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bouncybrain · 4 months ago

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CharacterHub vs. UnVale pt. 1

These are two emerging "character storage" sites, in which you can create little profiles or pages to store and/or share your characters. The idea is the same, but the UIs and social spaces surrounding them are significantly different, and they include notable differences between them. Both of these sites are free to sign up for, but they are also constantly being worked on. UnVale states it's a beta, but CharacterHub does not.

You should use these instead of ToyHouse, primarily because they're free and you don't have to busk around for a code, but which one do you choose? I haven't seen anyone actually make a post comparing and contrasting these two, so I guess it's up to me!

All information beneath the cut, and I am so sorry about how long this got. I was going to keep it short and then I didn't.

We'll address everything in groups, so I'm going to list the primary topics out here, first, so you can skip sections if you prefer. (Account creation is simple and standard for both, so this will not be discussed.) There's a lot to cover since I want to be thorough. Here is what I will cover in this part:

User Profile: just how you set up your own profile, options there, and the differences between sites.

(Also, what will be showcased publicly on your profile.)

Character Storage: this is about the actual storing of characters, such as the image capabilities and information it can hold.

Custom Character Profiles: this will be about creating profiles, as these are significantly different across the sites.

World Creation: both sites offer "world" options, which differ from characters.

Additional Hosted Content: other types of content you can create/post on the sites beyond a character or a world, and how easy it is to work with these, or how discovery of these types of content is handled.

Social Interaction: what about the community and how they interact on-site? This is something I was more curious about that nobody was talking about.

And here is what I will be covering in the next part:

On-Site Events: I have nearly a month's difference between joining CharacterHub and UnVale, so keep that in mind while I speak about the events I've experienced and seen.

Artist vs. Author Experiences: both of these sites advertise that they are for both those who draw and those who write, but how well do they cater to both?

Site Stability: how well they’re handling the site, traffic, downtimes, etc. and how that effects the end user experience.

Discord Experiences: they both have a dedicated, public Discord server that can be freely joined. Ties in slightly with the social interaction section, but dedicated solely to Discord experiences.

Stances on AI and Picrew/Warforge/avatar maker usage: this is typically addressed all together so I'm doing that, too, just be aware I despise use of AI in creative spaces and that I know it's completely different from avatar makers.

What About Money: what do they offer, how they offer it, and do they facilitate monetary transactions through the site?

Everything Else: I forget stuff, or don’t know where something goes, so I need a place to tack all this stuff on as well. No less important than the rest, it’s just this is a lot of information to organize and write out and keep track of already, so stuff will be thrown in the junk drawer for use later.

If you find you want more elaboration on a subject please feel free to reply, reblog, or send me an ask about it (anon always on). If you use the reply function I'll likely make it into a post to better elaborate. Reblogs will be reblogged directly unless you plainly say you'd rather see it in a separate post instead of attached to this absolute monster.

User Profile

The user profile is where all your goodies are kept. The profiles look completely different between the sites, so they're very unique and won't be mistaken for each other.

CharacterHub's profile contains an avatar and a header. You can write in your pronouns. Your age can only be hidden if you put in that you are over 18 years of age, which also allows you to publicly post "mature" content (they have a policy for that). Minors cannot publicly post mature content. Other socials you can link directly with little icons on the profile are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, TikTok, and deviantArt. You can put a little decoration on your avatar for free, but other options for the profile on offer are available through their subscription service; Username Color and Username Badges fall under this. The profile description/about section has unlimited characters, allows for insertion of images/gifs/links, and can be formatted.

UnVale's profile contains an avatar, a header, and three extra slots for additional images. Your username and display name do not have to match, as you can (currently) change your display name but not your username. You can freely write in your pronouns. There is not an option for selecting your age, and therefore there are no options to hide more mature content from minors, which is reflected in their terms and rules. You can select a country, as well as any languages you speak; there is an extensive list of languages to pick from, and you can clarify your level of familiarity with the language (basic, intermediate, advanced, or native). The other socials you can link directly with little icons on the profile are ToyHouse, Carrd, Inkblot, Instagram, Twitter, Patreon, Pixiv, Linktree, Twitch, Art Fight, YouTube, Tumblr, and one additional free link. The profile description/about section has a 250 character limit, and cannot be formatted.

