5

New Avatar 2.0 - What do you think about it ?

Emma

September 06, 2019 07:15

None

Follow

Hey all !

I just tested avatar 2.0 and wanted to have your opinion about it. Am I the only one thinking they are.. a bit.. ummm.. weird ? My avatar looks like a dead corpse walking in the street. Or a vampire. For real. That's the first time I was scared of my own avatar.

- Harstyles (I'm talking as a women) are.. everything but pretty.

- Current clothings from Avatar 1.0 that are available with Avatar 2.0 aren't adapted as Linden Labs announced. I even used all the possibility to re-adjust clothes, but my character looks like she just returned from Second World War.

- In my opinion, there isn't that much more options to customize my avatar. I found the new system a bit harder than before, for a result way worst than before.

- Again and even if Linden Labs haven't planed it, and even if there is not any link with the subject, Oculus Quest doesn't support Sansar while this is one of the most popular VR Headset. They should really optimise the game for it.

So yes, I know, we need to wait for community content - but from now - it's for me impossible to play the game. No immersion at all.

What do YOU think of this update ?

21 comments

• 8
  
  Andrew Lawrence September 06, 2019 10:26

  I think it's definitely much worse than the previous avatars overall. I was confused by the sliders at first, because they didn't seem to do anything. They actually do adjust things, there's just not much variation. But it turns out that it's possible to select parts of the head and move them around, which is neat. However, there are a lot less hair and clothing options. None of the available clothes are palatable at all, and everything besides the default outfit doesn't even fit the avatar correctly. So I had to go back to the default clothes, which somehow manage to be the "least worst" option even though they are still terrible. So I'm not sure what the point was, because I assume it was not to make everything so much worse than before. It would be great if they went back to the previous avatars for now, because the new ones clearly aren't ready. It looks like there are a lot of great improvements under the hood, but it's a shocking regression on the surface.

• 5
  
  Kallah September 06, 2019 11:13

  *** ON TOPIC ***

  I concur.

  As to this new avatar ... most of the sliders don't do anything, or barely anything noticeable. And yes, I've been informed of the facial move functions and that might be a good thing but not good enough. With the way they've digressed the avatar(s) giving us little option to even save one let alone try to make it bearable, there are so many things wrong with this av. I'm sorely displeased. Go back to the old av until you fix this, that's my suggestion!

  You would think they'd of learned from their *other* program what people like in an avatar. My avatar is one of the most important things for me, it represents me on the screen, NONE of what they've offered in this V2 do so. The first av (V1) was ok but these new ones (V2) are way worse. These avs look like genderless (perhaps that's the point?) zombies, gamey ... is that the intent? I am not happy at all. Who the heck made these V2 avatar heads, they're AWEFUL!

  The standard hairstyles that comes with it are atrocious. No words!

  The skins are likewise unattractive, and I'm trying be polite. They look like colorized pasty game skins or something.

  *** OFF TOPIC ***

  As for the revamped "nexus" ... I don't want to start in your nexus experience/event, I want to start in MY experience. Why am I forced to load your experience/event, and then forced to go to your quest portal, before I can even try to find my own experiences??? I have to close the program to get out of your *quest* nevermind get to my own places!

  Speaking of landing places ... I'd like to land at my own home place, not your livingroom that I'm forced to land at. It's a pita trying to find my own experiences at login. I just want to login at my own place, is that too much to ask?

  On another note ... why none of the basics many of us are use to such as creating our own home to land at startup; S$ showing in the Sansar bar at the top of the program in-world; transactions showing on the website including when refunds are given and what those refunds are for? Really, can't you take the best of the old and somehow incorporate it into the new?

  Finally, as touching purchased inventory ... why am I inspired to buy inventory now that I can't use what I liked and paid for? I appreciate what refund I have gotten but again, I have no idea what the refunds cover that can no longer be used. Even my own creations are now useless. How can I be inspired to make things ... or to purchase from others??? I'm not. The items I made that others purchased, well, sorry for you folks (as sorry as I am for me), because I can't afford to refund you. Here's to hoping Sansar will make it up to you somehow!

  I know, I know, after what three years, it's still in alpha-beta-zeta, give it a chance ... what-e-v-e-r!!!  See you all in another few months, here's to hoping they listen to their user base ... but probably not. 

  PS ... And what is this "pending approval" thing again??? Why do I need *approval* to post or edit a post/comment?

   

  Edited by Kallah September 06, 2019 11:26
• 4
  
  sirswaghorse September 06, 2019 11:46

  i cant say i am a fan of the avatar 2.0 at all. they look worse then the avatar 1.0 not to mention that most of the clothing in the market place is now broken and cant be used and from a clothing designer standpoint would take me alot of time to go back and update and fix all the broken stuff to work with the new avatar especially if you are using marvelous designer. maybe sansar should revert back to the 1.0 avatar and maybe give people a choice on which avatar they want to use not force the new one. to me for some reason the 1.0 avatar just looks so much more realistic.

