More comprehensive ratings system

[gernb]

It seems like it would be really useful to have a few more rating categories as opposed to just one 1-5 star rating.

In particular, I almost never want to use the default characters in the scene but replacing them fails in many scenes. And by fail I mean the scene is unusable a close to unusable. I do not mean things don't align perfectly.

When a scene breaks I want to come on here and give the scene a 1 of 5 because to me, one of the biggest pluses to tech like VaM is that I can replace the characters with ones that are more my type so a scene where that's not possible is very disappointing.

At the same time, I don't really want to downvote the quality of the scene. Rather I want set of checkboxes that affect the rating. So for example

[x] can change all characters to any sex (the scene doesn't break)
[x] changing characters to any other character/any sex doesn't ruin their facial expressions
[x] can change the voices
[x] can turn off the music
[x] can easily turn off post processing

My thinking is that a scene that doesn't check all of these boxes can not be rated more than 4 of 5 period or in some way is ranked lower to encourage taking these issues into consideration. In this case it's not a judgement of the quality of the work. It's more of "does the scene support VaM's full potential"

To elaborate on some of these issues

[x] can change all characters to any sex (the scene doesn't break)

I've downloaded lots of scenes recently, that if I switch the main character (female) to a male futa the scene completely breaks. Animations don't play or in scene menus disappear.

[x] changing characters to any other character/any sex doesn't ruin their expression

Similar to above, I change the character and the facial expressions are so off as to be un-usable. Mouths are 4 inches tall and 1mm wide or upper eye lids are stretched below the bottom of the eyes.

[x] can change the voices

Maybe this one is a little harsh. A scene that uses VaMMoan I can change the voices. a scene with pre-recorded voices, I'd prefer to at least be able to turn off the man's voice but often I can't find where it's coming from

[x] can turn off the music

Straight forward

[x] can easily turn off post processing

There have been scenes that use post processing that doesn't work in VR. I've gone though every object in the scene, even after checking show hidden, and checked each object's plugins and can't find a where the post processing as been added. Yes, I checked scene plugins too. These scenes are effectively usable.

In any case, I feel like something along these lines would only benefit everyone. It would give authors guidelines on how to meet more people's desires. It would gently encoruage authors to spend a little more time making sure these things work. It would likely lead to guides and tutorials on how to accomplish these. It might encourage guidelines on character creations so more characters are swap compatible. It might also lead to plugin fixes or even VaM2 features to help with these issue.

Well, I can dream

 

[atani]

Hi,
As far as I know, there will be soon a Hub update that will change considerably how reviews or ratings work. As they are introduces some complications that hopefully will be remediated with the update, so I'm hopeful.

Changing looks is something I do pretty much on every scene I play, but results depend on both the user and creator side.
User side:

• Always use appearance presets, never look presets
• Keep the same scale as the person in the scene
• If the person is very different in body shape to the original in the scene, you're more likely to have issues
• Accept that some changes are needed or will not have the intended results

Creator side:

• Forcing a preset to load during the scene is annoying for the user as it clears any changes
• Setup and UI to consider the user replacing the person appearance but still be able to add back (cum) clothing or rescale for example

As for the checklist, it is not something that would make sense as it's entirelly subjective. Each scene is made with the creator's intentions, and adding options to change certain things would be for sure more work, could affect the result substantially, and other reasons. It's great to have some flexibility to customize the scene, but it all depends on the scene and there's a limit to what can or should be changed. For deeper changes, you are expected to save it locally and do it yourself.

I've downloaded lots of scenes recently, that if I switch the main character (female) to a male futa the scene completely breaks. Animations don't play or in scene menus disappear.

Here it is entirely on your side to not do this, or at least understand why it would break. A female and male persons are different, clothing and some plugins for example are sex specific. This is a deep change in scene structure that requires it to be made specifically to that purpose.

[x] changing characters to any other character/any sex doesn't ruin their expression

This is dependent on the morphs of your character, some will just look awful.

[x] can change the voices

Depends on the voice setup. Needs to be something made from the start with multiple voices, a lot more work.

[x] can turn off the music

Many scenes with music include a volume slider.

[x] can easily turn off post processing

Would be great as I also have issues in VR. Keep in mind that some creators are not even aware of this as they don't have VR headsets and some post-processing uses are not problematic and give the scene nice touches.