On UnVale, the email you used to sign up will be fully visible in plaintext if you click on the profile icon at the top right of the site.

Content Displayed on Profiles

CharacterHub's profile displays featured achievements, characters, and folders, as well as latest posts, marketplace listings, and creations (characters, story worlds, social spaces, and folders). You can feature six of each for free, with additional slots unlocked per subscription tier. Your three most recent posts are visible, with a button to "see all." Creations are separated by little tab buttons to swap between the types, and you can rearrange how these are displayed to your tastes.

UnVale's profile displays your characters in pages right there, though they can also be accessed through other tab buttons (home, characters, worlds, favorites, and transfers). Favorites are "likes" and always public. Transfers are kept private, and is therefore only visible when you're looking at your own profile. The date you made your account is also displayed beneath your @ pronouns, and country. Your characters can be rearranged as well, but it's a little more difficult, as the "best" method of doing so is going through to click "send to front" in the reverse of the order you want your characters to be listed in.

Both sites display comments on the profile. These are fairly standard, though UnVale comments have a 500 character limit and CharacterHub comments have no character limit.

Character Storage

Both sites have currently unlimited character creation. You can have thousands of characters on these sites if you so desire, as nobody has yet reached the limit as far as I know. Both sites offer a default site watermark that can optionally be applied to images when uploaded, and can be applied or removed at any time. Both also allow for character transfers between users, or a form of crediting an off-site source when necessary.

CharacterHub has a limited image storage capacity (5GB), which you can pay a subscription to upgrade. Images are generally uploaded at the proper resolution, so images will appear at the size originally uploaded as. This means minimal crunching of your images. Images that count towards the storage limit are all the types that appear on the character profile, and not any of the other locations an image may be uploaded or used (posts, events, fanart, and decorations). It is very easy to create a basic character (name, age, pronouns, species, blurb, the like) and has plenty of options for storing written information without storage limitations. All lore and information can be stored on the character profile in collapsible sections, which are expanded by default and simple to scroll through. Characters can be browsed through a tagging system, through the feed on the homepage, or when they are promoted using a “compliment bomb” (which is something to get into later). Accessibility, from what I can tell, is really a case-by-case basis, as some profiles are literally unreadable even if there’s anything written in them, and they may contain bright colors, flashing gifs, or odd combinations of factors that could cause complications visually. Some of these will have warnings while others will not.

DO NOT RESIZE YOUR DESKTOP WINDOW WHILE FILLING OUT A CHARACTER PROFILE. IT WILL ERASE EVERYTHING YOU DID SINCE THE LAST SAVE. AUTOSAVE MAY NOT WORK OR RANDOMLY TURN ITSELF OFF DO NOT TRUST IT. (Applicable across the site but most devastating when making characters.)

UnVale has no image storage limit, but they are currently highly compressed and you lose a lot of detail, particularly if it’s a very high-res image to begin with. (As far as I know, this is an issue that’s been brought up before on the Discord and they’ve been trying to figure it out.) It is incredibly easy to create a very basic character. There is a very limited character bio, as this also has a character limit (2,000 characters). This does not mean it’s more difficult to store character information, though, as there is a traits section to hold other information, and a rather robust writing system to hold the rest (which will be discussed further in another segment). Characters can be browsed through tags, trending (across various timeframes), a very good randomized feature, or through being featured on the homepage (changes per major update, via staff response).

DO NOT LEAVE THE PAGE OPEN FOR TOO LONG OR IT WILL REFRESH AND YOU WILL LOSE EVERYTHING. UNVALE DOES NOT HAVE A DRAFT FEATURE (yet?) SO YOU HAVE TO MAKE SURE YOU POST BEFORE YOU GO.