   

  Most other vr platforms give access to multiple default avatars. would have most likely been better for sansar to have given us multiple default avatars to pick from ie 1.0 & 2.0 if sansar wants to keep up with competition having one default avatar is not a good start.

  Edited by sirswaghorse September 07, 2019 06:16
• 0
  
  Emma September 06, 2019 16:17

  Use the "transform" button on the left of the "remove button" on your cloth list to use 1.0 ressources in 2.0. Better that trying to adjust/drag clothes.

  See below what I made with 1.0 ressources (only free items) :

  

  That's the best I could achieve so far. Sadly it was too hard for me to make a different face for my character. Hope community will create many good things.

   

  Edited by Emma September 06, 2019 16:18
• -3
  
  Zeja Pyle September 06, 2019 17:56

  I tried the avatar 2.0 editor, and I think they are doing it right.

  We can't really talk about the body, this part is not released yet.
  and everyone agree that the proportions are not good as it is.
  Samething about skin.

  But for the Head, I played with it and I get very interesting results.
  I've been able to make the face I wanted, and it's what I hoped to see happening.
  Now I can say that it starts to reflect my soul. (Avatar 1.0 would never be enough for me.)

  The only negative points I noticed:
  - I would have liked to controle a bit more the eye opening.
  - The avatar get a very weird smile animation when we setup the hair... I have even thought I was loosing my setup. Not sure the user wants such animation during the edition, it's disturbing.
  - It seems to have no setup to make something assymetric. (I guess I can live with that)

• 2
  
  Peapod September 06, 2019 20:27

  My first noticed criticism was the textures on the skin, hair and eyes. Maybe these are just very basic beta textures and will be improved? The hair also looks like shiny plastic, with the specular texture seeming way too responsive to light. The textures on the original sansar avatar seemed more detailed and realistic. Also parts of the face, such as the eyes and lips seem to be lacking in 3D details and eyelid folds.

  It's cool how you can manipulate parts of the face, but I hope they plan to include just as many slider options as Second Life, if not more. There are several facial feature options that seem to be currently lacking, such as changing the width/height (not just scale) of features, nostril depth and width, lip width/thickness, eyebrow shape options, eye shape options, etc.

  Also there seems to be a bug with the lip sliders that results in changing the chin shape rather than lip shape.

  Edited by Peapod September 06, 2019 20:42
• 1
  
  Dominnatrix September 06, 2019 21:16

  I want my old avatar back. It was removed from my items, it was removed from the store, it was removed from everywhere. So far I am not interested in new avatars and wont play Sansar till I get my old avatar back, or replacement 2.0 will be made.

• 1
  
  Sands September 07, 2019 02:28

  It may be a while before I decide to log back into Sansar. Avatar 2.0 need further development, I think. I actually liked my old look - after spending a lot of time getting it "right"

   

  Came back to edit and add: I did know the 2.0 Avatars were coming - I just somehow expected them to be better looking. I realize folks worked hard on them and I don't want to detract from the effort - but the previous 1.0 Avatars looked fine - just lacked much customization. Now we have customization, I suppose, but the base look is more plastic and stiff. Maybe I should have spend more time in the "customize my avatar" bit.

   

   

  Edited by Sands September 07, 2019 02:37
• 1
  
  Galen September 07, 2019 05:30

  I gave it a try. I think LL did a nice job with the playdough face feature. It's a clever design. I was able to fashion a gelfling-like face (think Dark Crystal) with it fairly quickly.

  

  At this point I suspect LL will move to make it easy to add custom skins and hopefully layer on tattoos and such.

  I found it fairly easy to adapt some of my old clothes to the new av too. Yes they were off the mark at the start. But it wasn't hard to roughly position them and then shrink-wrap them.

  I think this is a marked improvement.

• 0
  
  Luise September 07, 2019 13:40

  Needs a lot of improvements (skins, eyes, body shape etc)  but I like it. Specially the way you can shape the face. Its easy and fun.

• 1
  
  Verna September 07, 2019 18:53

  The idea is good, I love sculpting , but execution is poor. As other have said ..very bland looking avatars, skins and hair are atrocious.

• 1
  
  Sands September 07, 2019 23:43

  Galen, nice ears. I tried for pointy ears but it didn't work for me. Maybe I should try refreshing my client again maybe I didn't have the latest code. I also noticed that some of the sliders affected the wrong part of the face, which wasn't all that helpful making things look right. 
  