As you see, a checklist is highly subjective and scenes vary considerably to be a source of rating. You can't judge a lapdance scene from a story based scene with the same checklist, it would be a unfair treatment.

Creators will vary in knowledge and interests. Having a scene that can be changed requires a reasonably advanced understanding of VaM to account for the changes, it's not a simple task of adding a button, some options need a sturdy structure to keep it running when things are changed, no easy feat sometimes.
Other times the creator doesn't want a user to change things for X or Y reasons, and the reasons are usually not presented.

Maybe the update will fix many things with the current review system, but I find it unlikely that a checklist will be part of it.
Don't forget you can always share your own review list on a resource's discussion area, your feedback is really useful to the creator to improve the resource.

 

[gernb]

I've downloaded lots of scenes recently, that if I switch the main character (female) to a male futa the scene completely breaks. Animations don't play or in scene menus disappear.

Here it is entirely on your side to not do this, or at least understand why it would break. A female and male persons are different, clothing and some plugins for example are sex specific. This is a deep change in scene structure that requires it to be made specifically to that purpose.

Some scenes break, some don't. So it's clearly up to the creator to choose the methods don't break

[x] changing characters to any other character/any sex doesn't ruin their expression

This is dependent on the morphs of your character, some will just look awful.

Yes, but again, some scenes break, some don't. So clearly guidelines can be created that say "follow these rules so that characters are interchangable"

[x] can change the voices

Depends on the voice setup. Needs to be something made from the start with multiple voices, a lot more work.

I'm not ask for more work. I'm asking for the option to disable the voices

[x] can turn off the music

Many scenes with music include a volume slider.

This is entirely ignoring the point of the the request. Some scene don't add such options and choose the wrong way to integrate the music such that it's difficult to impossible to find and disable it. The point is, such a scene should be rated lower than a scene that doesn't have this problem and guidelines should be in place that say "to make a good scene, make sure users can turn off the music"

[x] can easily turn off post processing

Would be great as I also have issues in VR. Keep in mind that some creators are not even aware of this as they don't have VR headsets and some post-processing uses are not problematic and give the scene nice touches.

Irrelevant to my point though. If VaM had guidelines "This is a how you make a scene that lets users fully utilize all that VaM has to offer". And, if the Hub nudged users in that direction by surfacing which scene meet all the guidelines, then you'd get more scenes that met them. Better for VaM, better for users, even better for creators as their scenes target a larger audience by being more flexible.

Similar guidelines for plugin authors would be useful. There's arguably no reason the Post Processing plugin couldn't figure out where it's useful and where it's not and turn itself off. Similarly, there's no reason the Naturalis plugins couldn't see the sex of the character is male and stop ruining male characters. A set of such guidelines like

Plugin Guidelines:

[*] If a plugin only works with one sex it should check the sex of the character it's being applied to and stop if the sex is not supported
[*] If a plugin only works on desktop it should just not function in VR
[*] Plugins should clean up correctly so that subsequence scenes are not ruined (example: the Stopper Alt Futa plugins breaks all male penises on subsequent scenes)

Scene Guidelines:

(*) Characters should be interchangeable in the following ways ...
(*) Music volume should be adjustable, either do ... or do ...

Character Guidelines:

(*) Characters should be deformable in the following ways - load your character into this test scene to check they are VaM standard deformation compliant.

Etc.

Then, in the HUB, a plugin / scene / character, could be marked with "Fully VaM conformant" or not if it's not. This would be a subtle reminder to go check and follow the guidelines.

 

[atani]

I've explained why some scenes break when you change certain things, like changing a female to a male/futa. Those that break are because of plugins that only work on a specific sex or need to be readjusted when changing, as well as clothing, and other reasons. If you ignore this things are expected to break, it's not the creator's fault because that's not the scene he/she made.
Others, like changing voices, etc, DO require a lot more work to have such a functionality. I don't know if you ever made a scene, but I do scenes and I know what kind of work it takes to provide that kind of functionality.
For plugin making, again, I have no idea if you know how to make plugins, but if some are specific to certain sexes or need some reloading, it's either by design because it would be a lot harder to make, or because the creator has some other reason.

There are ways to only use certain aspects depending if the user is on desktop or VR, and other things, but this requires the creator to:

• Be experienced to use them and understand why
• Be aware of impacts and limitations
• Spend more time developing the scene

This takes time and honestly, not everyone will care to go to this detail. I sure don't add functionalities to a scene that I won't use or care about, unless it's very easy to add and maintain.

