Quote Originally Posted by HollowedDoll View Post
From my understanding the new heads being able to morph into each other via shapekeys is a side effect of remaking the heads using the same base model and UV map rather than something that's actually being used in the end product.

I've seen this practice in other recent games as well. As for actual shapekey usage in this game, from what I've read about this it's either 0 or 1, unlike say visemes in Unity, so it's mostly used to have a certain shape applied for reasons such as overlapping gear. It's noticable with hairs especially because a lot of them drastically change shape rather than just get masked out.

I imagine faces are set up in a similar manner, whether they could turn these values into sliders is anyone's guess I suppose, but one would think if that was the case they would've done so already.
Rather than a side effect, that's generally the very reason to use the method- it's why it makes it easier, due to removing the need to recreate the UVs and rigging on each one.

On whether or not they can implement sliders, it's possible for an older engine like theirs not to have the function to interact with shape keys. Looking at what we have now in terms of sliders:

The Height and Tail sliders scale the armature, and the Musculature slider overlays a normal map, which leaves the Bust slider as the only possibility for knowing if it's implemented already- I can see that being either bones again, or shapekeys.