A bug on the PTS for SWTOR’s Update 7.6 has whipped practically the entire community into a frenzy because it casts the upcoming improvements in a bad light, we’ll discuss what’s happening and why you don’t have to be worried anymore.
During the 7.6 livestream, Broadsword took the figurative paper bag off the Alliance Commander’s new head, revealing the upcoming improvements coming to all of SWTOR’s standard character models.
In other words, almost all near-human NPCs in SWTOR, including the player character, are getting upgraded faces. Any NPC that can be made with the character creator is getting an upgrade, including the ones with complexions Broadsword jealously hoards for herself, like wrinkles.
The only major exception is post-Shadow of Revan (SoR) main characters with custom models, such as Lana Beniko, Arn Peralun, and Darth Malgus, though a few of the races won’t be getting the full slate of updates with 7.6 (more on that later).
Technically, “unkissable” semi-humanoid aliens like Master Gnost Dural and General Daeruun also fall into this camp, but Broadsword has been quietly adding new alien heads and remaking old ones, like you can see featured in the new NPC chair decos from the Feast of Prosperity.
Enhancing the visual fidelity of character faces is one of the most popular player requests for quite some time, largely because many of the races look like wax figures next to the high def NPC characters in cutscenes.
Broadsword was rightly confident that players would be over the moon with these enhancements, to the extent that they did their art on an entirely separate fork so it wouldn’t be possible for players to data mine this.
Unfortunately, due to a bug with the shader rearing its ugly head on the public test server (shocking, I know), the reaction from players was not jubilant celebration like we saw across the Galaxy when the Death Star II was destroyed.
Instead, it was sheer pandemonium, the likes of which I don’t think we’ve ever seen in SWTOR’s 13-year history. It feels like most players think their toons are going to undergo a transformation like Madonna debuted at the 2023 Grammys.
The degree of fury expressed by the playerbase was so bad, Jackie Ko, SWTOR’s Senior Community Manager, deemed it necessary to make a brief explanation on the forums on a Saturday.
And now, less than a week since the announcement and the changes were made available on the PTS, we already have a huge damage control post from Eric Musco, SWTOR’s Game Director, which you can read below in full:
Hey folks,
I’m here with a follow up on the modernization changes that you may have seen on the PTS. While this post talks about content currently on the PTS, it does cover a pretty broad topic hence why this is being posted in General Discussion.
As we talked about in last week’s livestream, planet and character modernization would be hitting the PTS in last week’s build. In that build we saw a shader bug which caused unintended texture changes to character models, and we’re looking to have a fix applied in a PTS build that we’ll be pushing out this week (exact date and time TBD). When that build goes out, we’ll make a character modernization feedback thread in the PTS forums and assess further feedback that comes in.
Relevant to character modernization as a whole, we did see several common sentiments (outside of the reports of the contrast issue) from feedback received the last few days I wanted to address.
When is character modernization coming to Cathars, Twi’leks, Nautolans, and Sith Purebloods?
In short, texture changes to those species are coming in future updates. However, players with keen eyes have noted that the above character models have seen some updates as the lighting and shader improvements affect all player character models across the board. More to come!
There were slight changes to the shapes of eyes, noses, and lips noticed on character models.
We didn’t actually make any updates to the character models themselves, so the actual shapes of these facial features should not be different. It is possible the updated textures could wrap slightly differently, but overall the geo (or shape) should be identical. That said, if you are seeing noticeable changes in the shapes of things, they could be bugs and we will want to find them. When the next PTS build goes out, we ask that you include your character sliders when submitting before and after comparisons in the feedback thread so we can make sure that everything is as intended.
Can you add a texture detail (or age) slider?
We’ve definitely seen your comments and feedback regarding having this type of feature available, something that will allow you more agency over character customization. I can tell you that giving you more choice in how you look is always something we are interested in and so this is something we are talking about. No promises as we need to understand the scope of adding that type of functionality.
Also, an important note. The nature of modernization is that it is going to change the way things look. Whether it’s the environment, props, or even characters. Our top line goal as we spelled out on the stream was that we wanted to ensure your character still felt like yours, but we were going to be adding texture and detail where there was very little before. Adding a slider is not going to be the same thing as adding a check box that says “don’t do this”. However, as noted we are going to talk about the possibility of adding more customization to that texture detail in the future and I will let you know once we have any updates on that front.
For next steps, Jackie will let you know when the next PTS build goes up with the aforementioned character shader changes. We will also post a new character modernization feedback thread at that time so be sure to hop on PTS, check it out, and let us know your thoughts.
Thanks all!
-eric
Changes Summary and New Features
Let’s rewind a little bit and make sure everybody is on the same page concerning the upcoming character art changes coming with 7.6. To be clear, this is not the end of character art updates.
Broadsword’s Goals
During the 7.6 livestream, Eric Musco was emphatic about their mission statement for this endeavor.
Our goal was to improve the visual fidelity of characters across the game while keeping YOUR character uniquely yours.
The devs have mains they’ve been playing since launch, too. They do not want it to feel like the identity of your characters is changed by this update. They want it to feel like it’s still the character you made.
Types of Improvements
The devs focused on 4 types of improvements, though they vaguely lumped their improvements to the lighting and shader together, though it seems they also altered their resting expressions to show more emotion.