It's great to offer sugestions and knowledge so that creators can improve their skills and resources, that's why you can find a lot of guides and Discord is active with people asking about doing things.
Some things you ask can be easy to add, others are not at all, but ultimately, the creator is the one that decides on what and how to do things, it's their creation, not yours. If you want to customize to your own preferences, you're free to do so.

 

[hazmhox]

Never gonna happen ( but the choices made by the team could change over time so consider this my own personal opinion ).

There are several reasons why:

• If you get a good view/download to review ratio, be happy if you have like a 1:10000 ratio. Putting more "checkbox to cross" at review will simply create more friction and reduce the amount of people motivated enough to even approach the review form.
• People already asked to remove the text, which only requires you to put "cool" in it and is already too much for some people.
• The team overall would want to give more incentive to people to review content they play... it's not going to work if you put more hurdles to rate the content.

The concept of a review system is to write things. If your own personal crusade is to ask from all creators to output flawless scenes checking your own personal subjective "markers" of what makes a scene great, then you can simply drop by the discussion tab of said resource and give a great detailed feedback of what you expect.

This was for the review/rating aspect.


Now, for the subjective aspect of what you expect for a scene, I think you have to potentially learn a bit about VAM scene creation before putting the bar so high. Most of your arguments shows that you don't consider either the work load or the technical aspects of what can be done with a VAM scene... and atani tried to explain that.

Also, I think you might either lack a bit of perspective... for instance:

I'm not ask for more work. I'm asking for the option to disable the voices

What do you think a feature for disabling the voices and giving the player the ability to control the audio of a scene is besides "more work"? Simply handling a set of interaction between a UI and a set of characters can range from half an hour to several hours of work depending on the complexity.

When you click a single button and feel that this interaction is easy... this has required implementations and time on the creator's end.


Or this:

can change all characters to any sex (the scene doesn't break)

Either you are not trying (on purpose or not) to realize how this is purely and simply impossible. OR the only thing you do is play the scenes back without trying to edit them so you lack some knowledge about the overall technical constraint this implies.

To make a long story short: it will never ever (ever ever) be possible to swap a character at will, for another completely random one which has widly different proportions, or sex, or height and so on... without potentially breaking the scene.

The animation system being absolute to the "original animation setup" (character sizes/proportions/genders), it will always require to have somewhat the same (approximately) characters to ensure it would work.


Overall your list of things feels like you're asking for scenes (which are mostly community driven by passionnate and non-professional people) to be like AAA-grade experiences on a very versatile and heterogenous sandbox game which implies a lot of complexities and cannot, by nature, answer to all your needs and fantasies as you'd expect without a bug.

It is pretty obvious to anyone, that you can't go on a non-futa scene and put futa-people in there without it breaking and vice-versa.

So, I support you're idea to give detailed feedback to creators. You can do that through the discussion tab. But I'd recommend to probably adjust your perception of what a scene should be and how it should behave. As anyone would be very mad at someone rating very badly one of their scene for a reason that everyone here knows is pretty much unsolvable.

 

[MUT.VR.333]

 

[Okachu]

Never gonna happen ( but the choices made by the team could change over time so consider this my own personal opinion ).

There are several reasons why:

• If you get a good view/download to review ratio, be happy if you have like a 1:10000 ratio. Putting more "checkbox to cross" at review will simply create more friction and reduce the amount of people motivated enough to even approach the review form.
• People already asked to remove the text, which only requires you to put "cool" in it and is already too much for some people.
• The team overall would want to give more incentive to people to review content they play... it's not going to work if you put more hurdles to rate the content.

The concept of a review system is to write things. If your own personal crusade is to ask from all creators to output flawless scenes checking your own personal subjective "markers" of what makes a scene great, then you can simply drop by the discussion tab of said resource and give a great detailed feedback of what you expect.

This was for the review/rating aspect.


Now, for the subjective aspect of what you expect for a scene, I think you have to potentially learn a bit about VAM scene creation before putting the bar so high. Most of your arguments shows that you don't consider either the work load or the technical aspects of what can be done with a VAM scene... and atani tried to explain that.

