vrchat-jams

[cunning oriole]

Yeah it is a very nice entrance honestly much nicer than the space station itself as the greenhouse is kind of nonsensical with the weird merry-go-round

[heavy ingot]

The lights turning off hurt

I could not find that damn drop elevator button

[cunning oriole]

When me my friends went to the bees world we ended up soft locking it because the key got accidentally out of the map and it has no refund functionality so we couldn't continue past bee GLaDOS ask to get the DNA vial

[heavy ingot]

If you even got the vials in, the centrifuge would spin forever

Soft locking you again.

[cunning oriole]

So sounds like we're not missing much from not retrying the world

[eternal urchin]

If I ever make a world I'm proud of I should bring you two in to QA test and rip it to shreds

[heavy ingot]

I want the same

I could’ve fixed so many problems

Like the damned eye height

Or the stupid ui for the tutorial

[plucky carbon]

That’s the good thing about having friends that are brutal lmao

[heavy ingot]

Although the tutorial was made in 30 minutes

I ran outta time cuz my world was crashing in game (not in Build and Test)

Odin killed a prefab

can we stop using Unity Editor modifications in the SDK?

[slate agate]

I had a fun bug that would crash everyone else in the instance if you placed your building platform and had persistent data lol

[heavy ingot]

Mine would sync but not save as it went over 200 bytes

Which is not explained anywhere in their SDK

So I assume that is a bug

The sync mode was manual, but it acted like a continuous

[slate agate]

odd

[heavy ingot]

Yeah, that’s what I said after ripping out my hair wondering wtf went wrong

All I did to fix it was move some of the persistent data to a helper script

And now it is just fine

[subtle talon]

It actually is

"PlayerData has a similar bandwidth cost as one UdonBehaviour with synchronization set to "Manual."

Which is about 200 bytes.

[heavy ingot]

Where is this

Also that is PlayerData

Not PlayerObjects

[subtle talon]

Standardised bandwidth limits so no difference

https://creators.vrchat.com/worlds/udon/networking/network-details

Anything Continuous is 200 bytes per serialization

[subtle talon]

Also general curiosity; Is there a zero-gravity "press jump to thrust" prefab floating around somewhere, cause I've seen at least three worlds with it.

[heavy ingot]

Again, the script was marked and was syncing as Manual…

Only saving was acting continuous, I had a friend see if my values were changing over the network, and they were

[arctic anvil]

I'd posted a world for the space jam (https://vrchat.com/home/world/wrld_b4b86ea0-4ac0-4974-9206-ff728b31fdae/info), but I haven't received any feedback on it, nor do I see it posted with the other worlds in the New Horizons, Shared Futures world row.
I don't think it was broken or anything...
Any ideas what happened?

[subtle talon]

I don't think feedback/prizes have gone out yet, I haven't received anything in my inbox yet either.

[tiny vapor]

They announced the winners a few days ago

[lapis kayak]

hmm i don't see your entry on our internal list; did you get a confirmation email awhile ago that @main totem received your entry when you submitted?

[subtle talon]

@lapis kayak Is there any word on when emails with prizes/etc are supposed to go out or is it just a general WIP getting through them all? Just making sure I haven't missed the email or anything.

[lapis kayak]

i believe Gregs was aiming to get emails out THIS WEEK. i dont think they've been sent out yet

[subtle talon]

All good, just wanted to make sure I hadn't missed it or spamfiltered or something.

[lapis kayak]

Gregs will probably post here when emails go out (or I will!)

[main totem]

No worries, didn't copy over when I moved it from the judging excel to what Flare has. Should be up soon!

[main totem]

Just got the trophies done, so should have them to you in the next day or so.

As for feedback, will be prioritizing it for the worlds that need a few things touched up to get showcased.

Then will send it out for everyone else.

[lapis kayak]

adding your world in NHSF now, might take a little while to upload!

[summer verge]

I was wondering too, I didn't hear back from them/VRChat yet so I guess there's a delay?

[lapis kayak]

no emails yet!

[lapis kayak]

i realized your world was still in labs; published to public! You're in the world row now!

[arctic anvil]

Sweet! I see it in the world row now.
Thanks for the help. ^^

[main totem]

Alrighty hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! Been hopping around trying to get all the feedback in order for everyone.

Keep a look out in your inbox from tomorrow.

For those who aren't showcased yet, I'll publish a full list of entries and pass the link over here.

If you haven't gotten feedback on what to polish to get in the world row and you aren't there just DM me when it comes out.

[main totem]

Tomorrow is late at night today for those in the U.S.

Aussie time zones

I guess these will count as late Easter eggs

[plucky carbon]

https://tenor.com/view/damn-bird-legs-gif-7418853116988366584

[subtle talon]

Minor tweak request for the trophies, any chance you could note the category on them as well?

@main totem

[main totem]

Possibly, lemme see what I can do

[subtle talon]

That'd be wonderful. They look amazing!

[slate agate]

this reminds me of last year when my friend rigged the trophy and made it into an avatar

[main totem]

I found that video

Loved it

[tiny vapor]

lmao

[slate agate]

I forgot he made a video for it

https://x.com/Cornfath3r/status/1785724702750646339

Cornfather (@Cornfath3r) on X

I entered the #VRChat spacejam with a group of friends. We didn't win but we did get a nice email and this cool trophy. So I decided it would make a great avatar 🕺

The trophy itself was made by @_SagiChan , I just added arms legs and a face o.o

X · May 1, 2024, 5:35 PM

for those who maybe didn't see it

[subtle talon]

Art

[main totem]

Changed up the naming, to account for this

[main totem]

Alrighty! Emails with the trophies have been sent out.

[main totem]

Feedback sent to those not featured yet, keep a look out for that.

Out side of that we might conclude our feedback to just those who placed and those who need a couple things touched up to be featured.

Think we over estimated the work load to send meaningful feedback to over 50 people, and we don’t want to overextend the generosity of our incredible community judges from last year.

I'll see how hectic things get, but will try and send out feedback from my end as I can, as well as notes left by our judges.

[tawny shore]

Just placing mine in now c:
Edit: world is updated now with it~

[subtle talon]

Placing mine in the Zero-Gym too. With a discreet close-up barrier to prevent anyone wanting to take home a souvenir.

I won't have the Zero-Grove's on display for a bit because I'm in the middle of Adding Things to it.

[subtle talon]

And in my main world (The WhaddaToy Store) because I can.

[tawny shore]

oh those trophy cases look really nice

[subtle talon]

Made them literally just now.

The Zero-Gym one is a repurposed tweak of my vend-o-mat dispenser model, but the Whaddatoy Store ones I knocked out entirely from scratch tonight.

[summer verge]

Are we allowed to re-scale the trophy and make it bigger to fit outside? I don't have a proper place to show it beside in the park

[eternal swift]

I dont think anyone can control what you do with your trophy lol

[slate agate]

if you felt so inclined, you could even turn it into an avatar and make it do a funny dance

[summer verge]

I see, just wanted to make sure lol, thanks!

