When character.ai handles user/character avatars, it usually uses a mix of both low-res (80px) and high-res (400px) depending on the avatar container's size on screen. Although this may seem like a good approach (and it indeed is, most of the time), it can cause some problems (such as blurry avatars) in a handful of scenarios.
Who does this affect?
This affects anybody who has some sort of display scaling applied on the device they're using character.ai on, such as:
- Monitors/laptop screens with display scaling on.
- Modern smartphones/tablets with a high-res (720p+) screen using the character.ai website, not app.
- People who zoom in their browser.
- Any Apple product using a Retina display.
- Even people who aren't using display scaling, who are either fed up on low-res avatars being used in the wrong places or can notice the lack of detail in certain avatars.
Display scaling is when you render elements on a display at a larger size than usual to improve text sharpness and image/video detail and to make elements look less pixelated at the cost of screen estate, which is usually done on screens with high-PPI counts. (the higher the pixels per inch count, the smaller and harder to see an individual pixel is, which makes display scaling more effective)
However, websites displaying images also need higher-res versions to accommodate for this since the image container is essentially just at a bigger size, but since character.ai doesn't detect this, this starts to create a problem with blurry and low-detailed avatars since it's basically rendering 80px images onto let's say, a 160px canvas.
But that's why this userscript exists.
As you might have guessed by now, this userscript forces character.ai to always use a 400px avatar regardless of the container's size, remedying all those problems & device scenarios mentioned and making character.ai more pleasant on the eyes and bettering your immersion! If you have noticed blurry avatars or relate to anything above, you should definitely give this userscript a try! (and trust me, it makes a bigger difference than you think, especially on a mobile device or retina Mac)
note: you need to click on the previews below to see the effect