothing on would have looked better (and less… awkward, staring at a bunch of oddly censored avatars while shopping). Are they actually going to moderate avatars that don’t include moderate levels of “modesty”? So far, moderation in the UGC scene has been underperforming, at best…

Besides, isn’t it a bit old-fashioned to still force different levels of “modesty” onto different body styles, anyway? Wouldn’t it have been more wise to just give every single avatar, regardless of whether it’s arbitrarily “male” or “female” (does Roblox not even realize that the classic blocky avatars, and many of their other older packages - i.e. the Robloxian 2.0 - were entirely gender-neutral?) a default tank-top or something similar? This just, again, makes it infinitely more awkward browsing the marketplace.

Overall, this whole system is largely unsatisfying, and is forcing people who want to utilize this new feature to deal with bizarre limitations on creativity and expression. I strongly hope Roblox changes their stance on 2D clothing for the better, as forcing people buying the newer bodies out of it is, in my opinion, a terrible move for Roblox’s player base, preventing them from freely expressing themselves through their avatars - which is the whole point of such customizable avatars in the first place.

16 Likes
#272

Moar info on dynamic heads pls, i tried but it doesnt export from blender, missing face controls in Head_Geo… Even default template without any editing also cant export the head… But direct import of the template FBX file did working

1 Like
#273

I hate to admit it but a very inteligent child can never stick to 2d stuff,they will model,rig and texture a model when they learn to. You just dont know children who know how to make a 3d model.

2 Likes
#275

I think you could just not buy them. There’s an avatar preview in-app. Don’t see it move? Don’t purchase it.

#276

Definitely some problems, but some of the things you can make with the new bodies look quite nice!
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7 Likes
#277

The modesty layer rule is really stupid for characters using classic clothing.

I agree, we shouldn’t have to have a modesty layer on our custom avatars that we intend on supporting classic clothing. Strange that Roblox is allowed to make classic clothing bundles, but we aren’t? Perhaps those bundles will get deprecated eventually like the classic faces.

I also heard Roblox deliberately told UGC artists not to support classic clothing…? … Roblox promised classic avatars would continue to be supported, yet they are gatekeeping what we’re allowed to do with their avatar system because they don’t want us to support the old technology.

Roblox also I’m pretty sure said we would be allowed to upload 2D faces in the future, correct me if I’m wrong, but I guess that isnt happening. What was the point in taking them offsale in place of animated heads that don’t even work properly??? The animated heads were executed so poorly that they’re only placed on a certain head mesh rather than being free to be placed on as many heads as you wanted.

It would be neat if we could create our own classic heads, and if they would bring back the classic faces back on sale because of this issue…say I wanted a face on the woman head, guess I can’t because it’s literally a mesh! There’s so far only 2 free classic faces on sale at this point.

Stop trying to force a specific style of avatar and let the UGC community triage what it wants to do. All kinds of avatars and personalization will be possible if we just let people do what they want with their avatars.

Roblox strives to allow us to take our avatars in as many forms as possible, but not if you actually want to be creative and utilize core Roblox avatar features. Seriously annoying Roblox. Please take this criticism.

4 Likes
#278

Roblox said we would be able to have different head shapes per animated face (so chill face on woman head) but that’s going to come in a later update (which could mean anything tbh). It’s really bizarre how Roblox removes a feature, promises a solution, then either ships it 3 years later (ugc) or never says anything about it ever again (2d ugc faces, r6 preservation, buying the classic oof sound in a revamped creator marketplace or revamped audio permissions). its really sad.

7 Likes
#279

new rule: no using non rthro (pov roblox)

5 Likes
#280

From what I’ve gathered, none of the bundles that don’t have modesty layers were designed to support classic clothing which really just puts more salt on the wound.

3 Likes
#281

Seriously, what even is the point of modesty layers? Was forcing default clothes not enough?
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I get they can be easily bypassed but how come older bundles were never updated with them yet us UGC creators are forced to put them on identical-looking bodies?

5 Likes
#282

You don’t understand, we HAVE to use Rthro characters with blinking faces, because reasons.

4 Likes
#283

I love it when I am forced to have a realistic metaverse mirroring-reality immersive blinking character, so much player expression! It’s not like I ever preferred a simple decal face!

2 Likes
#284

well. as i expected, from what i’ve seen by loosely following the situation, this is in my opinion one of the rockiest feature rollouts roblox has had in a while.

a lot of the bodies and heads being uploaded are, as i predicted in my previous post, low effort and / or low quality, with most of the ugc bodies on the marketplace being the default template body with slightly different proportions or colours being sold for varying amounts of robux. alongside this, there’s also a considerable amount of gory / body horror bodies being uploaded which is something 5 year olds shouldn’t be actively exposed to ( did i mention gore breaks tos? if it’s not in 17+ games? and these bodies are available to all ages on all games? and theres no consequence for uploading these? )

oh, and then there’s the state of the heads being uploaded as well, with most of them also being slightly modified template heads or weirdly gory, and some edging on the border of stealing or copyright infringement with no consequence either. aaand then there was the whole billy scandal with moderation, which was just kind of a joke, i’ll be frank.

that aside though, i’m quickly noticing a problem with ugc heads and bodies, which is that quite literally all of the hair on roblox just don’t even fit most of these honestly extremely creepy and uncanny “realistic” metaverse heads, which i think will pose a big issue long term as ugc artists will either have to focus their efforts on making hair and accessories for each specific “realistic” head people are making ( which will no doubt vary, even subtly, in size and shape each ), or making hair that fits the more widely used default roblox head style that fits just about anything easily, and i have a feeling i know which one will be preferred.

overall though, this is all, as i predicted, a massive joke and a terrible rollout on roblox’s end. roblox is doing next to nothing to stop bad actors, control the quality of assets being uploaded, and remove tos-breaking assets which could not only endanger children but cause concerns with copyright. as i said, this is the messiest feature rollout roblox has had in a while, and to say i’m disappointed is an understatement. i don’t expect roblox to clean this up, i just expect them to shove this under the rug and continue on as they always do, whilst hell rages on in the catalog.

also, justice for r6. :pray:

4 Likes