[main totem]

Yeah go nuts, yours to play with.

Just don't distribute it.

As in the files.

Avatars are fine.

[summer verge]

Alright, thanks! Just updated my world ^^

[main totem]

Post a photo!

[exotic flare]

Spaceeeeeeeeee 🚀

[junior geyser]

I put mine as well

[subtle talon]

Mine's live in the Zero-Grove now, along with a new observation dome module for general stargazing (and a whole bunch of bugfixing). I'm still adding new content to the world too, I just racked up a bunch of bugfixes and figured I should probably get those out first.

[summer verge]

Took the photo but forgot to post it 😅

[subtle talon]

Are the feedback emails still ongoing? I haven't seen anything in my inbox since the trophy one went out.

[main totem]

Yet to send out, just got the last set of information from participants.

So will send it in tandem with confirmation that the prizes have been sent.

[subtle talon]

All good, cheers!

[main totem]

Alrighty, with Space Jam coming to a close this week. I'd like to again thank you all for such awesome worlds! We'll be rolling out VRC+ and cash payments out this week so keep an eye out for those.

[lapis kayak]

VRC+ should be granted to all the accounts listed! Feel free to message me privately if you don't see it.

[eternal swift]

I dont think every person is getting an email, just the ones that had to make adjustments to added to the line up right?

[lapis kayak]

i believe that's right

sorry for not replying! Busy here

[gentle cedar]

=Note=
Original plan for Pride Hub live time is 1pm EST / 10am PST
*As it's plan, it can be changed

[lapis kayak]

we originally said we'd announce Summer Festival Jam details today but it's looking like tomorrow!

https://ask.vrchat.com/t/developer-update-22-may-2025/43959

[lapis kayak]

https://ask.vrchat.com/t/summer-festival-jam-2025-june-23-july-21-2025/44710 ! Making a social post shortly

[tiny vapor]

Yo!

[lapis kayak]

heyo!

[foggy gyro]

Could the winners of last year's Summer Festival Jam get a badge too? I remember hearing we didn't get one because the badge system wasn't done being developed at the time.

[lapis kayak]

if we set up a badge system that can retroactively give to previous winners, we will most likely do that. at this time, that's not possible

[patent swift]

Me after my initial marketplace application was rejected:

[median latch]

Yeah mine was too, but I'm thinking I'm gonna get in. I'm gonna try getting in through the jam but I'm also gonna reapply since they said the reason was my portfolio mostly consistently if preexisting ip. Little do they know I've just been lazy and haven't rendered more avatars for my portfolio lol.

I'm gonna update it with renders of original characters and reapply, and I'm also gonna join the avatar jam

[patent swift]

well at least your rejection makes sense.
I was rejected because I failed the "Engagement Criteria"
like... I've made high quality avatars and stuff. and I won last years spookality, What do you mean I failed the Engagement criteria vrc literally automatically made IOS support for some of my avatars.

[median latch]

Oh damn, I've got no idea there. I know I have engagement in multiple areas though like my avis are used in YouTube videos, and I also have two worlds that are decently popular (one almost always has people in it) and I know I'm kinda riding off of the popularity of preexisting-ips, but it's also made me quite popular for private comms unrelated to those ips, so im not sure if that's why? I didn't win spookality last year though, I was kinda disappointed but I think it's because my scaling-based features, while intricate, weren't visually too obvious

I had 3 of them:

• clothes changed scale inversely with avatar scale. Not 1:1, but generally as you got smaller, the clothes got baggier, and as you got larger they got tighter.
• you could punch the character's head, and the strength of the punch would be determined by the avatar's size. Also if the puncher and punchee were both wearing the avatar, they would send each other their own size over contacts and then the punch multiplier was dependant on height difference as well
• this one was the most obvious, but the scaling was changed to be smoothed out, so when you scale up and down you can see your avatar smoothly change sizes over the course of a second or so, which also helped with seeing the size changes of the clothes

There were other features as well, but i think my problem was that I got ahead of myself and made the design for the avatar before the jam was announced, so I wasn't prepared when they added the scaling feature requirement and had to think of as much as i could to add in. My favorite features though were that you could mix and match a whole bunch of costume clothes, props, hairstyles etc (that was the main idea behind the avatar, that it's a zombie dressed up for halloween), and that the arms were detachable. You can grab one arm and hold it in your other hand, and at the same time still move it around even while it's not connected to your body. It's super fun to play with imo

[patent swift]

well mine would primarily do something along the lines of

[median latch]

Spooky omg

[patent swift]

what perfomance rank did you get?

[median latch]

Medium on quest and I think good or excellent on PC, I can't remember

Can't remember the pc rank, but I know it was medium on quest fs, and the same avatar was on both platforms so it had complete parity

[median latch]

I do really hope they give feedback on jams going forward. Ik it can be difficult, but it's super helpful regardless of if you place

[regal olive]

Is there no world category or am I just blind

[median latch]

i don't believe so, it looks like this jam is only focused on avatars, and they are going to work with some groups to host events later in the summer for the jam (but i don't believe there's any group-based contest)

could always be wrong, but that was my understanding from the announcement

[lapis kayak]

there is no world category for Summer Festival Jam this year!

[lapis kayak]

that's correct, we'll be collaborating with several Groups to run events to promote the avatars that win the jam from Aug 1 - 15. Schedule pending.................... we're still working out the details

[night harbor]

honestly hoping for some more unique jam themes at some point tbh

as far as official ones go all I know of is like 2 summer jams, 2 space jams, and spookality

correct me if im wrong of course

[lapis kayak]

typically we've only hosted Spookality once a year
last year we did Space Jam AND Summer Music Fest Jam, and those were well received so we wanted to bring those back in some way

i'm working on ANOTHER type of jam (maybe two...?) that i'll be able to announce next month

[regal olive]

Where Christmas jam I need it

[lapis kayak]

that might be too stressful for us to host, we already do a lot in December for NYE!

[regal olive]

Understandable

[proud meadow]

is this talking about the timer on the jams page or when the post was made

[proud meadow]

Where to submit -,,-

[lapis kayak]

the start of the jam on the website! we announced a week ahead of the jam submission time

[proud meadow]

ok kewl i submitted my avi ;P

[lapis kayak]

that was so quick!!!!!!

[slate fable]

guy i'm working on

[lapis kayak]

look at this lil fella!!!!!

[rotund crescent]

adorable lil guy

[gaunt lantern]

im making a roguelike system for this and im gonna spend hours in the animator working on all the logic for this since i can only have two contacts on quest for excellent

oh by the way this will be an excellent avatar, forgot to mention that

anyways

pray for me if i don't survive

on a side note i do need enemy type ideas

so far i have crabs, which move side to side and if you bump into them while they're moving you explode.

