Judging from the movement of this platform, I can only make a prediction of where this update might go:
Roblox has been known for pushing R15, A LOT. It goes without saying that it’s more modern and Roblox clearly prefers that you use it.
They added Layered Clothing, which I’m a fan of but only because people made 1.0 suited layered clothes. This feature was, and still is at the time of this message, exclusive to R15. This feature being added makes R6 look less enticing, which is likely Roblox’s drive to eventually make everyone prefer to use R15 instead of R6 so they can silently remove it.
They also have that message that says that R6 is “limited” when attempting to switch to the body type, making the user question whether or not they want to use it.
Dynamic Heads are the exact same thing as layered clothing. They only animate properly with R15.
My best guess is that Roblox will be like “Hey, if you want a Classic Head, you gotta play in R6!”
If most experiences use R15 by a certain date, this makes the amount of “Classic Head” users much less than that of animated ones, in which Roblox could silently remove those too.
Just pure speculation, but Roblox is known for removing things and forcing changes without much context, and this is looking like another episode of this.
I’m just glad I have an avatar that hides the face of my character, because I may be a fan of layered clothing, but Dynamic Heads is a definite step down.
Roblox does not have the ability to see the camera. This system works as follows:
Using AI, camera tracks your face. It gets your face, orientation, eye locations, mouth position.
Code translates this into the Dynamic face. The face will act depending on your real face.
Really, it’s just tracking. No footage is sent through the servers, it’s all local, then the server just broadcast your motion to everyone else.
However, your camera is still on. Someone with enough experience can access what the camera sees if they wanted to.
VTubers do this. “A specific country” most likely already has their face data anyway by the millions of hours of footage they received anyway. Who knows if they’re recording it or not.
Partially off topic but, if Roblox wants to discontinue R6 for whatever reason (which doesn’t seem to be the outcome but seeing ss they’re trying to push Rthro it might), we can just make it ourselves. Like if they cared. Roblox is still the same when it comes to Parts. If they changed Parts, that’s where I’m quitting. But I mean, why would they anyway. That’d be stupid.
If this change was because of investors, I really hope Roblox never went public.
someone could access the footage? yeah thats nah, thats REALLY nah. Its just weird that its being forced onto the community. An option is an option but its really weird that this one is being pushed onto the platform. Would I use the dynamic heads? maybe? dunno honestly. It looks like a neat feature overall. But Whats the point of it in reality? I’ve been to some games where they have animated faces already, why do they need to mimic the actual player? I just dont understand this update. They still havent fixed the align position API yet to be able to use the MaxAxesForce. EVEN THOUGH THEY ALREADY REMOVED BODY POSITION. Im just stating there are other features they should be working on before worrying about some silly camera stuff. They worrying about some camera stuff but a lot of features are still not being worked on. Drag detectors been out for what? a month? and still not implemented??? but hey, they got plenty of time to be worried about a silly feature like dynamic heads. its literally like stating “We care about your money, not you guys being able to develop games.”
I am not an expert, so I can’t confirm if anyone could have camera access. There’s only been two occasions where Roblox could access the host computer recently if I am right: Once was an anti-exploit in some roleplay game, another was Roblox’s critical plugin bug. Anyway, that’s another topic.
I’m not 100% against the idea of animated heads, I think they look pretty nice. Although If you are going to start forcing them over the Classic Faces, that would be horrible. I prefer the classic faces mainly because I just don’t see a use for the Animated Heads, they are cool and all but I don’t want to use facial animations to “express” myself. I’d rather make an avatar I feel comfortable with to express myself, not by facial animations using emotes.
To add, I am not sure how I feel about the camera tracking to animate avatars, again, it seems cool on paper, however I feel it is out-right a privacy violation to be constantly watching the user’s face to update their face. Again, this isn’t a good or efficient way to allow users to express themselves, or doesn’t even help with communication.
If you want users to express themselves more, don’t only focus solely on Layered Clothing, Animated Faces, and new body types. Instead focus on all ends of the spectrum, that way users that express themselves using different clothing, or classic faces can do it without being forced to use some animated face or a super realistic body.
I think this is cool and all, but I think you guys have the idea of expressing yourself and communicating completely wrong. After all this platform used to be considered a game, but to you guys its a “metaverse”, or a communication platform.
