Most of us are using 2.8 now.
#avatar-optimization
tawdry venture
rain ivy
I fixed it dont worry.
Right now I have no reason to update. Im the type of user that has the same avatar for years. only recently coming back in and I am not happy with the cats automatic atlas.
snow geode
I dont use 2.8 because of limit selection to visible not having the xray thing
thats literally it
heady smelt
?
snow geode
@heady smelt
heady smelt
i don't see the issue ?
calm spade
Press Z ?
Only complaint I see about 2.8 I'd the whole weight paint workflow that I agree is annoying, but that's all
snow geode
Id rather see the color of the mesh im working with
tawdry venture
ยฏ_(ใ)_/ยฏ
snow geode
actually
it is in 2.8
I have been lying to myself this entire time
its called xray now
topaz lake
will it be the end of the world if I have 3 skinned mesh renders? I can't get them to combine unfortunately ;(
the avatar only has a little under 5000 polys, if thats relevant
heady smelt
your avatar will automatically be set into the poor range in performance system fyi
topaz lake
oh ffs 2 skinned meshes is the upper limit for medium performance according to the MDPR page
guess I'll have to figure out how to merge them
actually nvm im not sure im reading this right
hoary edge
Oh depends
2 is medium limit for quest
4 or 8 or so is limit on pc
for med anyways
topaz lake
where does it say that?
im looking at the performance ranking system page and I don't see a separate table for quest ranking...
all it says is that the blocking is set to medium by default
which means that my avatar would show
wait nvm found it, sorry
hoary edge
I dont know where it says, I just know from experience
daring summit
@topaz lake It's in the link that svel sent. Scroll down to near the bottom. Says "Quest Limits"
Sorry, I didn't see that you found it lol
topaz lake
yeah I found it
jesus the quest is super restrictive on material slots like wtf
they make so little performance difference
daring summit
Lots of materials are hard on the CPU and quest has a weak one
topaz lake
fair enough :(
it wouldnt be a problem except the material combiner plugin doesn't support atlasing normal maps in blender 2.8, and I can't get it to work in 2.79
aCTUALLY
i could probably just duplicate the materials and swap out the albedo file for the normal map file
and then atlas each set
maybe?
topaz lake
okay that doesn't work but you can use blender's "mix" node, but results may vary actually wait my first idea might work
cunning ermine
Ay, fellow blender user. Nice.
@topaz lake The normal map would just work to make sure the the details of the model are kept on a separate layer to decrease poly count while making it seem more hi-res.
Ah, considering your 'i have no idea what I'm doing' message I wasn't sure.
amber hemlock
If I have Streaming Mip-maps on (well, it's forced on), but i have not generated mipmaps for a texture, what happens?
patent mauve
@bronze pebble I guess it goes white, because blender cant find the texture anymore, after you atlased, add the atlas texture.
broken laurel
neat loom
When I try to atlas my model, I get this error in Blender. Anyone know what the problem is?
broken laurel
it means error
jk Depends
You Up To Date?
You Have To Many Textures?
ETC
look at your count make sure your avatar mesh is joined
i only read it briefly cause im eating now
calm spade
@neat loom what's the resolution of the texture ?
calm spade
well check the images in your folder
neat loom
All around 60KB
calm spade
Open them in gimp/paint and overwrite them
calm spade
Is the hair a texture too ?
make sure they're all consistent
You can also try the atlasing through the material combiner addon on the side instead of through cats
neat loom
Ah, two of them didn't have a texture; seems like that's probably the case here.
Hmm, tried making textures for them but that didn't work in the end. It looks like the error is saying "Compression issue" or something?
steady cargo
so when I try to bake a texture atlas for my model, half of the textures come out transparent. any reason that might be?
smoky lantern
Can anyone confirm if the active blendshape bug still exists?
If I have a model mesh that's over 65k polies and I have a blendshape active on that mesh, does it still greatly impact performance?
heady smelt
yes
smoky lantern
2 skinned meshes it is then.
heady smelt
still affecting performance
if you have an active blendshape, it will always be bad for performance
smoky lantern
Better than the bug to have 2 skinned meshes than 1 that's over 65k with an active blendshape.
The second mesh has no blendshapes. Just bones.
lime perch
Why does a particle system with only a trail material count 2 materials toward total material slots?
tawdry venture
Each particle system adds two slots to the total, even if said slots aren't being used.
upper yacht
Trail material + normal particle material.
Even if your particle system has no material for the normal particle, it still exists.
woven birch
are there any guides for atlasing in blender 2.8? I'm giving it a shot for the first time and I'm only seeing stuff on the previous version-- unless it's the same.
heady smelt
woven birch
That's the one I've been going off of yeah, but it's a little difficult to keep up with ๐ฆ
And I'm trying to go for 2 materials instead of just 1, and I can't figure out how to make it play nicely with transparency. There's a solution in the comments but I don't know what it means.
heady smelt
i'm guessing that you would need to add your transparent texture into the shader editor (like the normal texture= and plug it to tzhe principled_bsdf shader
there is an "emission" line in the shader
woven birch
Okay the thing was using its own shaders so that was throwing me for a loop
heady smelt
i don't know the exact detail but be sure to have the principled bsdf shader as the main node
i had a model that was using an emission node for the main texture and it would atlas the texture in black
woven birch
yeah these two were floating around instead.
heady smelt
ah that's from cats addon
woven birch
It looks identical to principled at least. Though I don't know what to do with that MMD one
woven birch
Okay I'm starting to get a better grip on this, so I link the Color dot on the texture to the Emission dot on the Principled shader?
woven birch
I've almost got it... I got the emission bake done now I just need to figure out how to combine it with the original version.
spice kiln
Can you upload two seprate models with one avatar? So PC players get the high quality model, while Quest users get the lower poly one?
zenith plaza
Yep that's how it works
spice kiln
Cool. Would I just switch the build to android and switch the model?
zenith plaza
Just need to upload to the same avatar id on android or pc
languid brook
anyone knows the size of the avatar thumbnail picture in vrc?
calm spade
256x256
languid brook
ty!
astral meteor
Hey guys im trying to save the Atlas of the textures from a model i rigged and when i try to save the Atlas it says ''No unique materials selected'' and i dont know what it is.... how do i fix this to be able to export it?
with the CATS pluggin*
this is what it does
sweet mason
But why vrchat deside to squish the thumbnail in game as a rectangle
gaunt egret
I've been using the Cubed Paradox materials for an anime material, but I hear it's a demanding shader regarding performance somehow.
What other materials can I look into that are more suited for anime style avatars?
calm spade
XS toon, poiyomi, Silent
gaunt egret
Thanks, I'll look into them
woven birch
DOes anyone know how to make transparency work for texture atlas in blender 2.8 T-T
calm spade
Set transparency in texture option in unity ?
proper grail
If you mean pressing the bake button after moving uvs around manually, Ive had limited luck with baking four black and white images of the red, green, blue, alpha channel and using the compose image button in gimp with all four open to make an RGBA atlas. It doesnt come out perfect for some reason gotta play with the alpha levels until it looks right.
scarlet sun
how do i enable multicombining in material combiner?
amber hemlock
pains of kitbashing
buoyant holly
time to start making texture atlases
scarlet sun
Was trying to do that earlier but it gives me a trace back error
tired jetty
So the new vrc shit broke my avatar I guess.... worked fine for months, now for some reason my head moves the entire model around... then the shoulders droop way too low for some reason, and the biceps freak out... this was NO issue prior... worked flawless... not its screwed, and I have 0 reason as to why...
sick mesa
What are sources for big filesize in your avatar? The avatar has 2 materials with both a texture attached to it that are both below 4 MB. Yet the avatar in game is 50 MB. No audio sources in the avatar either.
radiant shadow
You can check the output log in unity ,when you upload avatar it shows sizes on everything , search for 'bundle'
sick mesa
Figured it out. Blend Shape Normals. They were set to calculate. Enabled legacy blend shapes and now file size is small.
sick mesa
Yeah I know my new project warns me about it but that avatar is in an older project with "legacy" avatars that I don't really update that often or use that often
fading leaf
@tired jetty that's the Avatar 3.0 thing I believe. It's on VRChat's end, not yours.