[lapis kayak]

wait this is an AVATAR??

[gaunt lantern]

yes

[lapis kayak]

pufferfish always blow up in video games... maybe like a mine?

[gaunt lantern]

perfect, thank you

also, here's my avatar's entire texture

for the whole thing

it registers as 0.00mb texture memory for the tester version

ive been considering adding attacks but i might just make it a bullet hell to save on sanity

just "survive and make it to the next room"

this is the avatar i made for it btw, the weight painting sucks ass but what matters most is the friends we made along the way

sorry, got wires crossed,

what matters most is that its a thing i can put the thing on

[median latch]

dude this is awesome

[lapis kayak]

this looks awesome

[gaunt lantern]

crocs.

[gaunt lantern]

collision is gonna kick my ass with this
gonna need so many if room = 1, x>3, x<4 then turn off moving for this direction

[median latch]

i'm sure you could set it up easier with blendtrees somehow

like

okay

set a bounding box based on 4 local parameters

x1, x2, y1, y2

those parameters can then use animations to set their values

then you just create an animation that sets the bounding box for each level

use a parameter for the level

[gaunt lantern]

oooo, that makes sense

[median latch]

and slap it in a 1D blendtree with each animation assigned to its corresponding level

and if you want to make it really easy to set up movement, you can use blendtree math to get the difference between the coords and each of the bounds

now you only have to allow/restrict movement based on a single condition per direction

[gaunt lantern]

i was planning on having it move similarly to helltaker, but with that i could pretty easily set up a much more dynamic range of movement

might take a while to figure it out, but i'll definitely try

[median latch]

ah alright

there's a bunch of ways you could do this

but what i would reccommend is setting up a system where you have to check minimal parameters, and there's some sort of external logic that takes data for the level from an animation and turns it into a few parameters that can give you collision data to inform the movement

[median latch]

this might be a kinda weird question, but what emotes/dances are allowed on jam avatars?

I'd assume the animations have to be:

• VRC Default animations
• Royalty-free/ones you have rights to use
• Original animations
• Not suggestive or violent

I just didn't know if having something like fortnite emotes would be a reason for the avatar to be disqualified, since most of my avatars have them (It's in a "template" action layer I use for all avatars) so I didn't give it a second thought last jam, but now I'm thinking that could have been a problem

if I don't get an answer then I'll try to remove any potentially problematic emotes like "fortnite", "club penguin", or "twerk"

[lapis kayak]

yes, please don't use animations that you don't have permission to use!

[lapis kayak]

as funny as club penguin would be, i think removing those animations would be safer

[median latch]

thank you! ☺️

[median latch]

Here's my wip for the jam :]

fire is looking awesome as well

[lapis kayak]

SO CUTE

[tender ledge]

calcifer?!?!

[unique mural]

does the avatar have to be minimum medium rank on all platforms?

what are android/ios medium requirements in that case?

nvm found it

[random beacon]

Naw

[median latch]

https://creators.vrchat.com/avatars/avatar-performance-ranking-system/pyderpy

Here's the docs on it if anyone is looking

Creator docs are really helpful, I think you all should read them

[median latch]

Does anyone know if having large spawnable props would be okay for an avatar for this jam? the main gimmick for this avatar centers around having camping gear that is used to cook food over a campfire, and that feature is intended to be used in large, open spaces. The biggest things I'm concerned about are the tent (which houses all of the items you can grab) and the table (which has all the toppings you can add to your food)

Here is the avatar standing next to the tent. You can see it has all the props inside (Table, Cooler, Grill, Chair, etc)

[lapis kayak]

i think this is okay!

as long as the avatar is still performant

[median latch]

alright! I just don't want the size of objects like the tent or table to be annoying to other users if people choose to use them in crowded spaces

It's intended to be used in an open space, like on a beach

[median latch]

and yeah, I've somehow kept everything to a medium performance rank on quest 😅 I'm having to utilize a lot of local-only contacts, but everything will be synced with parameters

lots of contacts and lots of constraints 😵‍💫

[patent swift]

Are we allowed to add GogoLoco to our Summerjam Submissions? Previous jam winners had it. Is it just we can’t use the gogo loco with flight?

[lapis kayak]

including GogoLoco is fine, just not GogoLoco Flight!

[patent swift]

noted. also, are we allowed to include Seats?

[lapis kayak]

like for Stations? I think thats also okay, as long as the avatar is performant! remember that the more systems you add, the more complex your bug testing will have to be

[gloomy spire]

This may be a dumb question but are we allowed to manually adjust the avatar's bounding box to be smaller to get a good performance rank

[past elbow]

If the player's view can't see the bounding box then the avatar won't render. So I'd check angles of your avatar to be sure it doesn't cull earlier than it should if you reduce the size.

[gloomy spire]

i get that but i have one port that sticks out more the rest of the mesh, increasing the default bounding box and putting the avatar at medium rank so i decresed the bounding box size to get a good rank but now port of the mesh sticks out of the bounding box and i was wandering if haveing ports sticking out of the bounding box is allowed or not

[past elbow]

i don't see why it wouldn't be allowed. you are compromising the visibility of the avatar at certain angles for better performance (slightly) but to vrc's avatar ranks it is better.

[gloomy spire]

ok thank you helps a lot

[median latch]

I think I'm pushing the new toon standard shader to it's limits with this jam avatar lol

I'm using like every axis of multiple maps and a lot of separate UV tiles so I can have separate left and right hand highlights for different objects (so you know which one you're gonna grab), ability to cook 3 different food items, hueshift for the emissions (I wanted to use it for the highlights so bad but I had to settle with two intensities of the same color 😔)

The only reason I couldn't use the hueshift for highlights is because then I would have no way to mask the areas with emissions properly. They'd either hueshift the albedo when they weren't supposed to, or the emissions wouldn't hueshift. This is because there's only one hueshift mask for all hueshift sliders.

But it's okay, I'm using a solid color matcap texture and then a matcap mask with a vertical and horizontal strip, with the latter at 50% opacity. Then I'm using texture offset to animate each axis separately, so the strong highlight means you're about to grab it with your right hand, while the dim one is with your left hand.

I'm probably gonna add a toggle to turn off the highlights and also one to switch the "dominant" hand just for preference's sake

Gotta finish up this cooking system soon though because I'm gonna need to bug test the hell out of this

I'll get my friends together so we can stress test it and try to list all the issues and get to fixin

If I can get that finished in time, then I may see if i can add a little instruction toggle that explains how the system works with a little pop-up image (although it should be mostly intuitive), and then I'm gonna bake the normals and AO.

And if I can get that all finished with time to spare, then I will try maybe adding a station to the folding chair

Stations are always so finicky though, I can never get them to work right. People always end up sitting in the middle of the air or under the ground or whatever.