  But I still think the hair and skin don't live up to the Avatar 2.0 hype.

  
  Tried again with the customizing the face. I realized I had not tried ALL the little heads at the top. There is one for individual parts, I did the region and a couple of the others, but missed trying the rightmost tool. That gave me the control to actually make the ears pointy and not just slide them around on the skull.
  
  Better now (because I also used that to adjust the bridge of my nose and my eye spacing) - but still... missing something. Also, where are the tools for the rest of the body? Or is that still to come along?

  Edited by Sands September 08, 2019 00:13
• 0
  
  Gindipple September 08, 2019 15:44

  The avatar looks like puke now, but it did before too so no biggie.

  "- Again and even if Linden Labs haven't planed it, and even if there is not any link with the subject, Oculus Quest doesn't support Sansar while this is one of the most popular VR Headset. They should really optimise the game for it."

  This is a very bad idea, the quest has a fraction of the capabilities of using a PC headset. You would have to dumb down every place you went to for it to work. They can't afford to fragment their small team to work on two versions of Sansar for 2 headset types

   

• 0
  
  Cora September 08, 2019 20:58

  The new face sculpting system is very cool. If you go into "parts" mode you can get a lot of control over the shapes. The controls however have a very odd effect on hairstyles which I hope gets sorted out. There are things I'd change about the body/hands, but those features aren't done yet.

  I do wish LL had made an effort to keep the body proportions similar to the way they were before. The old marvelous designer clothes are a hassle or impossible to fit now.

  The skin and eye textures are not of my taste. I hope we can create our own skins and eye textures soon.

• 0
  
  Lawst Sohl September 09, 2019 03:51

  I liked my previous avatar and I don't see the ability to recreate anything close to it yet ... I will be patient though.

• 0
  
  Emma September 09, 2019 14:31

  Thanx all for your feedback ! I hope LL will read and consider all your return. It's our goal to provide them feedback.

  @Peapod : Agreed.

  @Gindipple : Many players related that some technologies used by LL for Sansar isn't the bests. Some also asked to make some easy changes that could make the difference. The game have so much things that can be optimized that I am almost sure the game could run on Quest without having to make another version. Having more devices supported means having more players.

  @All : I'm a bit surprised that many of you found the Sansar avatar editor easy. Did I missed something ? Are we agree that we can directly edit the faces of our characters using the mouse, but cannot edit it using scrollers ?

  I tried to change my character face but I just stuck her eyes right inside of her head. That was.. scary. lol

• 0
  
  pantone September 11, 2019 19:50

  The previous avatar I didn't like it. This one is also not super realistic but I like the new option of editing the face very much, well done! You can deform everything extremely. I don't care much about sliders because you can save a version of the face any time with "Save preset" button to load again if you screw it up.
  
  A minor problem I had was with positioning mesh eyes when you are in editing the head. Although you select the arrows to move the eyes it also deforms the head. You have to select 'hair' or other tab and then move the eyes.
  
  Skins could be better, freckles/birthmarks option maybe and more colors or colorpicker for the standard eyes. And then make the body also customizable ;) that would be awesome.

• 0
  
  Ingrid Ingersoll January 14, 2020 16:47

  It's a shame that so much of the clothing on the Sansar marketplace is for the old avatar. I haven't used Sansar in a long time and this was really frustrating to me. I bought items that don't work on the current avatar at all. I can imagine it would be super annoying to completely new players.

  As for the new avatars, definitely worse. Creepy space women. In space suits. BUT I was able to cobble together a decent looking avatar (imo) based on some freebies by Cora and using the head sliders. 

  my avatar:

  

  Edited by Ingrid Ingersoll January 14, 2020 16:48
• 0
  
  Andrew Lawrence January 14, 2020 18:46

  I agree that the new face editing is much better than the sliders that don't seem to do much, and really innovative. But also that the new default avatars look like lanky, freaky aliens with weird clothes. That avatar looks really good and incredibly normal looking for a new avatar, Ingrid. I'll have to see if there's anything else good on the store that's free that they didn't include by default. The biggest issue for me is that they didn't include anything normal looking by default, whereas the original avatars were hardly customizable but were at least normal human-looking enough.

• 0
  
  Ingrid Ingersoll January 14, 2020 19:17

  Thanks Andrew! Too bad Cora doesn't make the same thing for men. And yeah I agree, I didn't love the first avatars either but they were "better".

• -2
  
  Edwardupshaw August 29, 2021 08:08

  By far the most important change coming to the new Avatars in VR is that the amount of customization available. There are billions of unique individuals on this planet, and while we all know we've an extended thanks to go and many more options to feature ,blog articles the new Oculus Avatars reflect more of that individuality than ever before.