So nothing you need to fix on your end.
calm spade
@tired jetty Post pictures of your armature in blender in #avatar-rigging
tired jetty
@calm spade the armature isn't the issue, unless Avatar 3.0 made it so you have to change the armature?
@fading leaf fuck seriously
fading leaf
Yeah, the whole head tracking thing with your body getting dragged sorta deal is just a bug from the Avatars 3.0
It's like that whole knee problem a lot of people including myself had not too long ago
tired jetty
What fixes it?
fading leaf
Normally switching avatars work, but otherwise we'll have to wait it out or something.
probably reset the avatar using the 3.0 menu perhaps
tired jetty
I dont even have the 3.0 menu how do I get it, switching avatars did nothing
tired jetty
Oh? What does it do?
fading leaf
It's the new 3.0 menu where you're gestures and whatnot are at
Everyone has it, but 3.0 avatars can customize it
upper yacht
For example; making color sliders.
true crow
is it normal then when I make an atlas, that the colours in blender seemingly fade?
or well, become less contrasted
proper grail
cats atlas button wont save the mmd material settings, itll just make a default preview material
tired jetty
Huh, would I have to get on my fbt to know if it's fixed? Lmfao
shrewd dawn
I'm trying to bring a protogen of mine into VRChat by using a premade model and modifying it for my needs. He's got a lot of lighting effects going on, as well as what I plan to have be some spinning fan blades with more lighting effects underneath. Someone in #3d-modeling recommended I bake the lights first, but to ask here for more info. What would the advantages and disadvantages of doing something like this be?
That's what I'm trying to make, for reference
and this is how far I've gotten. Lol, the fan is huge, but trust me, it used to be WAY bigger
calm spade
Advantage : performance
Disadvantage : May not look like you want
Tbh it shouldn't be done with lights but with shaders
No need to bake anything
shrewd dawn
What would that look like?
calm spade
You get a basic RBG spinning shader, and then you just unwrap the parts of your model that you want that shader to be on and that should be it
shrewd dawn
And the glowing effects work the same way?
calm spade
If you unwrap correctly yeah
shrewd dawn
Sweet. So how should I go about applying that?
calm spade
applying the shader ?
shrewd dawn
yeh. I'm new to blender and unity, i don't know a whole lot. Lol
But I'm apparently learning quick
shadow scaffold
i've got a camera and a screen on my avatar, and friends, even people who have my avatar entirely shown can't see it. is there a resolution limit for cameras that vrchat enforces?
solid smelt
Cameras are friends only
shadow scaffold
but these people are my friends
and people who've shown my avatar AND are my friends
solid smelt
Not sure then sorry, if you think its a resolution limit you can try simplifying the system but I dont think thats the problem
amber hemlock
i've got a camera and a screen on my avatar, and friends, even people who have my avatar entirely shown can't see it. is there a resolution limit for cameras that vrchat enforces?
@shadow scaffold There is currently a bug where cameras only fully work on private blueprints. If someone else wears your same blueprint, the camera will stop working for both of you.
Though I haven't tested it in a long while - maybe that's not a bug anymore.
shadow scaffold
@amber hemlock how do i change the blueprint, i'm curious..
amber hemlock
Pipeline manager component has a detach button. If you upload it blank it becomes a new upload, which has a new uuid. Old one remains. But that wonโt make the public version suddenly work if two of itself meets itself
shadow scaffold
when you say public and private
do you mean avatars, or is this still somehow linked to the blueprint itself
solid smelt
Avatars have blueprints, which are either public or private
solid smelt
No its another component called the pipeline manager which is created when you add an avatar descriptor
shadow scaffold
and so i click detach
solid smelt
If you detach the blueprint, uploading will create a new avatar
shadow scaffold
i see
shadow scaffold
still no go, both decreased the resolution AND tried detaching
sage lily
can someone help me with textures?
calm spade
help how ?
sage lily
my avatar is white/grey in unity, i cant seem to get the textures for it, while in blender its fine @calm spade
calm spade
Did you create a material and apply textures to it ?
If not then you should watch a basic avatar upload tutorial for those steps
calm spade
you can post here
sage lily
so these must be the textures
calm spade
ok, then export your model, then import the texture in unity, make a material, add the texture, and apply on the model
sage lily
also did this one
calm spade
But that atlas has a lot of redundancy
calm spade
you don't need that
sage lily
ok i imported the atlas texture thing
now i need to make a material
what kind of material
( never used blender and unity but im trying to learn )
calm spade
there's only one kind
sage lily
like this?
glass timber
Create new material. and just drag ur image texture thingy over it
calm spade
yep
sage lily
if i understand i need to drag the atlas textures into the new created material? but that doesnt do anything
calm spade
kinda why we suggested a basic tutorial
glass timber
Drag the Image into the little box under "Main Maps" and it should apply to said "Material" then just drag the Material onto the model itself
buoyant holly
because you don't have the transparency turned on in the second screenshot
calm spade
You can increase the image resolution to 4096
sage lily
ooh how does that work
jolly meadow
is there a way I can make the materials I've made out of nodes in blender into image textures I can put into VRchat?
amber hemlock
yes that's called baking
tulip rose
texture question:
i have this stupid thing in vrc where things in the texture outside the wireframe appear in mipmaps while far away
- is there a way to get rid of this mipmap bleed?
another dumb thing is that partial transparency in the texture shows up as white in vrc - is there a way to enable partial opacity in textures?
calm spade
- more padding ?
- Specific shader ?
tulip rose
PS i have no idea what any of the mipmap settings do
sage lily
im in vrchat but my eyes are out... how do i fix this?
rose wolf
lmao , this is the best bug i've ever seen so far
you probably assign your eyes with something else on your body with the weight paint
move a bit all your body to see with which bone the eyes are moving
you maybe also assign the eyes bones on the wrong section on the body map on unity
sage lily
it was assigned to my finger for some reason
so i assigned it to my head, but now i dont have eyes at all @rose wolf
rose wolf
uh in mapping or in weigh paint ?
sage lily
in vrchat
in vrchat the eyes are completly gone, while i assinged the eyes at the head bone parent
@rose wolf
rose wolf
try to take the stream camera and put it inside your body to see if the eyes aren't just somewhere else
sage lily
stream camera?
languid quartz
They're in desktop they don't have access to that unless they're in VR.
Did you move where the eyes are attached to in unity or blender?
sage lily
in blender @languid quartz
languid quartz
okay that sounds right, perhaps eye tracking is not set up correctly.
(if the model uses it)
sage lily
hmm your right i think
if im testing eye tracking in blender now, its weird @languid quartz
languid quartz
If you set up eye tracking with CATS it likely has to be redone when the eyes are parented to the correct bone.
amber hemlock
Youโve got special eyes. Your brand.
shadow scaffold
okay, so i've got the render target plane displaying a black screen now, but the camera display still doesn't appear for friends?
does anyone know how to get cameras working on avatars..
amber hemlock
Is the avatar uploaded as private?