[unkempt inlet]

When it says it needs to be a medium and under and cross platform

does that mean medium only on the pc ranking? can it be medium on pc and very pooor on qquest (say uploading the exact same thing onto quest and pc. or does it need a seperate quest version?

[lapis kayak]

preferably it's Medium or better on both platforms. The avatar should be cross-platform itself, meaning you upload both versions to the same id

[unkempt inlet]

So if i made a medium (pc) avatar, i'd need to make a more optimised version to upload onto quest, since medium on pc counts as very poor (quest) ?

[lapis kayak]

let me double check to be safe, i THINK some of our winners last year had Poor on Quest and it was fine. We're just trying to avoid Very Poor

[unkempt inlet]

Ahh i see
So same kinda system as the marketplace avatars? Poor and under on quest and medium and under on pc preferbly? :o

[lapis kayak]

okay apparently i misremembered; all entries were Medium or better on BOTH PC & Quest

[unkempt inlet]

Ahhh oki! Thanks ^-^

Oh! And another question

It says on the rules to not advertise offplatform stores, say if the entry is a demo for a more complex avatar

Does that also count towards the marketplace?

[lapis kayak]

meaning you'd like to link towards a marketplace avatar?

[unkempt inlet]

Say i had it as a public demo, but wanted to promote a paid vrc marketplace version (fax wasnt sure when asking and said to ask in a forum or such about the jam)

(but i couldnt find a forum to ask about it, only here 😅)

[lapis kayak]

that's a good question... let me ask internally too!

i IMAGINE we'd encourage you to link to a marketplace avatar, but we don't really have a good way to do that right now

[lapis kayak]

you can promote the marketplace version on the web of the demo version, just not link to another storefront! We will ONLY be judging the free version submitted to the jam however

[patent trench]

This is a stellar idea

Excited about this year's summer jam! Using it as an excuse to finally collab with some friends :)

[patent trench]

I remember ur wip last week!!! Can't wait to see the final version, its gonna be so cool 🔥

Your stuff is always so innovative

[patent trench]

If this isn't on theme for the jam idk what is 🏕️ 🏖️

[viral nimbus]

With the Current Jam Requirements

When it says to build for andriod and IOS does that require the IOS unity package and then just uploading the avi with the VRC mobile shaders?

I'm assuming it's something along these lines

[lapis kayak]

yes that's right!

it should be very easy to build for iOS

it's just another platform tick

[viral nimbus]

perfect - thanks!!

[proper citrus]

Heres a avatar that I might use for the summer jam

Not fully done yet

Still missing arms and teeth and some other stuff

[hallow granite]

I loved the colors

[proper citrus]

I got the model triangles under 7500 but the model still has more than one material slot

I can remove one of them but I still need one for the glasses

[lapis kayak]

this is so rad, i love it!

[median latch]

Why do you need one for the glasses?

I can help you optimize a bit if you want to get it to good or excellent

[proper citrus]

Im using a matcap on the glasses to get this effect

[median latch]

Oh okay, try using toon standard. This way you can create a matcap mask and reduce it to 1 material

If you set the shading to "flat" it should look identical to toon lit

And matcap lit where the matcap is masked in

[proper citrus]

Wow you can make a mask for the matcap

I did not know that

[median latch]

Yeah! Toon standard has a LOT of features, both brand new and good for optimization

[proper citrus]

Im only now trying to use toon standard

I did not know it had so much stuff

Now it works

Thanks

[lapis kayak]

teamwork!!!!

[median latch]

this is super cool btw!!

i love your avatar :D

I'm a little stressed trying to bug fix in time but I'm excited to see the entries and winners!

[proper citrus]

Thanks yours look cool too

[proper citrus]

What kind of bug?

[median latch]

oh lots of bugs

i'm making an interactive cooking system and there's a lot of stuff that is going wrong lol

the things are hard to grab, they don't sync positions correctly, the hightlight system (to tell you which object you're grabbing, it highlights it blue) doesn't work at all, the ketchup and mustard don't work, sometimes when you grab an object it goes to the wrong hand, and sometimes everything turns completely red 🙃

and there's a bunch more small things

but those are the big issues

[proper citrus]

Oh

[median latch]

i gotta lock in lol

[proper citrus]

I want to add some item toggles to my avatar but I dont want to go over 7500 triangles

But I will find a way to do it

[median latch]

it's definitely harder with outlines

that's why I don't have them on mine

[proper citrus]

Well I also dont have outlines

Atleast for quest

[median latch]

ohh

you should be alright then

just make everything tastefully low poly

[proper citrus]

I want to make a water gun

[median latch]

you might have to reduce the poly count on the main part of your avi

I'd just recommend finding dense areas, especially areas that don't contribute heavily to the silhouette and aren't necessary for supporting deformation

[median latch]

also it would be so cool if you could actually shoot water

there's not really a way to detect world collision without particles (which makes it poor on quest), buuut you could use a world constraint and animate with like blendshapes and bones, and stop the movement on the animation if it hits one of the default colliders with a contact

[proper citrus]

Yeah I want to use particles

[median latch]

so like detect for head, torso, etc, then when that happens set a float parameter to 0. This will be used as a multiplier for the animation that moves the water forward, and then play an animation for a splash. So something like this:

• Pull trigger
• Water "root bone" enables "freeze to world"
• Blendshapes and/or bones animate the water moving forward w/ a contact matching the end of the stream (this animation uses a float for the multiplier. By default set to 1)
• When the contact receiver hits a default collider, it sets the float to 0 with a parameter driver, which stops the animation where it's at, and also plays a splash animation
• Water disappears

this is how I'd do it if you wanted to avoid using particles, which will kill your perf rank on PC if you want world collision, and won't be allowed on Quest at all (since it's automatically poor if you have any particles)

I am definitely pushing the limits of quest medium lol

Kinda have to in order to get all the features I want in

[unkempt inlet]

is the minimum height recomended, or minimum minimum

a freind is doing a chibbi child avatar, so it looks strange being aldult height chibbi (they are on the right)

[median latch]

not staff so don't take this as a sure answer, but my guess is a little shorter is fine, but not too much. The wording makes it seem like it's not strict, but I wouldn't go lower than 4ft (about 1.21 meters)

they're supposed to be around the height of a person, which is typically between 5-6ft

for reference within VRChat, the player collider is 1.65m, or 5'4"

[proper citrus]

Hey are there any ways to use transparency or particle textures on the toon standard shader?

[patent swift]

Sorry but they reminded me of a Meme

[patent swift]

Not to my Knowledge

[proper citrus]

Then im not really sure how I would make the water effect without going over good

[lapis kayak]

this is correct, we just want to make sure the avatar isn't ridiculously small or large to the point where it's jarring for new users. The public row tends to be new users' first experience trying on an avatar in VRChat.