Also, I think you might either lack a bit of perspective... for instance:


What do you think a feature for disabling the voices and giving the player the ability to control the audio of a scene is besides "more work"? Simply handling a set of interaction between a UI and a set of characters can range from half an hour to several hours of work depending on the complexity.

When you click a single button and feel that this interaction is easy... this has required implementations and time on the creator's end.


Or this:


Either you are not trying (on purpose or not) to realize how this is purely and simply impossible. OR the only thing you do is play the scenes back without trying to edit them so you lack some knowledge about the overall technical constraint this implies.

To make a long story short: it will never ever (ever ever) be possible to swap a character at will, for another completely random one which has widly different proportions, or sex, or height and so on... without potentially breaking the scene.

The animation system being absolute to the "original animation setup" (character sizes/proportions/genders), it will always require to have somewhat the same (approximately) characters to ensure it would work.


Overall your list of things feels like you're asking for scenes (which are mostly community driven by passionnate and non-professional people) to be like AAA-grade experiences on a very versatile and heterogenous sandbox game which implies a lot of complexities and cannot, by nature, answer to all your needs and fantasies as you'd expect without a bug.

It is pretty obvious to anyone, that you can't go on a non-futa scene and put futa-people in there without it breaking and vice-versa.

So, I support you're idea to give detailed feedback to creators. You can do that through the discussion tab. But I'd recommend to probably adjust your perception of what a scene should be and how it should behave. As anyone would be very mad at someone rating very badly one of their scene for a reason that everyone here knows is pretty much unsolvable.

@hazmhox

Just wanted to clarify something.

I don't want to remove the text. It just shouldn't be a need for a good rating. I think more downloader would rate the items without the need for a text. English is not my native language and there are a lot languages with more complications than mine. I'm not a fan of rating at all because it can sometimes cause rivalry for no reason. But it's also nice to see that other like it.

Second it's also a privacy reason that I don't write to everything.

I even started to answer here but there was so many things that I thought someone should answer with better vam knowledge and words.


@gernb

Creators decide to share their free stuff in the hub and building up vam. Even on Patreon you have not every right to change something if everything works in the original. Only for paid commission you made.

You can appeal to the creator but they don't have to change anything.

I'ts nice to have a versatile scene but it shouldn't be a fixed point needed for rating. But you can smake it a point for yourself and write it.
If you change a model it could collide with something. That happens. And sometimes you need to fix the problems you caused by looking into the plugins and assets.

Some complicated scene can be less versatile than a simple scene. But there are usually minor fixes to make.

There are already many things creators need to write in their releases. It's not possible to mention every situation in the descritption. But you can still find a lot answers in the discussions.

 

[hazmhox]

I don't want to remove the text. It just shouldn't be a need for a good rating. I think more downloader would rate the items without the need for a text. English is not my native language and there are a lot languages with more complications than mine. I'm not a fan of rating at all because it can sometimes cause rivalry for no reason. But it's also nice to see that other like it.

Second it's also a privacy reason that I don't write to everything.

You are not the only one who said that : )

I think removing text wouldn't change squat to the ratio. We're in an "instant gratification" era, and asking for people to take a sec to write "This is very cool" is already too much.

To answer to your other arguments:

• if you can engage in a conversation like this, then text on a rating is not a problem.
• I don't know where you get this rivalry thing (language thing?), and even if it's the case, I wouldn't care much about insecurities creators have in mind for silly reasons. If you want to drop a huge monologue for something you really enjoy and a "cool" for something else, this is your choice.
• Privacy, I don't know if it's a language thing either. But I really don't see what is going to save your privacy from writing "cool" or not on a public rating with your nickname

Anyway, it's not the subject of that thread so let's focus back on the original post.

 

[Okachu]

You are not the only one who said that : )

I think removing text wouldn't change squat to the ratio. We're in an "instant gratification" era, and asking for people to take a sec to write "This is very cool" is already too much.

To answer to your other arguments:

• if you can engage in a conversation like this, then text on a rating is not a problem.
• I don't know where you get this rivalry thing (language thing?), and even if it's the case, I wouldn't care much about insecurities creators have in mind for silly reasons. If you want to drop a huge monologue for something you really enjoy and a "cool" for something else, this is your choice.
• Privacy, I don't know if it's a language thing either. But I really don't see what is going to save your privacy from writing "cool" or not on a public rating with your nickname

Anyway, it's not the subject of that thread so let's focus back on the original post.