Also in unity you should be seeing the camera view on the texture, it should not be black
shadow scaffold
in unity it does work
and the avatar is private @amber hemlock
i renamed the material and texture though, but i don't think that should be an issue
amber hemlock
Iโll check if it works on 3.0 or later today and get back to you
I havenโt tried it on 3.0
But itโs a very basic unity thing I wouldnโt expect it to not work
shadow scaffold
ok
i appreciate it
just @ me when you do, i've been fanangling with it for a couple days now
sage lily
My avatar walks very weird, how do i fix walking style?
sage lily
lime iron
@shadow scaffold let me know if you find out as well, I have the same issue, rendertexture on an avatar object (on demand mirror) displays perfect for me in unity and locally but black for even friends
I know it works since I have two other 3.0 avatars that have working on demand mirrors that friends can see (not mine though)
shadow scaffold
@amber hemlock any luck?
sage lily
Thank you @sweet mason its fixed ๐
drowsy imp
which are better for skirt/dress as an optimization, dynamic bones or cloth physics? i've just set up cloth and i was wondering
calm spade
if it's low very very low poly, probably cloth, otherwise it's dynamic bones
heady smelt
help Xd mouth is moving even muted
lusty scroll
Is there any solid way of using cats atlas creation and not having a massive quality impact? Or am I just best off making manual atlases
proper grail
Math wise all it does is scale the uvs by their texture and than arranges them like stacking different sized boxes. Like how one can fit four 2k textures into a 4k texture, or 16 512 textures into a 2k texture. Couple seconds of checking if the textures will atlas in this style nicely and there shouldnt be any quality change whatsoever
lusty scroll
so basically make sure the textures are scaled to 2k/4k/1k instead of different ratios?
proper grail
Well, care to stack them correctly. For example if one presses atlas when you have four 2k textures and one 512x512 texture cats will make an abomination fitting it in, some odd 8192x4096 with 3584x3584 empty space. Unity gonna try to compress that to half and boom youve lost half your detail
lusty scroll
That's my problem right there, different size textures. Gotcha that's a huge help, thank you.
didn't know that's how it was handling it
proper grail
Ye, treat 4 512x512 textures as a 1k texture, 4 1k textures as a 2k and 4 2k as a 4k texture. Its a fun game of tetris
lusty scroll
makes send, so finding the textures I want to atlast should be similar size and make different atlases based on that instead
trying to decrease material count on my new avatar but kept running into quality issues. Thank you
lusty scroll
My entire assets folder is like 34MB but the avatar is sitting at 177MB in game. Any idea what it could be, driving me nuts. I've deleted everything but the bare minimum in the assets directory.
jovial grail
Also update your sdk
lusty scroll
Thank you @calm spade I'll check that later!
Still haven't messed with 3.0 yet, waiting for more solid guides to come out as I barely know what I'm doing as is.
vestal imp
Anyone have some optimization tutorials/ for non-MMD avatars in Unity/Maya?
Also can combining meshes be done in Unity?
Oh. Lol another also.
I changed my avatar's hair and it works in VRC on my end and in mirrors but in the menu it doesn't show up nor for other people yet I've done the same with other objects and it works fine.
patent mauve
@lusty scroll with updating your sdk was meant your sdk2 not sdk3. both are having more auto optimizations
@vestal imp consider using blender and the plugin cats. that's what recommended. and you can't join meshes in unity
vestal imp
@patent mauve Cats won't work because it isn't MMD and it doesn't detect/misunderstands some bones despite it being humanoid. I'll try again I guess
My bad. I thought I added that. That's why I said non-mmd
Thanks for the info on Unity though. I think I've figured out something for Maya but gotta test
patent mauve
cats can do more than mmd's
lusty scroll
@patent mauve I ran into the file size issues after blender/cats. Think it's the import settings mentioned above
patent mauve
thats a unity thing not cuz of cats
lusty scroll
24mb before atlas in game, and 177mb after lmao
so yeah need to check the import settings when I get home
patent mauve
the import of 2018 unity is wrong 2017 worked fine
when you have the latest sdk's it will tell you anyway
vestal imp
Is there a tutorial or resources where I can learn to manually fix this
or is that something I can ignore
That's why I've been asking if there are tuts on optimizing in maya
patent mauve
@vestal imp how are your leg and arm bones name?
vestal imp
legs
arms
I've put aside the rig for now and am currently combining meshes and textures since the rig already works. and ill see how well that optimizes
patent mauve
if you name them like the screenshot above it should make cats fix them. tho afaik cats doesnt do much, just some little tweak fixes if needed
vestal imp
Yeah. I get what you mean. Also do you have any idea what would make it happen where you add an object to a model and on your end and in mirrors, the object is showing (e.g. separate hair) but in your menu and for others, it's not showing
patent mauve
idk what could cuz that. is the hair painted correctly
weight paint I mean
and attached to your head bone
vestal imp
It's in Unity. It's attached to the proper bones and all the shaders work and everything. It works in preview and for me but not for others so I'm not sure if that's a shader thing or game object thing or maybe something happened in export
patent mauve
what shader
vestal imp
Unitychan
patent mauve
maybe try a different one
vestal imp
also exporting from blender I lost all dynamicbones and dunno if that's a cats thing and if there's a setting ;-; If there's a tut for this, feel free to send. I don't wanna be THAT person who annoys everyone with same answered questions.
And I'll try a different one. thanks!
patent mauve
dynamic bone loss? wdym by that
vestal imp
In unity all the dynamic bone groups are gone. No more dynamic bones on the model
before blender export. it was all fine
daring summit
Dynamic bones is a Unity script. When exporting out of blender, your avatar is basically going to be a blank slate (no fancy shaders, no dynamic bones, etc.) You're going to have to re-apply the dynamic bones or overwrite your existing FBX in Unity that has the dynamic bones applied already
amber hemlock
Pumpkin tools can transfer dynamic bones from one gameobject tree to another.
Or any components really
calm spade
can't you just drag the component to an object manually ?
patent mauve
you can drag bones to another avatar?
calm spade
you can drag components to other gameobjects
patent mauve
with copy paste right? or how wdym by DRAG?
calm spade
patent mauve
oh shiat you can actually do that. didnt knew that.
but for many components its better to use pumpkin
calm spade
definitely
amber hemlock
I also had no idea you could drag entire components
prisma topaz
Is there a reason why my avatar becomes torn around bones? Like the model is decimated in only those areas after uploading, I don't know what's causing it
I'm grabbing a screencap
proper grail
Sometimes that happens with mesh compression, low or high in the fbx import settings. Autos to none though
prisma topaz
Are we talking about in unity or in blender
proper grail
In unity
prisma topaz
kk
and just to be sure you know what I'm talking about: https://imgur.com/a/T15S4Pn
proper grail
Can just merge overlapping vertices, cant pull apart if its one airtight mesh
prisma topaz
That must be it
hybrid salmon
hi guys, is there a reason why the build and publish for android icon is blurred out?
calm spade
disable all the other avatars in your scene
hybrid salmon
huh that seemed to fix it
am i supposed to be doing that every time?
because like my uploads are huge for avatars that should be small
calm spade
zealous zenith
What's the performance cutoff for bone count?
calm spade
Bones 75 150 256 400
zealous zenith
thanks
tardy badge
i have avatars with worse stats that are only hitting maybe 20mb
usually less
we have no clue why this one would be 200mbs
if anyone could help us figure it out it'd be greatly appreciated
tardy badge
the only thing red in this model is polys due to props and dynamic bones are a little more than recommended
heres a version without any props
calm spade
How many materials ?
tardy badge
blendshape normals are already legacy
calm spade
Then it's animations, textures, audio
echo trout
Aahh don't worry my avatar has 120k polygons
calm spade
that's bad and you should worry
echo trout
Wdym last time i meet you in the Premier of devouring I was using that avatar
Its fine as long as its hidden
calm spade
well yeah you were perf blocked
echo trout
oof
upper yacht
Whatever do you mean 2 million polygons for a little badge on my shoulder isn't optimized?! /s
cloud imp
Hi. Iam buliding avatars for staff at events, and wanted to know which one is better for optimization: Same avatar with toggable props for different roles (meaning more objects and materials on avatar), or different avatar for each position, which will have less materials and objects. Also would like to know if hidden objects somehow effect performance.