So it's okay if you're a little shorter or a little taller than the range, as long as you're not like... down to the knees

[proper citrus]

I might have found a way to do it

Yeah this kinda works

[proper citrus]

Im gonna be adding more skins

[gloomy spire]

I made a Protogen sand sculpture and wanted him to look like he was built from whatever was just lying around the beach. He has seaweed hair, old flip-flops for ears, and seashells for his lower arms and hands. For his mouth, I used sticks. I also added lots of other shells all over his body to complete the look. His tail is made to look like a rolled-up towel. For his thighs, I used old driftwood that someone painted on

[median latch]

not sure if this is what you're doing or not, but if you wanted to have full customizability on those colors, you can make a gradient texture that has brightness on one axis, and saturation on the other (just use red), then animate the offset on each axis independently for the detail and albedo. Then the glasses and life saver would be on the detail texture (using a detail mask) and you can use texture offset + hue shift to get full control over the color for both items on both PC and Quest in just one material

here's one I made real quick (64x64)

X axis = Saturation
Y axis = Brightness

so texture offset + hueshift means you can get any color

then if you separate it by main albedo and detail albedo, you get this option for two colors on one material

I would use these settings to get the best look

here's a video demonstration of how this works

[proper citrus]

I think I got it working

Using a mask on the hue shift

[proper citrus]

Added the color changing

[lapis kayak]

seeing everyone's progress is so rad!!!

[slate fable]

couldn't find any sort of cutout/transparency material for quest so had to remake the entire face spritesheet out of polygons lol

[median latch]

if it's entirely black you can use vrchat/mobile/particles/multiply

[slate fable]

render for the thumbnail because i wanted to try something new

[median latch]

https://feedback.vrchat.com/website/p/jam-entry-incorrectly-limits-which-content-can-be-submitted

[unkempt inlet]

multiply or additive acts like transparent on quest. they brighten or darken things behind them, so not true transparent, but looks like it! ^o^

[lapis kayak]

answered on Canny!

[median latch]

Ah alright, there's still an inconsistency then since the wording doesn't match the allowed avatars, but thank you for the response! ^^

[median latch]

food for my avatar 😋

yummy polygons

[median latch]

jsyk, you can use rtf tags to change the formatting of menu text

i think it would be nice to add to your menu

https://web.archive.org/web/20250623041550/http://digitalnativestudios.com/textmeshpro/docs/rich-text/

here is some documentation on it, but keep in mind you can't use all of these (like sprite or font)

[median latch]

here's how I'm using it on my avatar. My favorite is the rainbow effect!

[proper citrus]

Oh cool I never knew that

Did you get everything working on your avatar?

[patent trench]

I just uploaded my avatar, but when I upload for iOS, the website says "failed security checks" for android/ios. Hoping this doesn't disqualify me 🤞
I know uploading for iOS is a requirement

I tried uploading it individually, and with both android/ios together, and it either says failed security check, or the ios support doesn't appear

[lapis kayak]

Summer Festival Jam is closing submissions on July 21 at 11:59pm PST! Get your avatar submissions in!

[lapis kayak]

what's the avatar id? I can investigate if it's something on our end

[median latch]

yeah, just got like one more thing i decided to add last minute

did some testing with other people and they said it wasn't intuitive, so I'm adding a little guidebook prop that should help with understanding how to use the cooking system

[modern lodge]

yo

[modern lodge]

hows it going

[median latch]

pretty good, just working out some small things and like edge-case bugs but overall it's working correctly

[patent trench]

avtr_eb027a7a-384e-4866-86cc-a49c47113b79

OH but nvm, I just did a final upload for iOS and it looks like it's all working now 😅

[patent trench]

omg sameee yeah, this is relatable lol

whew, I know there's a few hrs left, but that felt close, good luck to everyone!

[plucky ermine]

I cant find anything in the terms of service, are updates to the avatar ID allowed after initial submission?

[unkempt inlet]

Same question

Was gonna ask, are we allowed to update the vaatar after the deadline? Say we find a small bug and such?

[lapis kayak]

yes you can still update your submission after the deadline BUT I cannot guarantee we will see it after you edit. Judging takes place from now until the 31st, so we'll be reviewing avatars over the next week. I would recommend getting your fixes in sooner than later.

I highly encourage everyone to be careful about uploading fixes in case it breaks something else, but if it's a major bug I understand updating it! Just let me know!

[lapis kayak]

bump^

[plucky ermine]

Thank you!
Our submission was rushed last minute because of a vrchat bug throwing a wrench in it. Our submission message was also incredibly non-descriptive (only a sentence or two) because of the rush. We (RiceBaller3d and I) did a 2 person collaborative submission, but I was unable to put her name in for that. Will that be any issue?

-# <canny in question https://feedback.vrchat.com/bug-reports/p/animator-doesnt-run-when-offscreen >

[lapis kayak]

no issue, as long as you credit your collaborator and let us know who you're splitting the VRC+ with at the end if you win, there's no issue.

[patent trench]

Oh, I listed my collaborators in the attributions, but idk if it matches their VRC username

I figured If I place we'd cross that bridge when it comes time

[lapis kayak]

yeah thats fine

[patent trench]

Scweet, thx for confirming :)

Happy judging! Hope it goes smoothly <3

[hoary magnet]

I pushed a fix to a toggle bug on the snorkle on my model. Just letting you know if the judges already looked at it!

[median latch]

I'm curious how many entries there were for this jam 🤔

[lapis kayak]

not counting the rejections i had to roll out, we have 52 eligible entries this year!

[median latch]

Oh wow! These jams keep getting more and more popular!

[merry shore]

I'm glad I was able to participate, even if it was in a limited way. Visemes are fun.

[median latch]

Ooh did you do something interesting with the visemes?

[merry shore]

Not as wild as some stuff I've done, I just took some time to make sure they were properly expensive and fit the vibe of the character. It's my formal opinion that most avatars fall flat on their visemes, mostly due to a lack of understanding on how they work and how we read faces as people.

I didn't use mixed bone based and shapekwy based visemes this time. Mostly cause I didn't have time, lmao.

But baking in the "fun loving muscle guy" personality into the visemes was fun, and a challenge since the model doesn't have lips and has those huge scraggly teeth.

[median latch]

Oh sweet! If you don't mind, could you send the link to the avatar so I can check it out? ^^

[proper citrus]

My friend pointed out that the water gun was broken but it should be fixed now

[patent trench]

https://vrchat.com/home/avatar/avtr_eb027a7a-384e-4866-86cc-a49c47113b79

Dis 1!
We worked together on it ( @merry shore , and @absentezygote whos not in here afaik)

[median latch]

Ooh okay!!! I'll check him out in a bit :D

[lapis kayak]

Just wanted to share that we just finished judging! Preliminary scores are in, I just need to review the scores and make sure the weighting is appropriate. We had to test against a variety of platforms at the same time to make sure the avatars worked cross-platform as expected, and we had a lot of fun trying on all your avatars!

Don't worry if you don't see yours pictured here, this is just a snippet from our judging panel earlier today

Winners will be announced on Aug 1!