Alright, sry OT and I wrote you a pn. With rivalry I dont meaned vam or this forum. Everything's fine.

 

[SlimerJSpud]

Creator side:

• Forcing a preset to load during the scene is annoying for the user as it clears any changes
• Setup and UI to consider the user replacing the person appearance but still be able to add back (cum) clothing or rescale for example

Scenes that load multiple appearance presets from timeline are seriously annoying. I usually play these once, then delete. Some of the better scenes I've downloaded have "Prep look" or "Reload cum clothing" buttons. That's a huge plus. A scale test menu is great, but that is more work for the creator. I fully accept that some things I might change will break the scene. Sometimes there's a simple workaround, like adding a pose preset. That's on me to adapt a scene to what I want to see. I have no problem writing something amusing when I want to leave a review. I just wish we could use emojis in reviews.

 

[atani]

Scenes that load multiple appearance presets from timeline are seriously annoying. I usually play these once, then delete. Some of the better scenes I've downloaded have "Prep look" or "Reload cum clothing" buttons. That's a huge plus. A scale test menu is great, but that is more work for the creator. I fully accept that some things I might change will break the scene. Sometimes there's a simple workaround, like adding a pose preset. That's on me to adapt a scene to what I want to see. I have no problem writing something amusing when I want to leave a review. I just wish we could use emojis in reviews.

You can use emojis:
windows key + period loads the emoji screen

 

[gernb]

Maybe I shouldn't have suggested this as ratings.

Rather, it's more like an Info box, a seal of approval, a Technical Requirements Checklist (TRC), or App Store Guidelines. I'm not trying to discourage creators. I'm trying to encourage them to make their creations even better, get more users, make more money, get higher ratings, but not force them to follow them if they don't want to.

Let's say instead of ratings, much of this was somehow magically automated (yes I know, that's not possible, it's a thought experiment, go with for a moment)

Characters: A creator (1) reads the guidelines for character creation (2) possibly uses a template (3) uploads their character to the hub. The hub then loads the character and applies some VaM provided sample animations. If the character animates well with these standard test animations it gets a checkbox on the hub "fully vam compatible character" or VaM seal of approva etcl. If it doesn't animate well, the mouth or eyes get all distorted, etc then it doesn't get the checkbox. The creator isn't forced to do extra work. They are welcome to upload a character that doesn't pass. But, the checkbox should arguably be a helpful feature to get more downloads, more usage, more money, and a subtle hint to go read the guidelines when they wonder why they didn't get a checkbox.

Plugins: A creator reads the guidelines for a plugin. It says helpful things like "must not break characters", "must exit cleanly", "if targeted at one sex must ignore the opposite sex", etc... The creator then uploads the plugin. If it's a character plugin the hub applies it to both a female and male character. If it doesn't break them it gets a checkbox "fully vam compatible plugin". If it breaks the characters, it doesn't get the checkbox. If it's a post processing plugin the hub loads it in both VR and Desktop mode. If it doesn't break them it gets the checkbox. etc...

Animations: A creator reads the guidelines. It says how to create animations that work across vam compatible characters. The creator uploads an animation. The hub applies it to the default male and female characters. If they don't spaz out it gets a checkbox "Fully VaM compatible animation".

Automating those things would be difficult. Adding checkboxes for users and/or mods to check would be much less difficult.

I can't even imagine how you could automate scene checks but I can imagine some items on a TRC for it to get a "fully VaM compatible" mark

(1) changing characters doesn't break the scene for some definition of break. Obviously you can't change a giant into an ant or visa versa but could should be able to expect characters that meet these vam guidelines to be swapple.

(2) can turn off post processing - to me this doesn't mean adding a UX. It could be as simple as requiring any Post Processing plugin to be on an object called "Post Processing ..." so that the user doesn't have go hunt for it.