Another question, how heavy effect performance all kinds of maps (i mean normal, roughness, AO and height)
calm spade
Disabled objects don't have a performance effect, so a single avatar with a lot of things is fine, and maps don't cause issues as long as the shader itself is performant
@cloud imp
cloud imp
Thank you for reply. I gather Poiyomi is good for this, right?
calm spade
Yeah should be alright
tepid oar
what shader is the fallback toon cutout?
heady smelt
Aahh don't worry my avatar has 120k polygons
@echo trout thats a very low amount compared to mine ...
echo trout
heady smelt
i had fun with the copy paste function
upper yacht
...How many of those are actively on at the same time?
jovial grail
none 
lusty scroll
how the f do you even get that many poly's, can't even imagine having that many poly's. Thought my 95k was a lot
amber hemlock
Lots of props.
Animation systems that never show at once, etc
The avatar could very well be super optimized you wouldnโt know. It just assumes the worst
hoary juniper
Well, optimised for what it is, but what it isn't is low-poly
fleet spade
Trying the cats blender tool for making atlases. I'm having an issue where once textures are merged they get super shiny and loose the same vibrancy the texture had with its colours.
Help pwease
lusty scroll
set reflections on the material to 0 from 50, or roughness to 100 @fleet spade
fleet spade
I'll have to try it tomorrow. In bed now. But thank you @lusty scroll
heady smelt
...How many of those are actively on at the same time?
@upper yacht all 4,1 million, 4 fps :p
lusty scroll
but why @heady smelt , what even is this unholy avatar
heady smelt
copy paste adventures
lusty scroll
I'm curious can you send a screen shot of it
heady smelt
vrchat is down right now ill send later
unreal plover
So I had an idea of using constraints to greatly reduce the amount of dynamic bones transformation. You just use one string of bones and use the rotation constraints on all the individual hair pieces.
Unfortunately my avatar has too many bones so it's stuck on medium rank ๐ข
calm spade
6ms for an avatar 
heady smelt
๐๏ธ
heady smelt
welp
time to make a script that wiggle my mouse cursor when I play vrchat
gotta optimize as much as I can
unreal plover
I think it's just Unity editor doing weird with G-sync/v-sync
proper grail
Neat! Wiggling the mouse does indeed improve performance. Simpleavatarcontroller
solid smelt
its mainly v-sync, empty scene for me is 13ms
upper yacht
It's unity. Moving the mouse around shows the actual ms. It's just unity being unity. It's stupid, but, yes. It has to do with v-sync as people have posted already.
solid smelt
calm spade
that's vsync adding 10ms
unreal plover
Okay, I disabled skybox, post processing and all that stuff and I'm at 1.7ms CPU + 0.2ms render
ยฏ_(ใ)_/ยฏ
Dynamic bones and constraints is 0.3ms .-.
unreal plover
Is it really that slow for just copying rotations . . .
calm spade
it's not exponential, there's just a minimal cost
it's not 0.1 per constraint
but if you have one it takes at least 0.1
unreal plover
Ah, so it shouldnt be that bad if other people also use constraints, since it'll get batched in the job system?
calm spade
I don't think that's the case in 2018 ?
unreal plover
Constraints are using multiple threads for me, so I'd guess that's the job system?
calm spade
Sweet if that's the case, i thought that was only for 2019.4 and up !
unreal plover
:P
upper yacht
Cool to know.
unreal plover
It's still hella slow since only like a quarter of things are done on other threads
upper yacht
might try to convert my dbones to constraints tbh.
calm spade
As long as it fucks off from main thread, i'll take it
fleet steppe
Ruuub, you said that bone visemes would be faster than blend shape visemes?
fleet steppe
Rather, more performant
calm spade
Ah yeah for sure
fleet steppe
Even with this many face bones?
calm spade
Well, the bones only move for the duration of the viseme, so not a big deal
And they don't have IK
They don't cost that much by just existing
The perf cost is always how much geometry it's moving, but that's still much cheaper than shapekeys
fleet steppe
Does the cost for shape keys increase with each one?
calm spade
It's the same for all, it's just much worse if the head mesh isn't separated
Which isn't the case for the extreme vast majority of models
fleet steppe
It doesn't matter how many shape keys there are, even if they're all above 0 at the same time?
calm spade
They can't be happening at the same time
fleet steppe
Not visemes.
calm spade
Well, same for shapekeys in unity afaik
calm spade
i guess this works like that, but that must be expensive
fleet steppe
So more blend shapes = more cost?
calm spade
if they're active yes
afaik when a blendshape is active, it checks the transform of every single vertex on the same mesh and makes them lerp to the expected position
even if they don't "move"
so doing this on a high poly mesh = poop
fleet steppe
Oh, a blend shape has no impact at all when its at 0?
calm spade
as far as i know
fleet steppe
Okay. I'm going to replace most of my blend shapes with bones, but now I feel like I can afford some MMD shape keys on the side
Not that 3.0 works in MMD dance worlds
But perhaps someday
calm spade
btw if you have any pointer on how to do facerigs, i'd be interested
heady smelt
an active blendshape when you upload
will add more processing time
And it breaks GPU skinning too
fleet steppe
ruh roh
amber hemlock
If your avatar has shapekeys at 100 by default, consider flipping them in blender so you can keep them at 0 by default
Blend from Shape, Basis -> Target, 1.0 weight.
Blend from Shape, Target -> Target, -2.0 weight
reverses it without side effect
fleet spade
So. I'm getting towards the end of modeling now. I'm using the cats plugin. Is 7 materials a good enough amount or should I absolutely atlas everything down to 4. I've had trouble with atlassing before...
calm spade
1 is also great if they're using the same shader !
ember ibex
Is it a bad idea to have a 2048x1024 texture? In other words, is there any drawback to having non-square textures?
calm spade
If the rest is transparency it's fine
ember ibex
yea, I have a texure where only the bottom half is actually used, so I just cropped out the top half
and stretched the uv maps, of course
unreal plover
So. I'm getting towards the end of modeling now. I'm using the cats plugin. Is 7 materials a good enough amount or should I absolutely atlas everything down to 4. I've had trouble with atlassing before...
@fleet spade
7 is a lot better than most, but I'd say get it as low as possible (but manageable). I find it easier to manually atlas stuff by first putting the textures together in something like Photoshop and then moving the UV coords to the correct place. Most of the time you can squeeze a bit of extra space (which you can then use for more details!!) and you can also easily manage extra addons like tattoos. Managing everything in groups also makes creating maps/masks way easier (ex. for metallic maps).
buoyant holly
Raindrops you should be fine as long as it's a power of two for your rectangle
fleet spade
@unreal plover I'll have to consider that for the next model. I got it down to 5 off the top of my head last night. Just at the unity importing stage.
fierce moon
whenever i export my blender project to unity it will jump to double its polys but when i import it back into blender it goes back down does anyone know how to fix this?
proper grail
Vrchat sdk references tris, so if your model is entirely quads it will get doubled
fierce moon
oh crap sorry i got confused it is entirely tris.
oh nevermind this entire problem it fixed itself when i reimported it XD
ember ibex
another question. does a dynamic bone chain always have to have an extra bone at the end? meaning it needs at least two transforms for it to do anything at all?
upper yacht
The root bone doesn't animate. It only tells what other bones to animate. The root bone itself doesn't count as a transform. It's just the parent to the other bones.
ember ibex
then why does a dynamic bone that only has one bone after the root bone count as two transforms in the stats?
upper yacht
Pretty sure that's that one bone.
ember ibex
so a dynamic bone with one moving bone counts as two transforms after all?
languid quartz
Just the root bone behaves similarly to dynamic bones that are actively moving because of how dynamic bones work.