[median latch]

Awesome!! So excited to see the results!!

[hallow granite]

me too

[cunning depot]

We’re on the Jumbotron!!!
(Pretend it’s in excited all caps, the bot told me I can’t type in caps lmao)

[median latch]

Haha yeah!! It's cool to see the judges wearing my avatar lol

[patent trench]

it looks so good!! I can't wait to try it :D

and yours @cunning depot !
that crabby is sooo cute! Definitely getting favorited asap

[lapis kayak]

@median latch do you mind if I DM you about your entry

it looks like i can't DM you at the moment

[median latch]

Oh, sure! Give me a second

Sorry I'm not entirely sure what I need to do to allow dms, I thought they were on for server members 😅

[lapis kayak]

do you mind if i friend you? haha

[median latch]

Sure!

[lapis kayak]

you can unfriend me after if you're not comfortable with it, i promise

[merry shore]

I'm stoked to see the results, NGL.

[lapis kayak]

some of these votes are really close... we actually are waiting on some final decisions from judges for some entries that are tied

[lapis kayak]

does your friend have Discord, and would i be able to contact them about Slippy? We have a few questions

[unkempt inlet]

yup! I can Dm it to you ^o^

[lapis kayak]

thank you!

[cunning depot]

@lapis kayak I have a question about avatar platforms regarding the jam. Can I dm you by chance?

[gloomy spire]

I'm ready for August 1st. I got my celebration/consolation ice cream and extra candy to put on top

[patent swift]

I got paranoia

[lapis kayak]

go for it!

[patent swift]

Paranoia and Dread

[cunning depot]

Ahh! Your DMs are limited, I think! Do I have to send a friend req first?

[lapis kayak]

are you sure it's not your settings? I can't send you one either

i have it so anyone from any mutual server can message me

[gentle cedar]

make sure all set correctly

[cunning depot]

Yep they’d both on for me! 🤔

[lapis kayak]

they're all on for me too

[cunning depot]

That’s strange!
I suppose I could ask here-

I had just realized I’d forgotten to upload my avi for the iOS platform, is it too late to do so or can I get that done real quick?

[lapis kayak]

in a meeting rn, i'll answer in a bit

[cunning depot]

Np!

[lapis kayak]

unfortunately we've already concluded judging and are moving onto the final tally stage. technically, entries are meant to be "locked in" by the end submission date, but with the way our current system works, people can still update their submitted models throughout the judging period. If you had updated your model last week, it might have made it in time for the judging :'( I apologize!

[cunning depot]

I see. Thank you for your answer.

[lapis kayak]

ideally (and maybe if we can get a tools engineer on it 🤞 ) we'd have a check when you're submitting the avatar to ensure it's uploaded for all the required platforms. there were a few entries that were missing Quest and iOS versions actually.

[cunning depot]

Yeah it was just a mistake cause I hadn’t uploaded to iOS before and had forgotten to grab the new platform package for it.

[lapis kayak]

i understand :( maybe next time!

[turbid pine]

had super fun making an avatar for the jam I learned so much, really looking forward to the next one. will it be for halloween?

[hallow granite]

I also learned a lot, and it was a lot of fun to see other people sharing their processes here, it was my first contest, but it probably won't be the last

[lapis kayak]

yes the next avatar (& world) Jam is Spookality!

[lapis kayak]

it was really touching to see some people's first-ever attempts at a 3d model. Some of the entries said things like "I know this won't win, but I had fun making it" and i just wanted to shake them and say like "DONT TALK YOURSELF OUT OF WINNING, YOU NEVER KNOW! SUBMITTING IS THE HARDEST PART!"

if i could feature ALL the avatars, i would

even the texas flag one (you know who you are)

[hallow granite]

Yeah, you are right

[hallow granite]

I'm curious about the texas flag now hahahaha

[slate agate]

very true, it's a victory in it of itself just to submit something
I've created over twice as many worlds as I have submitted for jams

[eager owl]

Do we have an idea what time announcements are
(Sorry if it’s been asked I’m at work so have limited phone access)

[median latch]

I wish, I want to see all of them!!

Honestly anyone who doesn't win should post their avatars here (or dm them to me) so I can still check them out lol

I'm just so excited to see all the submissions

[lapis kayak]

i'm aiming to announce around this time:
<t:1754078400:F>

[median latch]

I'm excited for spookality too! I think I jumped the gun a little bit last time and tried to design something a few days before, so I was caught off-guard by the scale parameter thing, but now that I know that these technical themes may be in future jams, I'm honestly quite excited to design with those in mind

The only one that kind of deterred me though was last year's summer jam, since I'd never worked with audiolink before and I preferred to make avatars with 100% quest parity (since that's that platform I play on)

[lapis kayak]

yessss everyone should post their avatars! Maybe if everyone is okay with it, i post all of the entries here in Discord once the jam is over

there are some avatars i probably shouldn't post though... like the IP infringing ones

[median latch]

That would be awesome!! I'd love a chance to see everyone's entries :D

[lapis kayak]

[median latch]

Ah yeah, that i understand lol

[lapis kayak]

actually i'm not sure if some people would be comfortable with me sharing their avatar without their permission, so i'll just let everyone share their own to be safe

[nimble hemlock]

Am I allowed to photodump a few pictures of my summer jam submission? I think it came out so nicely but I never got a good chance to share it anywhere

[median latch]

I don't see why not, I did that a little while ago. You could also share in #avatar-showcase
-# (Obligatory "I'm not staff" so don't take my answer as gospel)

[nimble hemlock]

Heh I’ll take the go ahead from anyone

I’m actually so nervous reguarding the whole jam since this is my first non spookality jam I’ve joined and my first time making an avatar in this style

[median latch]

Oh this is super cool!!! I love the guitar :3

[nimble hemlock]

☝️🤓 errm actually it’s a bass. It clearly has four strings on it, not six like a normal guitar has

[cunning oriole]

Cool cat

[median latch]

Bass guitar 😌

[nimble hemlock]

Oh whatever .^.