(3) can turn off music and it stays off - this again is the same as above, it doesn't have to be a UI feature. But, I've loaded scenes where you go try to turn off the music and somehow the scene resets it every minute or so. That would not be a "VaM certified" scene

(4) characters don't get replaced - once in a while I run into scenes where I swap a character, but every animation button in the scene resets the character back to the scene's start character. And no, it's not loading a new scene. This is relatively rare but still, it's worth putting in guidelines and marking the scene as "not fully VaM compatible" because helps creators learn how to do it the way that doesn't have this issue (the way that works in 19 of 20 scenes)

Right now, my only way to do this is to go review any scene/character/animation/plugin as 1 star and leave a comment, "gave you 1 star because your scene broke when I loaded this character", "gave you 1 star because your plugin breaks VaM so that have I to reboot after any scene that uses it". I say that's my only option because anything else will be ignored. That seems like it would be discouraging to creators. "I put in all this work can you rated me 1 start, FU!" Whereas IMO, a subtle checkbox "full VaM compatible" would be encouraging. My content didn't get it, what do I have to do? Oh, go read this guideline. There's no or almost no judgement, just a checklist you pass or don't. not passing doesn't lower your rating nor does it prevent you from posting but if it showed up on the hub I feel like it would be subtle guide to encourage more compatible content.

 

[hazmhox]

Maybe I shouldn't have suggested this as ratings.

[...]

You're talking about TRCs (which probably 70% of people don't even understant the meaning if they read that thread) in a somewhat "modding community", where half the creators don't even take the time to make an actual appealing thumb for their releases.

The hub will probably never enforce a "quality policy". Creators can do whatever they want, however they want... if people want to make shitty/low polish/low effort content, they have the right to do so. You, on your end, also have the right to give feedback, rate low or high something (as long as it is justified and objective) or eventually ignore a creator who makes very buggy content.

The community itself will curate good content naturally. VAM and it's community cannot handle a TRC/Quality Control system like on consoles, it would bring far more problems than it will solve.

 

[VAMFantasy]

Much of the community puts thumbs up without actually downloading the content. A good community-curated environment is something that doesn't always happen. It is usually just multiple things coming together (specific community on a specific platform that allows them to do so). I'm not sure VAM community can handle the task. I myself avoid giving bad ratings, I don't want any enemies.

 

[gernb]

Again, I'm not trying to enforce anything. I'm trying to encourage. There's a huge different. Enforce = "you must do this". Encourage is "it would be better if you'd do this, better for users, better for VaM, and better for you (more users, more money, higher ratings)"

People can upload shitty content or great content. They can upload content the supports VaM strengths over other media (swappable characters, etc...) or they can upload ones that you can't swap anything. IMO, downvoting is discouraging but if that's my only option then fine, I'll go lower people ratings (since few get ratings it's currently easy to affect them). That will discourage creators and they'll be less content because of their discouragement but apparently that's what you want.

It is pretty obvious to anyone, that you can't go on a non-futa scene and put futa-people in there without it breaking and vice-versa.

I think I didn't explain myself here. I'm not expecting a female character swapped with a futa character to work perfectly. What I'm looking for is just basic not messed up facial morphs. It has nothing really to do with male vs female

But as an example, a "compliant" scene.

Original character:

and here's a swap

Now, here's a "non VaM friendly" scene

Original:

Swap

This happens somewhat rarely but it's worth guiding and encouraging creators to be aware of the issue and avoid it. Yes, I'm not expecting every character to be swapple. An MLP character for example. But the character above was a "normal character" (average size, average looks) and the creator wasn't intentionally trying to make it not work. They just had no way of knowing except for users to complain.

note: there are far worse scenes than this it was just the first one I found. Guidelines would help but people won't find guidelines, you have to know they exist and where to find them and know that you aren't following them. Where as a "fully VaM compatible" seal of approval would. Creators would wonder why they aren't getting one or what it is which would lead to seeking out the info. They could then choose to follow them or ignore them. Again, the benefits to following them are your scene/character/animation works for more users. More users = more money to your patreon.

 

[Okachu]

Thx for the nightmares

The second one is probably forcing expression morph triggers.

 

[atani]

note: there are far worse scenes than this it was just the first one I found. Guidelines would help but people won't find guidelines, you have to know they exist and where to find them and know that you aren't following them. Where as a "fully VaM compatible" seal of approval would. Creators would wonder why they aren't getting one or what it is which would lead to seeking out the info. They could then choose to follow them or ignore them. Again, the benefits to following them are your scene/character/animation works for more users. More users = more money to your patreon.

The problem is not about having some sort of Seal of Approval, it's on who would do the checking, who would pick the parameters, and so on.
As I mentioned, the moderators couldn't possibly be able to spend time opening each look, checking for X and Y. This is usually left for the users to review and rate in their own terms, and in that sense, something with a lot of good reviews kind of has a community seal of approval.

