[2024] Post 7.6 Character Modernization

Hey folks,

If you haven’t done so, definitely read my previous post as it will highlight a bit of the history of modernization from livestream announce, through PTS, and now to launch. Especially for the specific changes we have made as I am going to reference that a bit in this post.

Before I get into that though, here is a TLDR - 7.6 was a huge step forward for us and the culmination of an art and tech effort to modernize our characters for the first time since our games inception, which is amazing. But that huge step is also only our first, we aren’t done. Our modernization efforts mean subsequent changes can and will continue.

First up, thank you for your feedback. We knew coming into character modernization that we wanted to take extra care regarding changes we made to your character's appearance. It’s one of the reasons why, to reiterate our goal from my original post, we wanted to make sure that you maintained your identity as a character after modernization. But that didn’t mean there would be no change in appearance, as that is necessary to the modernization process. So it was important for us to try to match up both our own artistic goals and the feedback we were receiving from PTS. 

In my last post I talked a lot about what we changed from our initial launch of PTS, through its run, and now to live. For this post I want to talk about how those changes were made because that context (if you want to peek behind the curtains a bit) will set up some good context for what we are looking towards changing as we move forward!

Let me define two different terms for you really quick that I am going to use in this post:

• Artistic changes - Any time I refer to artistic work, I am talking about some kind of change being made by hand by an artist on our team. Imagine someone holding a paint brush painting some details on your character's skin, or hair, etc. 
  • Example: I apply some lighter colors to skin tone 3 of humans around the eyes for some specific effect, hand painting this effect.
• Programmatic changes - Any time I refer to something being programmatic, this means something that is happening automatically and across everything all at once, like a filter. 
  • Example: I programmatically make every human skin tone one shade lighter.

Ok, with those two terms in mind I want to talk about how we went about making some of the changes we did during PTS, why, and what we are adjusting post 7.6!

Early on you will all very likely be familiar with our most common piece of feedback, that a lot of the texture work that we did (which was artistic) went too hard. Now, that was caused by a shader bug (programmatic) which we addressed, but, even after we fixed the bug, we still were seeing a lot of that sentiment. The places we saw this the most was for things like wrinkles around the face, etc. 

So, given how universally the feedback we were seeing was around the hardness within our texture (artistic) work, we decided that the best course to address that feedback was going to be programmatically. Since even though that would be a more universal change, there would still be levers we could pull within it. Let me give you a very specific example to what you have seen play out in 7.6 to showcase this:

• We were able to tone down the definition of wrinkles and hardness within the textures, but since this is programmatic, it means that other texture definition, like your sweet abs also lost some definition.

As we went through PTS we were able to tweak multiple of these variables up and down to try to land at a place that we felt met our goals while still being as reactionary as possible to your feedback. Again, another example:

• What you see now in 7.6 is that those same abs are not 100% as defined as they were pre-7.6 but it allowed us to similar tone down some of the hardness seen in the textures elsewhere, such as face wrinkles.

As we continue to plan beyond 7.6, we have a few different primary initiatives that we want to tackle:

• Replace "overall programmatic softening" with a more targeted, artist controlled softening of facial features while keeping definition in other areas - Super important context, this does not mean you should expect to see a dramatic change in how your character appears from today (or a rollback). But, it would give our artists more control over individual changes impacted by modernization such as ear, nose, and muscle definition and the appearance of aging.
• Textures on vibrant colored species, such as Chiss - So a couple of notes here. This would be helped by the first change around moving away from programmatic softening. Also, fun fact, Chiss as an example, technically use human textures, so this isn’t like adding a new species, this is more about having a bit more artistic control over how existing textures interact with non-human skin tones.
• Neckline seam - I talked about this in my last post but we obviously are aware of and investigating this too.

That isn’t a comprehensive list, but those are our “high nails” that we are talking through and prioritizing right now. Again as I TLDRd above. We know these changes to your character feel, and are, personal to you and so we take them very seriously. 7.6 has set a baseline that we are so, so excited about and so continue on this journey with us. Keep giving us feedback. I will do my best to make sure you stay informed on exactly what we are planning, what we are changing (or not), and why, whenever possible.

Thanks all!

-eric