[gloomy spire]

Now I want to share mine. This is my sand sculpture protogen i made for the jam. He's made from random stuff on the beach his hair is sea weed, his hands are shells, he's got red sand buckets attaching his limbs and he's got flip-flops for ears his tail is a rolled-up beach towel and he's got shells all over him as well. You and anyone you have interactions on with can grab and pull off his arms legs or tail and run off with them and i added 16 different things you can have on his thigh bords and i made a nose boop that uses shapes kays so it works on quest and i added a wave and surf bord so you can surf whenever you want :D

[hallow granite]

Duuude, can you pick all your members?! This function looks very funny

[gloomy spire]

it's Even Funnier when you have more than one person with the avatar because you can grab their arm then use your grabbed arm to grab their other arm and keep chaining it at one point we had a chain of think like 7 arms and one leg at the end

[hallow granite]

Wooow, amazing hahahah

[gloomy spire]

here you can try him if you want https://vrchat.com/home/avatar/avtr_41357a9c-b1c8-43ef-a34f-5a5ddaaa29c8

[nimble hemlock]

Looks so cool (and yummy (I eat sand))

[hallow granite]

Cool, I will

[hallow granite]

Yuck, durty cats 😒

[gloomy spire]

lol don't eat sand you will get sick

[nimble hemlock]

Nah :3

[median latch]

I love the detachable limbs!! This was actually something I did on my spookality entry last year for a zombie avatar as well :D

Originally it was supposed to include the legs too, but I ran out of contacts 😅

I would have used local-only contacts, but that wasn't a thing yet

[hallow granite]

Cool, I didn't know it's possible until now

[gloomy spire]

Mine works useing phz bones, so either players can grab the limbs off. That's also how I can get past the contact limit

[hallow granite]

I would like to share my avatar too, look my fish

https://vrchat.com/home/avatar/avtr_f9857ea4-ecd6-4912-99a6-54e1ae515be6

[gloomy spire]

ill have to try him next time i play

[patent swift]

well I guess if we're sharing avatars now

https://vrchat.com/home/avatar/avtr_3f1fe0bd-b9ee-456b-a676-5a1f2c27650c

I have a feeling he'll lose. But I technically finished him on the 4th of July, there were just some final updates I had to do.
I didn't want to post about them because I was worried about a couple of things. But there's nothing that can change now.

[turbid pine]

Here’s Flora! I made them for the jam. It’s my first complete avatar so i learned a lot. Due to time constraints i colored them using vertex color. I’m planning on adding face tracking and the option to make the big flower skirt a bit smaller. Eventually I'll add a hue shift as well, so you can change the color of the flower!

Flora by asogaut https://vrchat.com/home/avatar/avtr_97c5259d-93cc-4868-918d-ef236877cb2b

You can also change the size of the 🌱with a radial menu!

[plucky ermine]

I really like the style of how the thumbnail looks. Love the low poly

[hallow granite]

So cute 😍

[turbid pine]

Thank youuu!

[median latch]

Yeah, I know, I was also out of physbones lol

[gloomy spire]

oh i see lol

[patent perch]

me and my friend Gumboisland collabed for the jam!

fully functional grill and burger building system and a customizable cat with 16 color options! all quest compatible with full parity!

[slate agate]

paws be damned this cat can work a grill

[patent perch]

this was so much fun to work on :D We had to really challenge ourselves to make it quest focused so PC and quest users could have the same experience, and no friends got left out when grilln!

[cunning depot]

You might want to…look into whether or not you’re anemic???

[cunning depot]

That’s incredible! Is it done with contacts?

[median latch]

Mine is pretty similar haha 😅 it's a living campfire that has camping gear and can cook a cheeseburger, hotdog, and smores :D

https://vrchat.com/home/avatar/avtr_cadb00d5-d93f-4414-8a50-f9344b50091d

[plucky ermine]

Many local-only contacts, yes! Only one or two non-local ones. Also like... 30 constraints

[cunning depot]

Raaad!!!! I’m very impressed by the stacking mechanic

[lapis kayak]

what if i

posted the winners like 2 hours early-

[nimble hemlock]

do it

[gloomy spire]

do it

[nimble hemlock]

do the funny :3

[hallow granite]

Playing with our feelings, oh my heart 😵

[lapis kayak]

https://ask.vrchat.com/t/summer-festival-jam-2025-winners/45922

here we are!

[lapis kayak]

oop

bonked

watch the caps haha

[gloomy spire]

me rn

[nimble hemlock]

hekk yea, friend congrats on the win :3

[gloomy spire]

ty ty time for ice cream

[nimble hemlock]

yo can i have some?

[gloomy spire]

no

@hallow granite con grats

[hallow granite]

Cooool, I'm so happy 🙂 Congrats to all 🎉

[median latch]

I'm excited to check out all the other winners' submissions!!

[hallow granite]

Thank you, congrats @gloomy spire

[median latch]

Also probably gonna work on another avi for the other avatar row as well

I think I'm going to use a scrapped concept from this jam that I came up with

[eager owl]

https://tenor.com/view/anime-tomo-chan-is-a-girl-jun-blink-shock-gif-12054198404294031239

I was dead ass in the car talking to my fiancé about how I thought I lost

Aaaaahhh

[gloomy spire]

con grats

[lapis kayak]

just awarded badges, this was my first time doing it so let me know if it's a little wonky!

[eager owl]

Thank you ;w;

Congrats to all the winners ^w^

[lapis kayak]

Congrats to all the winners!
And special shoutout to everyone who submitted SOMETHING; i know it's not easy to make an avatar in the time allotted, but you all did it!

[patent perch]

it was a very fun challenge and im happy I joined :D

[turbid pine]

Congrats all!!!!

Happy a member of my community won, we worked on our models during a 48 hour jam! The bucketshark :3

[slate agate]

bucketshark creator is one of my best buds lol, so happy to see him win

[turbid pine]

Ooooh

[slate agate]

because winners were announced early though I don't know if he's seen it yet lol
I told him they would be revealed at the previously expected time

[fossil sparrow]

congrats to the winners!

my entry sadly didn't place but i'm glad i was motivated to make something either way :] here's the avatar in case anybody wants to give it a whirl
https://vrchat.com/home/avatar/avtr_80d8f1a6-ca35-4a0b-9c8c-47c18a16163a

[lapis kayak]

I LOVED YOUR AVATAR

i was obsessed with the sprout

it was such a cute idea

[fossil sparrow]

hahah thank you!

[lapis kayak]

the straw was also very fun to play with

[fossil sparrow]

i realized halfway through that i wasn't making something that intensely summer themed but i still really liked it for what it was

glad i managed to finish and submit it

[eager owl]

This is really cute!!

[fossil sparrow]

ty ty hi chili

congrats on placing

your bunny looks awesome

[eager owl]

Hi Big! Lol

Ty!! It means a lot

I’m happy cause with the chili mango skin I feel like I managed to squeeze in a tiny shout out to my heritage ^w^

I wish I actually liked chili mango candy tho lol
Idea is great, my taste buds just freak out

Also @lapis kayak is it okay if I ask you something about the AVM fastrack? I can DM if that works

[patent swift]

https://tenor.com/view/mario-strikers-battle-league-wario-money-raining-money-cash-gif-25951855

[lapis kayak]

here or in DM's is fine

[patent swift]

love it when I’m wrong

[fossil sparrow]

yess that one's my favourite

[patent trench]

Congrats to the winners! So many fun avis <33

[turbid pine]

Nice sprout 🌱

[cunning depot]

Omg I made ittt!!! Seafoam, my babyyy!!!!