Please note that the pictures I’ve selected for this section are intended to showcase differences between LIVE, PTS, and 7.6 livestream, so you can get a clearer idea of what 7.6 should look like on LIVE.
In addition, the dithering you’re seeing as squggly vertical shadow stropes is an artifact of taking these pictures. You’ve probably noticed how the shadows often get all fuzzy near the edges now in general, this is just that.
Ocular Specularity
Ocular specularity is just a fancy way of explaining how shiny the eyes look. Characters will have have a soulful glint in their eyes after 7.6. There was no rebellion over this part of their improvements, so I guess you could say that the playerbase went easy on the eyes.
As a side note, I think many of us would lose it if they were to add a little chibi glint to the baby creatures so our characters have something to smile about.
Lighting and Shader
The devs were a bit vague about what exactly they have changed in terms of lighting and the shader. I can’t identify the specific terms, but it’s clear that they have made changes that result in the character’s skin looking more natural and realistic, like there’s depth to it.
Many of the lines also seem smoother and less angular, closer to an actual person’s face, while retaining the cartoony style.
Character Textures
Two thirds (8/12) of the playable races will be getting updated skin and hair textures enhanced with 7.6, with the rest slated for the future. Keep in mind that the devs can do a whole lot more than you think just by messing around with the textures.
| Textures Updated in 7.6 | Textures NOT Updated in 7.6 |
|---|---|
| Human | Sith Pureblood |
| Chiss | Nautolan |
| Cyborg | Cathar |
| Miralukan | Twi’lek |
| Miralan | |
| Togruta | |
| Rattataki | |
| Zabrak |
I assume this is mostly about triaging the best impressions of Madame Tussaud’s work, as the untreated characters don’t need as much attention. Togruta and Twi’lek are the only anomalies, but their swap can be explained by Sa’har Kateen’s significant role in the current story and Ahsoka Tano’s overall popularity.
No “Model” Changes
Musco stated clearly in his afforementioned post that the devs didn’t make any character model changes. If that sounds like gaslighting to you, you’re not alone.
I believe Eric when he says that there weren’t any model changes. However, I also believe that some of the changes brought by other means are so signifcant that they are getting interpreted as character model changes by the broader community.
The vast majority of the playerbase does not have a technical background creating game art or interacts frequently with artists. Irate players are writing walls upon walls of text about this using the terms we know.
You don’t have to take Eric at his word, though. In practical terms, it’s not just that they aren’t making model changes, it’s that they can’t make model changes.
Remember, animations are ultimately just movements of the model, so if you change the model, you change the animation. I don’t think Broadsword is interested in ruining one of the largest active repositories of animated cutscenes in the world.
I doubt it’s an insurmountable hurdle to translate animations between models, but big hurdles require big money, and it’s just not worth it, especially if you could train an AI could solve it effortlessly in the near future.
So what then is the bug?
The Bug
Jackie referred to it as a bug with the shader and Eric expounded with how the shader is interacting with the texture. I made one of my characters to look like the “canon” Jedi Knight shown in their trailers, so we can compare the character shown in the livestream in the character creator on both LIVE and PTS so you can see the bug.
Clearly, it’s still a work in progress. Thanks to insight from Sultana (@sultanavarena) on Bluesky, we can appreciate that a misconfigured or buggy Normal Map is the likely culprit behind the full-blown riots we’re seeing on SWTOR’s subreddit and forums.
The Normal Map is a more detailed version of a Bump Map, a term you may be more familiar with. They’re both topographical maps for a given texture that tells the shader how light in the game should interact with it despite those details not being present on the (in-game) model itself.
The Normal Map can be configured by adjusting the weight value, which defines the intensity of the effect effect. Sultana recommends a Normal Weight between 0.75 and 0.5 and I absolutely agree with her based on the pictures she took.
If you’re following so far, yeah, it’s WILD. Normal Maps let you put a ton of expensive, high-poly details on low-poly models. If you’re in the majority who is just smiling and nodding (off) at the gibberish technobabble I’m spouting, let’s look at an example on some literal skin (texture).
Skin is skin, no matter how much it’s wrinkling in or bumping out, and assuming there’s no inflammation, etc., of course.
The only visual difference between the skin down in the trenches of a wrinkle and the skin on the rest of the face is that it’s down in the trench. It’s just light that’s making it look darker. Similarly, the bumps on your face are only distinguishable because they cast shadows.
If you make a map of someone’s face that shows the differences in elevation (a topographical map), you can give that information to the shader and it will make light react accordingly.
Since the skin is the same, we can really only distinguish the smaller details on a person’s face by the shadows and silhouettes they produce from the light around them, so it ends up looking like the details are actually present.
DO NOT expect a change quite so profound when they get this shader business sorted out, but Sa’har Kateen offers another clear, direct comparison between what is likely the same model in the “Disorder” Trailer imported into the game itself.
Aside from more dramatic, expensive, pre-rendered ray traced lighting, much of our collective wincing at the in-game depiction on the right can be explained by the same issue Broadsword is having with Normal Maps.
Hopefully, after reading this you feel less worried and more excited about these improvements. It’s easy to focus on the bad parts and forget all of the magnificent enhancements coming to SWTOR in less than a month, and the devs plan to give us a more accurate depiction in a few days via another update to the PTS.
Take solace in the fact that the devs have heard your concerns very loud and clear. This will get fixed. They want it. You want it. It’s gonna be great.
