This is the first of the five updates making up the v4.0 Variety and Polish Overhaul. The focus of this first beta will be on the Variety of Character Faces - the most important part of making each character you come across in the game feel unique.

- New system that allows the players to import their own PNG or JPG image files into the game at runtime. In the original overhaul plans, I mentioned this wasn't guaranteed to be possible, so I'm happy to announce that my experiments with it have finally come to fruition, opening up so many possibilities now and in the future. 

- New Overlays feature (that relies on the runtime import system above) to import custom tattoos, pimples, etc

- New Real Face Import feature (also relying on the runtime import system above) to make LifePlay characters based on real photos of yourself, someone you know, celebrities or your favorite video game characters. The final character you come up with can of course then be saved as a preset and shared with the community if you want.

- Some celeb presets as examples for this new feature

- Beginner-friendly tutorial document for this new Real Face Import feature, because it requires an extra manual preparation step from the base photo before the results can be imported into the game. 

- New morphs for proper ethnic differences: Black and Asian characters won't just look like the default Caucasian character painted on anymore

- New morphs for proper age differences: teens and senior citizens will now both look convincing

- New morphs for orcs, elves and vampires, making them more distinguishable from humans

- New morphs for feminine-looking men

- New morphs for subtle facial asymmetries

- New morphs for complete face presets (like the current Anya, Cynthia, Shu, etc) that can be blended together to easily make a unique face

- Fix that long-standing bug where the vagina gets deformed by seemingly unrelated morphs

- Remove many 'junk' morphs that are barely noticeable but take up resources and confuse users

- Complete UI overhaul of the Morphs tab of the Character Customization menu, making it a much more visual, interactive and user-friendly experience. 

Estimated Release Date: Saturday, 3 April