The root bone can move, just by default it won't and it still causes an update like moving dynamic bones would even if it's not moving, thus it's counted.
upper yacht
hm, I thought it didn't.
languid quartz
Actually I may have misinterpreted something when testing. Perhaps it doesn't but my point still stands that it causes an update still.
ember ibex
alright, so a simple dynamic bone with a single moving bone will always be two transforms and there's no way around that
is that correct?
languid quartz
Yeah if you want it to move it'll take two bones to pull that off even if it's using a fake one with end length.
Also I noticed you kept referring to the stat that changed in the SDK for this as transform even though it doesn't here. Maybe it did in older ones, forgot.
ember ibex
oh, you're right it doesn't say transform anymore
oh well, it still says transform ingame
prisma juniper
How to merge one bone to another
Oops not here
How do I decimate polygons on my avatar so that it doesn't look bad
reduce polygons*
daring summit
@prisma juniper Dissolve edge loops
heady smelt
it's a normal feature of blender
proper grail
Select an edge loop and delete it with the delete option dissolve
its one of those ctrl or shift or alt click buttons with edge select on
prisma juniper
Ty Ty!
heady smelt
how can i fix this issue? i uploaded this avatar before and didnt have this problem so why now? and how can i fix
prime jay
does having multiple body meshes on an avatar affect performances more then multiple materials?
floral kayak
Each mesh has to load a material for said mesh. So it's like having to load a material plus more, so yes
calm spade
@heady smelt don't use legacy shaders !
zenith plaza
Might wanna check the 7 errors not pictured in that screenshot
heady smelt
i fixed it by switching to unity 2017
floral kayak
I believe you're gonna have trouble uploading using an older unity or it may not upload properly
zenith plaza
Yeah that's not really the solution
Especially since any recent version of sdk2 won't work there at all
turbid escarp
I'm making a model for a friend of mine, but I'm running into a lot of problems and don't have the time to fix them. if there's someone that I can pass this onto to finish, I would be happy to cover the costs. work still needs to be made on the eyes, textures and compatibility testing. this is my first time making a model for vrchat.
prime jay
@floral kayak thx
ember ibex
what's better, having a hoodie be part of my body mesh and hiding it by setting the material's alpha to zero, or having it as a separate mesh and just disabling the whole mesh?
considering that it's gonna be on 95% of the time
upper yacht
Tbh, best performance wise would be to have it opaque and hide it using either a blendshape or by animation if you have dummy bones for AV3.0
heady smelt
don't upload an avatar with an active blendshape tho
upper yacht
Dummy bones would be like: Chest_Dummy, Spine_Dummy. And you parent them to chest/spine respectively.
What Svel said
Chest_Dummy, Spine_Dummy in the animation would pretty much just do the same thing as in blendshape except in an animation.
ember ibex
oh? what's the issue with having active blendshapes?
heady smelt
bad for performance and it breaks gpu skinning
ember ibex
wait, is uploading an avatar with an active blendshape worse than activating the same blendshape with an animation?
heady smelt
yes
ember ibex
I see. I'll keep that in mind.
ornate needle
Does anyone know how to get an old version of Material Combiner to work in Blender 2.8 or 2.9, or if there's another plugin that supports multiple textures per material when combining? (EG: Diffuse, Normal, and metallic maps)
calm spade
worth asking here https://discord.gg/AtYCJF
visual timber
how do i make a avatar?
daring summit
heady smelt
how do i make my avatar quest working
heady smelt
alright, how do i make the arms not clip like that?
also not sure why the feet are clipping into the ground
heady smelt
can i have some help whit dynamic bones i dont know what setings shoud i have on the ears and tail
does are my curent setings for ears
amber hemlock
I have a material that's coming into unity as two separate materials and I can't seem to figure out why. In Blender and Unity import settings, it's one. but once in the scene, it uses two slots.
Nvm it was Keep Quads
heady smelt
i'm coming across an issue where whenever i'm using full body tracking, my legs refuse to run whenever i move around instead i just stay in place, has anyone come across this issue?
calm spade
3.0 ?
heady smelt
yes
sweet mason
Question is. Why not having the ears merge with the same skinnedmesh of the body
heady smelt
either he doesn't care about it or for toggle purposes ?
sweet mason
You can scale the bone to 0
amber hemlock
Can dynamic bones be scaled? I thought the script takes manual control of the transform
upper yacht
It deforms by rotating the bone, dynamically using forces.
amber hemlock
Yeah but I think it takes manual control of the entire transform
urban jungle
what size should my UV's be for an avatar?
solid smelt
Depends on the detail you want, but the average is 2048x2048
unkempt notch
im trying to figure out this custom playermodel stuff. i modified a playermodel i found that looked fitting but now i gotta tweak a few things to get rid of some errors. and im not sure what would be a good idea to fix it, can somebody help me out
vagrant wave
What kind of errors?
unkempt notch
overall proformance is apparently poor and material slots say 19
and that i need to reduce the amount there is
restive saddle
How many meshes are there?
covert ravine
I need to merge some of the bones in this cape, but it's split into two bone chains, one at each shoulder, and it only detects one chain in Cats Blender Plugin, so I can't merge the other half of the cape. If I try to manually merge anything, nothing happens. How can I merge the bones in this cape?
unreal plover
Remove dynamic bone colliders from dynamic bone scripts
worthy vessel
ty
bold magnet
For buffer particles/broken subemitters, is it better performance-wise to enable/disable the particle system and keep it on play on awake, or to enable/disable the emission module?
past swallow
anyone know why the tips of my models hair disappear after I add the hair texture to an atlas?
here's it before the atlas
sweet mason
There some alpha hole in that area somehow
topaz lake
Does anyone know how to get an old version of Material Combiner to work in Blender 2.8 or 2.9, or if there's another plugin that supports multiple textures per material when combining? (EG: Diffuse, Normal, and metallic maps)
@ornate needle
I know it's been a bit, but I ran into a similar issue with my normal maps. The solution was to export the CATS atlas of my albedo textures and then use blender's node editor to replace the albedo textures with the normal maps, and then atlasting + exporting them. The two atlases can then be combined in Unity, and theoretically this can be done for ambient occ and so on
ornate needle
Unfortunately my normal maps and such are different resolutions than the diffuse maps for optimization purposes. So Mat combiner(and as a result CATS) atlas places them differently
for the time being I'm just atlasing the diffuse maps, then using photoshop to manually match them up for normal map atlas and so on
topaz lake
that'd work
I feel like I got lucky with the model I chose, and I've only ever done that one, so what worked for me probably doesn't count as best practice
hidden onyx
Hi, anyone got a way to reduce the polygons of a mesh on unity?
heady smelt
you don't do that in Unity
hidden onyx
I used to have MantisLODeditor but it seems the creator doesn't want to give out free services now
chilly fox
Yeah, that stuff is usually done with a Decimate modifier in Blender and applied when you've found a level you like.
