Sharing our motivation and more details on Classic Heads and Faces
Hi Creators,
Thank you for your feedback on this post - here and through direct channels. We want to provide more information on our approachgiven how important this topic is to our community. This post is longerand we would like to provide more detail on what’s changing and what’s staying the sameand also share our philosophy and methodology for evolving avatars on the platform.
Our Philosophy
The Roblox avatar ecosystem has grown over many yearsand the complexity of the technology limits our ability to deliver new capabilities for our users and our creators. To evolvewe are moving to a unified schema for all avatars where all heads and bodies are compatible and we can layer new capabilities on top - from the upcoming makeup feature to more sophisticated customizations like eye color and clothing materials. We are excited about opening up new opportunities for expression and monetization for our creators and users alike.
We are prioritizing our shared history andto the extent practicablemaintaining backwards compatibility. For examplewe’re introducing a new adaptive animation system so you can use the same animations on R6 Avatars as you do on R15. In some cases we find we must take calculated steps to simplify the architecture and chart a more stable foundation for future growth.
Our decision to support Dynamic Heads for all of our Classic Faces was made with the explicit intent of maintaining many of their key characteristicsfrom their unique lookto collectabilityvalueand tradability.
Visuals and User Toggle
A few years ago we shared V1 versions of the Dynamic Heads that looked significantly different from their Classic counterparts and did not maintain their signature expressions. That is not the case with the V2 versions we are about to release - where our vision and intent has been parity for every Classic Head/Face combination.
Comparison between the Classic versionwhat was released a few years agoand what’s planned in this release
We have painstakingly recreated dynamic versions of each Classic Face - you can see the evolution of the versions and example V2 heads below. New to V2the resting face will be in the same pose as you’re used to seeing. The full V2 set can be found here (this currently includes 50 of the top Heads. We will continue to expand to the full set). For many of us herethis was a labor of love. We’re open to feedback on any differences.
Examples of the Classic Head version v. Dynamic Head version
We looked at the practical implications of Dynamic Heads for usersand how we could help support user choice. There are 3 areas where you may see a face animate by default:
- The idle animationin which the avatar may blink and look around
- When camera is onthe face will animate in sync with your own face
- When you voice chatthe avatar will lip sync your speech
In order to honor our principle of user expressionwe will introduce a new granular control on all avatars - not just the converted Classic Heads - to allow users to specify whether they want their face to animate in the above scenarios. More details on the placement and behavior of this toggle are coming soon.
Left: existing idle animation. Right: face animation toggled off
Head Shape Swapping Functionality
The “pick a face + pick a head shape” workflow isn’t going away. The Avatar Editor flow will still allow you to swap head shapes on a facekeeping your combinations editable rather than locked. This extends into experiences - the same functionality can be accessed through AvatarEditorService.
Updated Avatar Editor flow
Rarity of Limiteds
We’re doing everything possible to maintain the value of your collectiblesand have taken multiple measures aimed at preserving the rarityresaleabilityand tradability of your Limited Classic items.
When Limited Classic Faces turn into Limited Dynamic Headsthey will retain the same overall ‘market population’ (the same total number of copies in existence) as Classic Facessince they will be replaced 1:1. This means that iffor examplethere were 150 copies of a certain Classic Face in existenceonly 150 copies of the equivalent Dynamic Head will be issued to the owners of the original Classic Face. To reiteratewe will not sell additional copies of existing Limited Dynamic Heads on Marketplace: only the people who already owned a Limited Classic Face will be able to receive a Limited Dynamic Head.
We also acknowledge that not all Limited items are the samesince for Limited Unique items (i.e.with serial numbers) some serial numbers might be more desirable than others and command higher values. In order to honor thatClassic Faces with serial numbers will be replaced with Dynamic Heads with the same serial number - to make the replacement truly 1:1 from a value standpoint.
Reselling and trading functionality will work exactly the same as before.
Thank you
Thank you for reading this longer post. And thank you for your feedback. We are committed to getting this right. Please check out the visuals above and let us know what you think in the comments.