Just waiting for the announcement that says “We have decided not to remove core features to the environment and community we are sorry.” and then have it continue to “We have finished implementing the features, Drag detectors, Align Position, Material handling, and Anti-Exploit Services.” for a full documentation of “We realize here at roblox that we are a GAMING platform and apologize for forgetting that for a quick cash grab scheme for the benefits for our shareholders, we realize that you all are what helps make us a successful company not our shareholders. Without the community there is no roblox.”
One of the friends I know been forced the stevie standard face TWICE.
It’s not even a bug, it sounds like a way to force new dynamic heads on us.
How coincidential it is that it happened twice?
If I’m being honest, Roblox could totally take the direction of this update the same way as the audio update. Countless people pleaded for a proper solution to the issue.
Monstercat was added to the music library along with some copyright free music and that’s all that came of it. Two years later, still absolutely no proper fix for the whole issue.
They could realistically just force this change and move on with their lives like the did with the audio update. Considering we also didn’t get a proper response from a staff member after like 500 replies and stuff too. (These are just guesses I really forgot the statistics)
Four major issues with this forced change that I see:
The new heads look entirely different on an R15 avatar than they look on an R6 avatar (size, offset from the torso… looks really dumb tbh)
The moods don’t apply in R6, since Roblox never updated the R6 heads to meshparts, so in turn, every face has the exact same neutral expression.
And this is a big one-- faces and heads are just combined into one-- meaning, you have no choice on which head you want to accompany a face, or vise versa-- which absolutely sucks big time for people who want to actually fit into their accessories correctly (hats, hair)
and finally, the big 4. A lot of the free faces are now $120 (chill face, winning smile) while others are nearly 3x as expensive as they once were. Good job, Roblox. Keep up the good work! (please stop)
What’s scarier is the activity tab of this staff member.
Spoiler: It’s literally their first post.
I have high doubts we will get a response to all this.
When Byfron released they kept us informed. This dude created his first post ever on the forum, he isn’t looking for feedback. Fix the heads and prices, make the faces identical to their classic ones, and I don’t have an issue.
The thing needs a redesign. Let us pick our head shape and apply a dynamic face. Finally, make the faces more defined - especially the man face…
Instead of insulting them, read the statement that says IF the camera is enabled. You are not being forced to do anything and are making bizarre claims.
While I think the Dynamic Heads are a nice touch to avatar customization, there is a concern for privacy when it comes to using the users camera for facial movement.
I myself will not give Roblox access to use my camera even if its for such a minimalist task. And I’m sure there are plenty of others that will say the same.
Roblox, please re-think your decisions before releasing them to the public.
Dynamic faces are a really nice and great idea, which could improve the future of roblox. However I strongly believe, the way this is being introduced is really wrong. A better alternative would be to make a 3d variant for each face, compatible with each head that supports 2d faces. AND make this an option that’s enabled by the developer or the user, similar to how we’re allowing our users to play in r6 or r15.
As a 3d modeler, I understand this might be taking a long time to get finished, but with the size of roblox at the moment, I believe it is possible to be done within 2 months if the roblox modeling team assigns about 4-5 faces per staff member each week (excluding weekends), and enough modelers work for these.
This would save few issues:
-Roblox community won’t be worrying about older/classic faces being removed
-Users will be able to choose whatever face and head they want
-Users can choose whenever their avatar is Dynamic or Static
-Users won’t have to re-buy same items again
-There would be overall more control over the character customizations, such as Expression, dynamic status & will keep things more simplistic so users won’t get confused between “classic heads, heads, styles, faces, classic faces etc.”
In my opinion this is a wonderful feature which roblox is going to experience, but it is poorly implemented and will be underrated and unwelcomed by the community, because of the poor introduction we’ve got for it.
Speaking of this update, the camera feature rises a lot of concert for not just me, but a lot of other users. Roblox even with Byfron still experiences a lot of exploiters, and it might not be a good idea to have a camera connect to the game.
Roblox should keep the camera option disabled by default, and only allow it to be enabled similar way to VC. It’s highly concerning for devices that have a fixed camera (eg. laptops, mobile phones)
With this said, this is a very nice feature, poorly introduced to the community, which definitely needs changes given by user feedback.