As of the current moment, CharacterHub’s discoverability leaves a bit to be desired. While they are actively working on improving this via the "recommended" section on the homepage, other than looking through the tags, this or continually posting are going to be the only ways anyone will see your characters; this means you will see an immediate dropoff when your character has been up for "too long." (Ignoring compliment bombs right now.) UnVale, on the other hand, has much better discoverability, which I'm going to have to attribute to the randomized browsing feature (and another feature I will address in the events segment). Genuinely, I have no idea why UnVale's discoverability is just so much better. If you are looking to be seen, I cannot, at this time, recommend CharacterHub.

Going purely by the proof of “likes” alone (referred to as “favorites” on UnVale and “reactions” on CharacterHub, which have different preset compliments with accompanying emojis) UnVale is better. I say this with confidence as I have uploaded many of the same characters on UnVale as I have on CharacterHub and can (and have been) directly compare these numbers. This is, again, with about a solid month between account creations.

Custom Character Profiles

Both sites offer a variety of things to add to a profile to help flesh out a character. These are different enough not to have a list of similarities, so this section will be a bit longer than previous so I can be sure to cover what I want to get through.

CharacterHub allows for full color customization to most features of a character profile. I’m talking different sections, the background, the optional borders, the text, all of that. You have total free reign over the colors you can use. There’s different fonts that can be used on every instance of text on the profile. You can put additional decoration around the picture like you can your own. These are all the free options for visual profile customization. Some options are, again, locked behind subscription tiers. Beyond that, there are many different options of sections you can add to the character page to organize all the sorts of information you might have for your OC. (I'm not writing all of them out, they're also in this post I wrote when I joined, as well as screenshots and more detail about the initial experience.) This is an insane amount of detail you can get into entirely for free, and there's more if you're subscribed. Even if you aren't subscribed, there's a free-reign blank section you can title after whatever else you need it to be.

CharacterHub character pages can be completely illegible because of this amount of freeform customization. If you are concerned about making your character profile legible, I made a post about that right here that you can see, even without an account (also an example of the formatting available).

UnVale profiles initially come across as less detailed as CharacterHub's, as they do not allow for full, total color customization of each character's page. This does, however, mean every single page is legible. There are a good number of default color themes available to be used to customize a page. Despite being initially more limited in scope than CharacterHub characterization, the legibility is much better across the board, which I honestly prefer much more than everyone being able to pick colors that mean I literally can't read anything. Being able to directly store writing on a character page in a tab that doesn't distract from the images, or vice-versa, is also much preferred, as despite being more "hidden" it is also more organized, as having many bits of writing for a character does not have to distract from the images, or having many images does not have to distract from the writing.

If the appearance of your profile matters more to you, CharacterHub will work for that, though it obviously has less customization than ToyHouse's coded profiles. If the appearance does not matter nearly as much, UnVale will fill your needs perfectly fine! It is best to keep in mind the visible accessibility when choosing which site to join, as sometimes you can get flashbanged by an eyestrain profile full of flashing gifs without warning on CharacterHub, but not UnVale, as warnings for these things are not guaranteed on CharacterHub and simply not possible on UnVale.

World Creation

Worlds are additional places to store information, and link characters or other writing types directly to each other in one space. These serve similar purposes and work similarly, though the use across sites is slightly different, but I'll speak more on that in another section.

CharacterHub worlds have very similar (expansive) options for information organization as the character profiles do, though they do not have custom colors; they instead use images to stand out from others on the site. Worlds can have an insane amount of detail, as well as being directly connected to characters through the world itself and the character profile. (There's a much more in-depth review of this and the options on this post when I first started on CharacterHub.) These can also be placed in folders, alongside characters, to ensure all worlds and all characters can be separated into even the most nuanced of categories you might want to put them in.