If you want to encourage good content, then try first clicking in reactions and doing reviews on content. Creators appreciate these really tiny things that only take a moment of your time, considering they spend countless hours making and sharing content. I wouldn't give a shit about a "seal of approval", but a helpful review on my content to help me make it better is something I would deeply value.

 

[hazmhox]

This happens somewhat rarely but it's worth guiding and encouraging creators to be aware of the issue and avoid it. Yes, I'm not expecting every character to be swapple. An MLP character for example. But the character above was a "normal character" (average size, average looks) and the creator wasn't intentionally trying to make it not work. They just had no way of knowing except for users to complain.

note: there are far worse scenes than this it was just the first one I found. Guidelines would help but people won't find guidelines, you have to know they exist and where to find them and know that you aren't following them. Where as a "fully VaM compatible" seal of approval would. Creators would wonder why they aren't getting one or what it is which would lead to seeking out the info. They could then choose to follow them or ignore them. Again, the benefits to following them are your scene/character/animation works for more users. More users = more money to your patreon.

Let's say you're just encouraging more than "trying to enforce"... your example shows pretty much how little you probably know about VAM creation.

First, your example compares a neutral face (so probably zero pose morphs), to an "heavy expression based" face. (Oranges vs apples)
Since you seem to be a bit stubborn on the matter, let me give you just a glimse of what expressions implies :

• If you're using expressions on your character, you will need to find the ones that work with your character
• If you're giving morphs values, you will need to find the min/max values allowed for your proportions
• If you want to use some of them, you might need to :
  • Tweak the teeth size
  • Tweak the teeth position
  • Tweak the tongue size
  • Tweak the tongue depth
  • Tweak colliders

The nature of blendshapes ( or morph as they are called in VAM ), makes it impossible to have an "emotion morphs library" to work with any character out of the box.

So there are two possible approaches to that: either your tend to not use a lot of expressions, or you just do what you have in mind and use them extensively for YOUR specific character.
In the second situation, this means that, 95% of the time, swapping to a character that has a drastically different "bone structure" will pretty much fuck up the expression morphs.

In that situation, the tweak/work is not on the creator side... it's on your side. You want to modify the original scene? Go ahead, the end result is up to YOUR motivation to make it work, not the original creator. Just loading an appearance can fuck up a ton of settings enforced by the creator.

To give you another example, it's like if you asked that your random FBX grabbed on Sketchfab to replace 2B in Nier Automata (the game) and that Platinum Game should have thought of that and any person modding it should have any model work out of the box without you having to import a proper model, ensure the rig is correct, ensure the IK are setup... and so on.

This is litterally the same exact situation here. You're in a modding situation, just with direct tools to do it instead of having to inject things into the game. If you're modding a scene, it is not the creator's fault nor work/quality standards/approach that is at fault if something breaks, it is your job to ensure your modifications fits the scene.

And it is the reason why some people find VAM complex. Anything you wanna edit is up to you to fix, there is no magic solution, there is no automatic possibilities to fit all the insane amount of fantasies/shapes/looks/clothes/animations... from one user to another. Either you go random "super static game" with arbitrary content who does not give you any room to create your own fantasy, or you go completely open and "sandboxy" like VAM and it requires you to put the work into it to make it work.

And this is where the paradox lies in this discussion. You say you don't ask creators for more work, yet your "requests" for standards are in the realm of the most complicated aspects of VAM which are pretty much unsolvable.
Which can mean two things :

• As I said earlier, you have no idea the amount of work it requires, or...
• You tried yourself, realized how complex it was, and now asking for creators to do the job for you

To conclude, because I think this discussion is already going round in circles... since you seem to have an exact clear picture of what a scene should be and how "accessible" it is to make it compatible to the potential "guidelines" you're expecting. I think maybe it is time for you to bring out the big guns, and show to the community how it should be done

 

[hazmhox]

Final poke (tease): For someone apparently so demanding, being subbed since pretty much the hub exists, with not even 10 reactions, pretty much zero forum interactions (so feedback on the content or community interaction), and zero reviews... the paradox counter is at a all time high and near explosion

 

[murn]

Wannabe creator here. Just to make sure I'm not going to be another echo in the room I'll just say this. Not only that it's pretty unreasonable, you're also basically expressing developing scenes/models from a fantasy perspective. So all I can say in being honest is. Dude, no.