But it's a bit of a naff way of doing it with unpredictable results. The proper way is retopologise the mesh by hand. ๐
daring summit
Or just dissolve edge loops
unreal plover
Personally I like selecting things in the UV and dissolving them in the 3D view, less fiddling around with the viewport
south tusk
so i imported a prefab that i want to be able to change the shaders on, but even clicking the unpack prefab completley option doesnt seem to allow me to change any of the models shaders, the drop down is just greyed out still?
heady smelt
combine them
proper grail
Theyre bones, ive only ever had it happen to me once when I exported the fbx in the animation window. Theres gotta be some sort of condition for it to happen
junior veldt
how do i combine them?
proper grail
the worry is less on combining them and more on exporting the fbx without them
junior veldt
ok, so how do i export it without them?
calm spade
and combine your materials too
jovial grail
when exporting through cats you get a prompt to combine them
combining meshes is one click
combining marterials is a bit more elaborate
calm spade
nah, i mean combining the ones with the same names
if you look in the image there's quite a few duplicates
junior veldt
where is the combine meshes option?
calm spade
vagrant wave
CATS is magic, man
upper yacht
You've never seen a complex facerig then, I assume.
But, ya, unless you're actively using a bone or it's needed to counteract the usual deform issues when far away from the bone... Just merge to parent.
amber hemlock
No, all those dress bones can be reduced to a single 3 bone chain going down the center
Or even just halved for unnoticeable optimization
upper yacht
What Adeon says, is true. But, only if you're not using colliders
stray gazelle
Cries in Dissidia NT facerig
ripe pivot
Not entirely sure where to place this. I have the "Lowerarm is not first child" issue, due to apparently having twist/slot bones. I'm curious how exactly am I suppose to move the hand above these bones in the list?
ripe pivot
Thank you..
ripe pivot
This wasn't the issue during the first runs. But now is.. Rotation in Blender/Unity is how it should be but this only shows up in-game. Bone hierarchy seems to be how it should.. (Unless it should be the same in configure, which it isn't.. Nor saves when I do changes there..)
sterile lily
A quick question, when I applied the shader to the wanted part in blender, it applied even to the hand, how to separate it so I can give the hand a skin color?
Sep Mats & Loose Mats didn't work
calm spade
Make a new material and assign it to the vertices of the hand
sterile lily
The part is unselectable
calm spade
Those meshes are not joined
sterile lily
@calm spade @heady smelt
Oh I did it, instead of selecting the skin part, I selected all the clot and gave it a new material
Thanks^^
supple cloak
When I try to decimate a model using cats I always get this message, and I never get near the target. Does anyone know why?
It happens to every model I try
calm spade
2.9 is not supported yet
calm spade
2.83 is fine
supple cloak
great! Thanks again!
Decimation worked now, but when I do it, everything becomes weird like this. Should I just ignore it, or will it be like that in unity and VRChat as well?
calm spade
recalculate normals / set normals from faces
supple cloak
How do I do that? As you can probably tell, i'm pretty new to this :p
calm spade
edit mode, select that mesh with L and use the search bar
supple cloak
Thanks a lot for all your help!
supple cloak
I've been trying for over 10 minutes now and I still can't find it, so I must be doing something wrong. When i search for normals these are the only options i get. is there somewhere else i'm supposed to search?
tried googling, but nothing i found worked
some said the option was in the meshes menu, but i'm missing that menu
vagrant wave
select the object, go into edit, press A to select all and press SHIFT-N to recalculate normals
supple cloak
when I press shift+n I get this menu. Is this right?
vagrant wave
there's also a more precise menu for other normals-related stuff in the upper left corner in edit mode
uhhhh it shouldn't look like that
make sure the armature isn't selected
supple cloak
I think it was, but I still get that menu with it deselected
vagrant wave
it should look like this
vagrant wave
there's also this
idk what most of it does though, recalculating usually fixes my issues
supple cloak
I'm able to recalculate the normals now, but it doesn't fix anything. Still looks the same
vagrant wave
It might be just an issue with your mesh
If you have CATS you can try decimating through there, too
supple cloak
That's what i did
supple cloak
okay. Starting from scratch now. How do I decimate without cats?
supple cloak
sorry for being so ignorant, but where do I find the modifiers? :p
vagrant wave
blue Wrench icon in the bottom right
It's pretty important for using blender, especially when you make models from scratch like me
supple cloak
This is the first model i'm trying to get into vrchat by myself, so im pretty far from starting from scratch :p
The built in decimatior makes the avatar full of holes
vagrant wave
Show me a picture of your mesh in edit mode without decimation
supple cloak
no nvm, i think it's just the normals here as well
no nvm again, it's completely broken.
Will send screenshot soon, just gonna restart really quick
vagrant wave
Ok well I gotta go somewhere so i won't be able to help you
proper grail
You can also clear custom split normals and than turn on auto smooth. Than after set normals from faces on the weird things that auto smooth doesnt seem to notice exists
supple cloak
Can you go into a bit more detail? I have almost no idea what you just said lol
proper grail
uhh, go into preferences and keybindings, change spacebar shortcut from Play animation to Open search menu
Now anytime somebody gives ya a random string of jargon type it in that lol
supple cloak
okay, will try. Thanks
proper grail
and this is where auto smooth is, only works when theres no custom normals hence the whole clear normals thing earlier
supple cloak
after clearing custom split normals everything seems to work like it should. Do i still have to do the other stuff?
Tried auto smooth, and it just makes everything worse, so I guess i'll just leave it off and consider my problem fixed!
proper grail
oh lel, usually set auto smooth to like 180 cuz it keeps sharp edges. But its working woo
supple cloak
Thanks a lot @proper grail!
Spent like 3 hours on this!
Also, thanks @calm spade, and @vagrant wave! And sorry for the ping. Just want the three of you to know that I really appreaciate all your effort! Never would have been able to fix this without you!
oh and btw, when I turned autosmooth on it was set to 0 which is why everything looked worse. Autosmooth off looks exactly the same as auto smooth at 180
oh, and one last question. Is it normal for the bones or whatever it is in the fingers and hands to stick out like this?
supple cloak
the autosmooth thing? It probably was 30 and i just remembered wrong
stoic tulip
Is it possible to have LODs on an avatar?
calm spade
nope
sterile lily
@calm spade Sorry for disturbing >< quick question, I edited my avatar in unity but it seems I that I edited the prefab one and uploaded it in VRC successfully, but I need to edit it on blender now how to do that?
(I can only import the normal one)
calm spade
Edit what ?
sterile lily
the FBX file
calm spade
yes but what do you want to edit
sterile lily
I was just putting pieces to the avatar in Unity, as soon as I wanted to do some things with it in Blender, I realized that it became a prefab file
I want to import the prefab one in blender cuz I already started editing it
calm spade
import in blender, fix it, export back, use pumkin's tool to automatically setup the dynamic bones/descriptor
sterile lily
@calm spade It worked! thanks a lot! Didn't know about the pumpkin's tool, It really helped me๐
cunning fiber
What would be the best way to handle legs on a model like this? I'd rather not use dynamic bones + colliders because that would nuke performance
midnight atlas
^I would also appreciate that info, In blender I'd just use constraints and drivers but in unity idk
solid smelt
A skirt that close would benefit mostly from unity cloth, just doing weight painting is a good and easy way to do it optimized but it will look bad if you do something like a split
west furnace
I have a question about the mesh optimization.
They said that the mesh should be a single object, but does that mean the mesh layer, or do they mean the mesh should be a continuous singular object?
As an example:
-1 blend file, with separate mesh layers for the eyes
-1 blend file, with discontinuous mesh objects in ONE layer
-1 blend file, where I'd have to have planes connecting the eyes, hair, body, clothing, etc.
Do they mean it has to be the third?
languid quartz
Most likely the 3rd option. If options one and two require multiple skinned mesh renderers then that's not great.
west furnace
Ok, so I've only been doing the Blender stuff so far. Can you explain what you mean about "multiple skinned mesh renderers"?