UnVale worlds are similar to character profiles in that they can have images and writing uploaded directly to them, but character profiles can also be added, which also shows up on the character's page. There are no "fill-in-the-blanks" type sections like with CharacterHub, but writing specifically for the world and not characters can be uploaded completely separate from any writing that has been added to characters. All writing here also contains the same amount of formatting. It initially looks very simple, but can contain a lot of information if you so desire. Any images used as the "initial" image (the big one) will be slightly-visible in the background of the world, which is similar to the background of writing and characters. Other images uploaded through the "add content" function in a world will be displayed without changing this initial image, as they would in a character profile but without the rotating function.

Discovery of worlds differs between sites: for UnVale, there is a choice to view worlds alongside characters, writing, and art while browsing. For CharacterHub, world browsing usually only happens while searching or when browsing the homepage (can be filtered for); there is no other way to really browse worlds, because there is no easy way to find random worlds.

Additional Hosted Content

I've mentioned writing, and posting, and folders, but what does any of that mean? Well, it means there's other things you can post that aren't just characters and worlds! Not all of these are shared across sites, though. Some other things you can "create" may be mentioned elsewhere, but these are the ones that make sense here.

CharacterHub allows users to make general posts (with "types" such as Art, Art WIP, Story, Comic, Meme, Social Post, Roleplay, Journal, Personal Update, and Q&A) that are displayed on the profile. These can be seen on the homepage, as well (randomly through “recommended,” or sorted for through “posts” “art” “art WIP” “story” and “comic” options) and you can tie these posts directly to characters (if you want to). These have full formatting like the character profiles, and have several different font types available by default. Any art here cannot be censored unless there are multiple images or it is placed under the "mature" tag which automatically hides it from minors. The posts sections on character profiles will always be fully visible, but they only show three at a time and you have to click through to see the rest; there is no scrolling through them from the character page despite having different sections per "type" available. Folders can hold worlds, characters, and other folders. This is essentially just another worldbuilding/character organizational tool, as it cannot hold posts. They have two images: one that is immediately seen, and one that is essentially a header. You can also host raffles in which CharacterHub will randomly pick the winner(s) for you... and then tell you to contact them via email, but you don't have to. Sometimes they double up if the site bugs or you lag a little too much, your raffle might end and get stuck in purgatory for a while, and there was an incident a little while back, but this isn’t a post about the social tea.

UnVale allows users to add "writing" to characters and worlds. Writing is where you can fully format everything you write, and is accessed directly on the character profile in the "writing" section, or plainly on the world alongside characters and images. Writing can be seen in browsing alongside characters, worlds, art, and the random option (more on this last one later). They have no character limit, and you can add an image to add some flavor, though the image will not be plainly visible on the writing itself, as it is only partially-visible behind the writing itself and on the "thumbnail" behind the title and brief description while browsing. In fact, you can go ahead and browse writing right here without an account! As you'll be able to see, writing is used for a great deal of things on UnVale. I personally haven't uploaded much writing writing, at this point, but it works very well.

Social Interaction

This is purely about on-site social interactions. There will be another section later about their Discord servers. Also, surprise! I'm going to talk about roleplay in here, too!

CharacterHub is perhaps the single most socially-oriented space for artists I've ever seen. This one is going to be multiple paragraphs, because I have so much to say, here. There are two entire dedicated portions of the site for "social spaces" and "roleplay," which has "rolechat" which is as close as CharacterHub comes to private messages.

Social spaces hold chatrooms, which are all created by users and... unfortunately, I cannot, in good faith, tell literally anyone to go ahead and have fun exploring the social spaces at this point in time. Practically all moderation of these spaces is left up to the users, which means a lot of issues are either left ignored or tend to blow up between users, which gets dragged across even more social spaces, which—well, it really just compounds. Because users are completely in charge of social spaces and the chatrooms within, I cannot say this is completely safe, even for underaged users despite the ability to create social spaces behind the "mature" gate that keeps those who chose minor as their age out; private chatrooms (even within public—not private—social spaces) that must be requested to join could be so much worse than what I've seen out in the open and I would never know. This is also where general large, group roleplays happen, as CharacterHub allows users to pick between their characters or themselves to speak in these chatrooms alongside comments. I'm not in any social spaces because it sucks.

