Upgraded Bean

The Bean Avatar is getting an Upgrade!

The upgraded bean avatar sets the stage for amazing new features, smoother gameplay, and more ways to show off your style in Rec Room, including all the new drops from avatar studio creations.

September 9, 2024

We have big dreams for the future of expression in Rec Room - across bean and full body avatars. So that means continuing to invest in the bean body with a well-deserved upgrade.The introduction of the full body avatar brought about incredible features and optimizations, which we’re now extending to the bean avatar. This upgrade ensures that both avatar forms can enjoy new features, be compatible with Avatar Studio, and save memory for an improved game experience.We’ve also heard the feedback from the community about more information and longer phase-in times, so we'll be giving you the option to temporarily stick with the "classic bean" as we roll out the upgraded bean.Read on to find out more, including our roll-out plan.

TL;DR New Features for the Upgraded Bean:Your hands and whatever is equipped to them stays visible when holding items, an option to see your torso in first-person, and new customization options like eyebrows and noses. The upgraded bean shares an animation system with the full body avatar, paving the way for future features like body tracking and dynamic clothing!Great for Avatar Studio:The upgraded bean unlocks the ability to design items for both avatar types in Avatar Studio, streamlining the creative process for creators and unlocking cool new items for you, no matter your avatar type.Technical Optimizations:We implemented memory-saving features from full body avatars, like skin culling masks and just-in-time level of detail, improving performance and stability across all devices, which means lower crash rates for everyone.Roll Out Plan:We’re rolling the upgraded bean out over the course of the next few weeks, starting with select players to gather community feedback and ensure smooth performance. This approach will help us address any remaining issues, and whilst we’re fixing bugs and adding polish, we are going to keep the “classic bean” around for a limited time.

What new features will the upgraded bean have?

See your hands when holding somethingUpgrading the bean to have many of the same systems as the full body avatar means you can show your hands when grabbing items in the game. Now you can see all your awesome bracelets, gloves, and wristwear even while grabbing stuff!

It's optional though!

As with most features we’re introducing to the upgraded bean, this will be optional if you prefer to keep your hands invisible. For our OG VR players, there is an ergonomic difference between showing your hands or not - so if you feel like the upgraded bean doesn’t quite feel the same when holding a pistol or a dodgeball, try turning off “show hands when grabbing” in the experience tab of Game Settings.

Torso can be visible in first personWe also added a new feature to keep your torso items visible when you look down. Post upgrade, you’ll be able to look down and check out outfit items like the pool floatie you've equipped on your waist. Like with the above hand visibility feature, this will be an optional feature you can turn off.

Eyebrows and nose as an optionSince the upgraded bean shares the same face system as the full body avatar, you can enable eyebrows and noses on your bean avatar. And again, for those at the back, these will be entirely optional (just like on FBAs).

A new animation systemThe most significant new feature is that the upgraded bean will share the same animation system as the full body avatar. We really like the way the upgraded bean moves and the expressiveness we've been able to bring to both avatar types. And in the future, using this system unlocks the potential for other new features that improve expression, like better gestures, dances, and emotes.

The features don’t end here! Upgraded beans will unlock development for even more exciting features like dresses that flow with your movement, more advanced sliders to customize your avatar’s form, and finger/body tracking to BOTH the bean and full body avatars. This means that the future of our roadmap won’t be divided based on body type, and so any cool new features will work on both when they launch.

Why This Upgrade Matters for Avatar StudioWe released Avatar Studio, our new custom avatar item creation tool, to a small group of creators last month and have plans to widen access to more creators this year. We want creators designing items for both avatar forms, so we needed the creation experience to feel similar across both body types. The upgraded bean lets you design outfits that work for both avatar types using the same skeleton. Instead of starting from scratch for each avatar type, you can simply adjust the outfit geometry for the other form.

Bringing full body Technical Optimizations to the upgraded beanIn our FBA Memory Optimizations blog, we talked about the new features that reduced memory usage of full body avatars by 60-70%. These optimizations included:

Skin Culling Masks: Save memory by only rendering visible skin, eliminating unnecessary vertices.

MeshData and Vertex Compression: Enhance performance by compressing and optimizing data.

Just-in-Time Level of Detail: Adjust avatar detail based on proximity, reducing memory usage and improving stability.

Now we’re bringing many of those same features to the upgraded bean to make it even more memory efficient, so creators can add more things to their rooms and have more players in them without extra crashing risk.

Upgraded Bean Roll Out PlanAs we’ve been developing the upgraded bean, we’ve been doing a series of internal and external playtests, specifically focusing on VR players who have logged A LOT of miles with their bean avatars. So far, we’re getting a strong signal that there’s a lot to love about the upgraded bean (once we fix some of the remaining bugs). When those bugs are smoothed out and we are confident that the upgraded bean is feeling great, we’ll roll it out.During the first two weeks of rollout, around 20% of players will have access to the upgraded bean. We’ll be monitoring performance and listening to feedback from the community. If things are going well, we’ll continue upgrading more and more players over the following two weeks. After we monitor these two weeks, all remaining players will get access to the upgraded bean. That’s a six-ish week timeline - if all is plain sailing. We’ll be updating you as we go on how the upgraded bean is doing so you know if we’re still on course or not.We’ve found that changes to fundamental game systems like this are a lot easier when the community has time to adapt. That’s why we’re offering a limited-time option to stick with the "classic bean," so you can get a feel for the upgraded bean and we can compare how everyone’s enjoying it. During this time, new avatar items will require the upgraded bean, but all current avatar items that work with the classic bean will continue to work with your outfits.Once the upgrade is fully rolled out, we’ll continue working through the end of the year to sunset the aging systems, improve memory, and bring even more upgrades to the avatar ecosystem!Of course, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the upgraded bean and any feedback you may have as we roll it out. Join the conversation in our #upgraded-bean-avatars channel or on our creator forum thread!