How do I check that? I assume that's part of Unity and the SDK?
languid quartz
Unity, meshes from avatars should get that tacked onto it automatically
west furnace
And it will show me where?
languid quartz
Stuff like "Body" under the hierarchy for your avatar
Or whatever the mesh is called
vagrant wave
You don't need to join pieces using planes, you can just click the objects you want to fuse into 1 mesh and hit CTRL-J
languid quartz
Oh, I kinda skimmed over that but yeah that's usually what's done
vagrant wave
Make sure to hit SHIFT-N in edit mode to recalculate your normals tho
west furnace
Ok....
vagrant wave
Sometimes joining meshes messes up the way the normals face, and you'll have see-through pieces
west furnace
So the mesh can STILL consist of discontinuous objects? Like, just an example: a halo over the character's head that is parented to the head or something?
They do NOT need to have connected vertices?
Or WILL joining them force-connect the vertices?
I haven't tried that, yet, so I'm not sure
languid quartz
Here's what I was referring to with the skinned mesh renderer
Your avatar can consist of multiple meshes but that's not ideal
vagrant wave
Yeah they won't be truly "connected"but a part of the same mesh
So if ou were to, say, hit "separate by loose parts" it will disconnect without issue
west furnace
Ok, that's not too bad, then
I was just concerned, b/c it is ONE HELL of a job trying to stitch this stuff together, esp when one part has more subdivisions for higher-detail areas ๐น ๐ซ
vagrant wave
You only really need to worry about the resolution of the mesh while doing stuff like booleans
Or doing sculpting, i guess
west furnace
@languid quartz I see. Thanks for the screenshot. Now, I'll know where to look
I'm still no master at sculpting, so I'm probably not optimizing the polygons the way they should be. So that is gonna be an issue, until I get better at this
I have probably too many subdivs compared to someone who's been making avatars for a while
vagrant wave
Well as long as your meshes aren't something obscene like 1 million polys you should be good lol
west furnace
Oh no... they won't be THAT bad
vagrant wave
I did that once by accident going a little bit too crazy with the subdivision modifier
west furnace
Where is the area to check the current amount?
calm spade
@west furnace Connecting is irrelevant, it just needs to be a single mesh
west furnace
Faces + Tris
Hmmm... Well, I'm not near a million, but I WILL need to drop the modifier at least a bit...
@calm spade Right, but what I was originally asking was what that meant.
I wasn't sure if that meant they needed to be connected or not
Alright, I'll continue working on it. As long as I know I'm not gonna spend like 10 hours stitching everything together
This is my first foray into this sorta thing.
I only picked up Blender like end of July, tbh
vagrant wave
I usually aim for about 50,000 or below for each one, the Avatar Builder will say it's a bit high but won't stop you from uploading. Gives you a pretty decent score too
But the lower the better
west furnace
Hmmm, ok
west furnace
alright, perfect 
tight solar
lime perch
Hey dudes, I'm very familiar with optimized mesh material count by atlasing, but can you do the same for particle systems? No matter what I do, VRC's sdk seems to attribute the same material in unity on multiple particle systems to multiple material slots (different draw calls maybe?) on the avatar itself. Someone mentioned to me that they "atlas" their particle effects, so I figure I might as well ask how/if that's possible
calm spade
i've heard of sprite atlas, but never of particle system material atlasing
if it's possible i have no idea how that works
lime perch
As far as draw calls go, is there any merit to having the same texture be shared between multiple materials? Besides the single texture being loaded into VRAM rather than multiple
jovial grail
There's the animated particles thing which uses a sprite sheet
Don't think they's any other way
prime jay
If an avatar contain many body meshes but only one is active at once, does it still affect the performances ?
vagrant wave
Yes.
wet hornet
I believe it'll effect your performance rank but won't actually hurt performance until it is activated. That's what I keep seeing being said around here.
prime jay
really appreciate the feedbacks thanks to you two !
agile radish
@tight solar what do you need help with ?
urban escarp
I had only 2 materials and 26k triangles and like 108 bones, but I didnโt get the star, only good
sweet mason
Because of bone over like 75 hein
young prism
moderate newbie. I'm finally finished with my model, and want to optimize. Everything is solid Green except for "Material slots". Is this something I can fix in Unity? or is that purely Blender?
upper yacht
blender
young prism
alright, thanks
kind root
I scaled my avatars based on the VRC SDK2 tutorial avatar. for some reason, it's almost twice in height as nearly every avatar I see ingame. Do people just really like shorter models or has something changed since then?
I don't feel incorrectly scaled in most worlds, but based on everyone else it sure seems that way...
calm spade
people are small
kind root
ok, thanks. It seems like it's either small anime avatars or 'normal' avatars of other kinds, lol.
proper grail
120 inches?
visual marsh
cm
drowsy venture
when animating hair, is it more performance friendly to use dynamic bones or cloth? i saw in games like conan exiles (made with Unreal, but still) they use cloth and it looks pretty nice
heady smelt
good luck using cloth to make hair move
languid quartz
Cloth is also fairly performance heavy on high poly stuff so it should only be used on low poly objects.
drowsy venture
as far as i know, so is dynamic bones... shouldnt be used on high poly. i was wondering about performance comparison cloth vs dynamic bones on the same mesh
is there some way to see in unity which one is heavier? i have the same hair mesh in two versions, one with cloth, other one with DB
languid quartz
Dynamic bones shouldn't be used with a lot of bones, high poly should be relatively fine. At least better then cloth.
You can use the Unity profiler though to try and better determine the performance cost of either one however.
drowsy venture
where should i look in that profiler?
languid quartz
Most likely CPU as Cloth and dynamic bones most likely run on the CPU.
drowsy venture
so the higher the number on CPU the worse the performance? and what about batches?
it shows the same cpu numbers with or without the hair lol
languid quartz
Probably because running a Unity scene with just your avatar in it isn't that bad but doing so in a world would likely cause problems
drowsy venture
idk what batches mean, but hair with cloth adds 3 while the same hair with DB adds 6
languid quartz
Likely draw calls
hmm how many polygons is the hair you're using the cloth on anyway?
drowsy venture
more than 200 ๐ i have just made it and havent decimated or optimized in any way. right now its 12k
languid quartz
oh yeah that's not good for cloth
drowsy venture
i know, but that wasnt my question really
languid quartz
If you optimized the hair to be lower poly cloth could be viable but currently you're likely better off using dynamic bones.
unreal plover
You can use constraints with dynamic bones
so only do dynamic bones on one string of hair and copy the rotations to the other bones
calm spade
They might not be weight painted
proper grail
Eye rotation limits set up for 360 vision
sweet mason
Hah
near quarry
the weight paint looks fine
sweet mason
They are parent not to the head that is
near quarry
how do I keep my dynamic bone skirt from clipping in my avatar when i move?
heady smelt
you don't
near quarry
really? I guess just turn it off then
tame ridge
@near quarry 2 solutions :
- clever weight painting so the skirt kinda follows the legs movement.