Rolechat is where you go to have your private one-on-one roleplays. You can request to roleplay on a character's profile if it's been enabled and if the user has created their rolechat profile. Roleplay starters can be posted on the "explore" page, where other users will be able to request to join a roleplay with you. Rolechat profiles will have your preferred message length, favorite roleplay types, a section to fill in what's most important to you in roleplay, and a section to fill in a sample of your roleplay (both sections have no character limit). Starters contain a starter message, a list of characters the poster is willing to use in the roleplay which link to the appropriate character profile, the poster's username which links to the appropriate profile, the preferences chosen for their rolechat profile, what the poster is looking for, and the sample of their roleplay. I also cannot recommend spending much time here, because I keep stumbling on people saying they'll do 18+ type roleplays despite the rules stating they must be 13+ in keeping with site rules, and this does not have a "mature" block like other things on the site do. Also, not to shade anyone, but I have never seen a single starter that meets my personal standards, so it's best not to get your hopes up if you're the type of roleplayer to have standards.

As always, be wary of the ages of the people you’re talking with; even if they’re engaging with your mature-locked content, there have been multiple people that outright say they aren’t 18+ simply to encroach on this type of content that has been kindly separated from the children for a reason. Do not simply assume all users here with a “+18” on their profile is telling the truth.

Remember that you, the user, MUST be the one to report anything happening inside these more social spaces. CharacterHub does not seem to be working particularly hard on fixing the problem of rampant toxicity, lack of internet safety, dangerous spaces for minors, and complete disregard for other users they've managed to cultivate with these spaces.

ACTIVELY SEEKING OUT AND PARTICIPATING IN CHATROOMS ON A WHIM WILL, IN MOST CASES, END POORLY, EITHER BECAUSE SOMETHING HAPPENED WITH YOU OR BECAUSE ANOTHER CHATROOM MEMBER BROUGHT SOMETHING ELSE INTO THE CHATROOM EVEN IF IT'S COMPLETELY UNRELATED. IF YOU KNOW YOU CANNOT HANDLE EMOTIONAL DISTRESS BEFORE IT SPIRALS OUT OF CONTROL, I CANNOT RECOMMEND EVEN JOINING A SINGLE CHARACTERHUB CHATROOM. THIS IS FOR YOUR MENTAL HEALTH. It doesn't matter who's "right" or "wrong" in any given situation, because it has an unbelievably high likelihood of exploding, anyway, thanks to the other party/parties involved. The best way to enjoy chatrooms is to not join any of them. I am completely serious about this. I once followed a situation across at least six chatrooms, and those were only the ones I knew about at the time.

UnVale does not have a lot of socially-oriented features. This is much more about the creations themselves. Comments are really just about as much social interaction as you're going to get, but users actually comment quite a bit more than I expected. Users are generally kind and chatty. Roleplay will be the primary socially active spaces here, but I haven't gone very deep in here because I'm confused. Roleplay often happens on worlds, through comments (I think?), and there are several very large roleplay communities. The staff has promoted several of these before in their monthly news posts on the blog, which is the only reason I actually stumbled on this, honestly. From what I have seen, staff is active enough that any problems in these limited social spaces have been handled well enough I haven't randomly stumbled onto it like I did the second I tried to explore CharacterHub's chatrooms. Additionally, UnVale does not currently have a way to warn or hide more mature content, and thus it is generally not allowed, as both of these sites are for all ages (by which I mean 13+ you had damn well better be at least 13 out here).

It is important to remember that the more vocal portions of users on these sites tend towards the younger side. This is nothing against you younguns, but sometimes adults prefer speaking among adults, and that is not something that gets simply stumbled upon most of the time. This is also going to skew the perceived social maturity you'll see across the site.

PLEASE GO TO PART 2 OVER HERE: [link]

#characterhub #unvale #unvale.io #site review #review #long post #oc #ocs #i am so sorry for the length but i literally could not say less #BOUNCY. REVIEW.

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