- Dynamic bones + dynamic bones collision (performance intensive, I don't recommend it)
jovial grail
collisions are janky and kinda suck
you could mess with the settings to make it move less and as a result not clip as much
lunar veldt
guys
how can i make custom expression? like you do shift and f2 and it does a sound?
vivid parrot
got a problem: unity canยดt decompress fbx files, how can i solve this?
i canยดt export my mesh optimized model into unity to finish it
calm spade
Can you import it in blender first ?
vivid parrot
no, the unitypackage file canยดt be found in blender somehow
but imma start from scratch again now
calm spade
yeah blender imports fbx
vivid parrot
so, after having spent 3 days on trying to make a humanoid character and failed miserably, this really sad creation came to be. i know, I`m a complete failure
calm spade
You tried to make a tank a humanoid character ?
calm spade
yeah that doesn't really need to be humanoid
vivid parrot
no, i failed to make a human avatar so i just made a tonk with no animation selected
but
i made a thing
and i can show you. Itยดs still just a fu*cking sad attempt but atleast its something
calm spade
Not everyone can succeed on the first attempt, don't worry about it
vivid parrot
so, iยดm currently reworking my tank and half of the hull is stuck in the floor. any ways to solve this?
serene aurora
u have to respawn or exit and relog in to vr chat @vivid parrot
stable birch
I'm trying to use matcombine with seperate baked textures (because of overlapping UVs) and it messes up the model
it makes most of it white
calm spade
Make sure the textures are seen as valid
the cog icon next to the texture
if it shows 32x32 then it isn't
delete the texture node in shading mode and re-add it
stable birch
My textures aren't that size and I made my materials use nodes and it still happens(I'm using 2.79 Internal but I can convert it to 2.8)
calm spade
Did you delete the nodes and re-add them in the node editor ?
stable birch
No I just checked use nodes and then made it use the right material
calm spade
Cool, so now do what i suggested
calm spade
that's not how textures work
calm spade
if they don't have a proper texture then they'll be 32x32 by default
stable birch
I'll make a atlas image and move the uvs myself since it still doesn't work
calm spade
It works if you have a proper node setup
If you only have the texture then that's all you need to add
vivid parrot
u have to respawn or exit and relog in to vr chat @vivid parrot
@serene aurora thanks, Imma try that
vivid parrot
doesnยดt work, i actually spawn in the floor
craggy basin
Question, can VR Chat support hair particle systems or no? I have a model that I need to put fur on and I'm not sure how I should do that. I debated making extra polygons coming off the character and then erasing the edge of them to give the illusion of fur, but I'm not sure if thatll work
(pls ping if you have a response)
craggy basin
@jovial grail Are fur cards like this?
Then you just erase the tips to make it look like fur strands right?
jovial grail
Yeah you put a transparent texture on it
Then scatter them on your mesh and it gives a good illusion
serene mantle
idk if this goes here, but I'm curious what to do if blendshapes break on a seperate model from the main one
I'm using blender 2.83 and when I load the blend file into Unity it just doesn't find any
it does on the main model I'm using for the body
proper grail
Theres a list of modifiers that remove shape keys but the easiest way to tell if something is derped is to export it as fbx and reimport it in a different blender file
calm spade
screenshot your model in blender ?
serene mantle
ah it's the decimate modifier, no duh
of course the decimate modifier removes shape keys
duhh
serene mantle
and subsurf
amber hemlock
Convert to quads, dissolve unnecessary edge loops. Re-triangulate if desired. Result looks way better than decimate, and your shape keys still work
fleet steppe
Which is worse, too many textures or too many materials? or is it that the former is a strain on memory and the latter is a strain on processing?
proper grail
ye, two entirely different things just like you said. Processing 20 20 pass fur shaders is where most of our problems are
sick timber
@fleet steppe 4 1024x1024 textures is about the same in memory of 1 2048x2048 texture.
calm spade
@fleet steppe a material is a draw call, on the CPU, a texture is a draw call + a draw on GPU when it decompresses https://medium.com/@toncijukic/draw-calls-in-a-nutshell-597330a85381
sick timber
More what Ruuubick said than I did.
fleet steppe
Well then that sounds like they are comparable
calm spade
Atlasing = nice
fleet steppe
Well I already knew that
near quarry
Does anyone know why my avatars animations dont work? i followed a tutorial on how to add face animations to an avatar but i noticed that my walking animations are broken now
tender sundial
there's no way to economise if I want the same audio clip to play from two different locations, is there ๐ฆ
calm spade
two audio sources ?
tender sundial
that's what I'm currently doing
the second side to the question is whether there is a way to economise if you want multiple audio clips to play from the same location
hmm
calm spade
You can have as many as you want as long as you turn them off when they're not in use
tender sundial
I do, but the SDK rats on me for the disabled ones :x
also audio is one of those areas where unity really drops the ball on realistic units
if I set a max distance of 20cm, will people 19cm away be able to hear? it's impossible to tell from the data shown on the screen
"be able to hear" == "is over 0 decibels" but unity does not show dB
calm spade
yep, it's all about testing
analog slate
Hey there, I've been adding outfits to my 3.0 avatar and I wanted to add even more, but I don't know which way is the most performant.
Right now I have a single clothes mesh that changes type with blendshapes (hoodie/sweater/shirt) and a file with all the textures in it.
This is how that file looks right now:
Yes, there are a lot. I may just decide not adding more but I really want to know
If I want even more slots, what do you advise? Making it bigger or actually splitting them between different materials?
As far as I know sprite sheet-like stuff is more performant in many cases but I don't know if that's the case in Unity.
(I also made sure to choose a good compression to minimize the file size, by the way)
analog slate
Yeah my plan B was to separate them by type in 3/4 atlas, would that be better than my current way?
calm spade
If you want multiple atlases i'd go with 2K with 100 compression
You can make a giant 4K one though as well
analog slate
This one is 8k right know, a bit too much? I'll screenshot the settings in a sec too, and I could also try setting it to 4k and see if it doesn't look too bad
This is my current config
calm spade
Yeah never use 8K
proper grail
Also what are you using the alpha channel for? If its not used try DXT1
analog slate
Doesn't look bad at 4k and ends up weighting 1MB, nice
I only use the alpha channel for this one, if it's a problem I can move it to another texture
Actuall I may be able to use an alpha mask or something
jovial grail
I'd just split it into a few atlases
acoustic phoenix
any chance someone could fix my avatar only need some minor cosmetic changes i will pay but not over $100 without reason
calm spade
@acoustic phoenix You can find commission boards everywhere, but discord is not the place
acoustic phoenix
nvm then it's not worth it
heady smelt
Can someone explain why this is happening?
jovial grail
wrong material in slot for the face
sturdy socket
Wrong material in the bagging area
Please replace item to continue
jovial grail
sturdy socket
heady talon
Is anyone else having struggles with Blender? Im able to add weight but not reduce weight. My Blender doesnt react to me taking the weight to 0.
I can basically make the weight to go to 1 but not 0
And I want it to go to 0
Im just stroking the avatar and nothing is happening....
heady smelt
wrong material in slot for the face
@jovial grail not actually, this is the correct material
modest slate
then wrong texture map on the material?
proper grail
Thats a zoidchi with an opaque texture on the transparent parts. The blush, fluster, and forehead sweats
jovial grail
Wouldn't left and right part of the texture be mirrored then?
proper grail
nah its got these fancy lines
jovial grail
you can clearly see that it has a wrong texture applied https://puu.sh/GzkeB/96ddac1999.png
faint dragon
Hey all, im not quite sure where to ask this, but it seems this would be the best place to ask it
I was just wondering if there's and updated version of this doc?
It says it's updated every 5 minutes, but I'm having a hard time believing that, because it says the current version of Blender being used 2.79 and Unity Version 5.6.3p1
Will the instructions be interchangeable between different versions?
thanks thanks ๐
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W5KFa_aszCMrJaFD8mb9a-GHYO4X4S9M63GjM4UwuEw/pub
heady smelt
the process is still the same
jovial grail
but you should look at a more up to date resource, like a YouTube tutorial
faint dragon
alrighty ill look into that
thanksthanks ๐
forest orchid
Hello,
Is it possible to change the posture in game mode? I would like the arms to be further away from the body by default.
sweet mason
Change the idle animation
forest orchid
hmm where i can found this option? i m just started in unity sorry :p
sweet mason
Gesture overwrite
jovial grail
Do you mean in unity or the final pose ingame
forest orchid
the final pose ingame
I can definitely find out where it is.
this is where you have to change?
jovial grail
Well first you want to find/create/edit an idle animation
So make a copy of that one if you want to edit that one
forest orchid
ok
woven fable
What is better. 8 materials with 512px size or 2k one material
woven fable
Next how VRC handle toggling meshes