[gloomy spire]

hay @lapis kayak , question for the Opportunity to submit an avatar to be featured in the special Summer Festival row at the end of August are there specific requirements we need for the avatar like summer themed or size limits or can it just be any avatar?

[lapis kayak]

hiya hiya, they should be summer-themed, but otherwise the usual Avatar Marketplace rules apply (Poor or better, must be SFW, no GogoLoco Flight, etc)
There will be more details in the Avatar Marketplace Discord when you get invited there!

[gloomy spire]

thank you for the info

[cunning depot]

Oh the summer festival avis is a separate one?

See if I can make a fast summer UFOcto lol

[turbid pine]

I'm happy that I can finally add my updates so actually not sad about not winning, I have so many ideas and stuff I wanna fix haha

[median latch]

Do you know when/where we will get more details? Would it be through the email associated with our vrchat accounts?

[lapis kayak]

yes so we'll be inviting people next week (Around next Tuesday) to the AVM Sellers Discord and asking for information on who your major avatar contributors were for splitting the VRC+ and things like that! We have Monday off, so Tuesday is the next soonest day

[heady bane]

Lord i feel that
This was my entry as well, her names Melony! shes just a silly beach babe fruit xD https://vrchat.com/home/avatar/avtr_f5a386db-9d77-4c52-ae3b-f7a11de13fd1

[tropic tangle]

gj everyone :3 lots of very cool avatars

[median latch]

Does anyone know what these numbers next to the avatars are?

[fossil sparrow]

it means how many times someone has clicked on the link

[heady bane]

Im very keen for the feedback, we might have lost this time but maybe next time we can get our redemption haha !! 🤣 everyone did so good! congratulations all!!

[heady bane]

Honestly my favorite! gave me alot of ideas

[lapis kayak]

Reminder that we have the day off today at VRChat (Canadian holiday) so i'll start working on feedback/coordination emails tomorrow!

[pine magnet]

<@&397642795457970181>

[lapis kayak]

Sent out prize emails to coordinate with the winners! Check your email!

[patent trench]

I really like this guy a lot!!! feels like he would be friends with the fish avis I make c:

[jade mountain]

Hello, for the filmmakers Jam are we allowed to use music that has had its copyright expire, like a composition from the 1930s?

[hallow granite]

Of course they would hahaha

[urban yew]

Hey hey, I was wondering if you also give feedback emails to creators who didn't win?

[lapis kayak]

those haven't been sent out yet! I'm aiming for next week at this rate, i've been busy with other things OTL Sorry about that!

[lapis kayak]

that's probably fine!

[unkempt inlet]

I realised I'd never messaged here! I'm honestly really happy i made it! ^o^ THanks so much!!
i found out though receiving the badge ingame when with some friends after I'd just hosted an event (got to record my reaction/freak out as i had my clipper on still hehe x3)
Everyone did such an amazing job!!! I'm so happy my friend I persuaded to participate too also got in!! :D

[lapis kayak]

NOTICE: As I'm preparing to send out feedback to everyone who submitted to the jam, some of you have deleted your avatars! Note that as a result I'm unable to send out an email to those who deleted the avatar entry from VRChat.

[hoary magnet]

Did the feedback emails go out yet?

[heady bane]

I think we are still waiting! I havent received mine either 🙂

[lapis kayak]

still waiting >< I was hoping to hear back from someone to review it. Worst case scenario you all get it on Monday!

[hoary magnet]

gotcha, ty for following up

[split reef]

Hi, is it to late to subscribe to the VR film jam?

[slate agate]

The Film Jam is ongoing until September 1st, so you've still got time
https://ask.vrchat.com/t/film-jam-2025-august-4-september-1-2025/45595

[lapis kayak]

Feedback for Summer Festival Jam is now being sent out through Mailchimp!

[lapis kayak]

not too late at all! I highly recommend checking out the Filmmakers of VRChat Discord to find a team and attend workshops if you're new!

[split reef]

Do you have the link to the filmmakers group by any chance thanks!

[fossil sparrow]

the bottom of the feedback email says to reach out to "this email" to provide feedback, is that referring to the mailchimp address in the "reply-to" field or the "[e-mail]" address the email is being sent from? I just want to make sure my feedback is going to the right place

[lapis kayak]

i'm pretty sure as long as you Reply to the email, it should go to our inbox!

[fossil sparrow]

cool, thanks

[lapis kayak]

https://discord.gg/5FG774BT

[split reef]

It says invalid invitation 🙁

[lapis kayak]

uh oh

there should be another one here:
https://ask.vrchat.com/t/film-jam-2025-august-4-september-1-2025/45595

[lapis kayak]

try this! ^

[split reef]

thanks ^^

[heady bane]

My feedback came in recently, might be worth checking if yours came in as well

[lapis kayak]

Responding to some VRChat Summer Festival emails, I just want to say thank you all for being honest with me! It's really important that we get this kind of feedback on the jams so we can improve. I think we've done better every year, but it sounds like some of the feedback this year was lacking. For additional context, we actually have a short cc limit on Mailchimp for sending out feedback, so this is one of the biggest blockers for writing up meaningful feedback. I also recognize that a lot of artists were hoping for more actionable feedback on how to improve for future jams.

take a shot every time i say feedback, geez

don't actually, we don't condone alcohol use

[hoary magnet]

Also I don't plan on releasing this, but this was also my entry into the jam Mish:

[heady bane]

That makes a lot of sense, knowing there’s a character limit on Mailchimp—I really appreciate the feedback nonetheless! As someone on the losing side, my biggest prize is receiving feedback from the judges and the team on where I can improve. I value the advice more than anything (even the winning prize) because I want to grow, and it means a lot to know that those offering critique share in my passion!! So again, thankyou so much and il catch you all at the Halloween Jam 🥳

[unique mural]

I was gonna make one of these guys as an avi but I got busy

My hours are being cut bc summer is ending so I might be able to haha... 😭

[gentle cedar]

https://fxtwitter.com/i/status/1962199815598522747/

VRChat (@VRChat)

LAST DAY TO SUBMIT TO FILM JAM!!
︀︀
︀︀Submissions close on Sept 1 at 11:59pm PDT.
︀︀
︀︀Submit your films using the form linked here: ask.vrchat.com/t/film-jam-2025-august-4-september-1-2025/45595

Quoting VRChat (@VRChat)
︀
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION - we're hosting our first ever Film Jam! Open to all experience levels.
︀︀
︀︀Read our blog post for more info: ask.vrchat.com/t/film-jam-2025-august-4-september-1-2025/45595

**❤️ 5 👁️ 1.0K **

▶ Play video

FxTwitter · Aug 31, 2025, 5:04 PM

[lapis kayak]

Winners for Film Jam will be announced around 1pm EST today!

[lapis kayak]

waiting for final sign off on the post....

WINNERS FOR FILM JAM 2025! Read our blog post below to see the winners and honorable mentions!

https://ask.vrchat.com/t/film-jam-2025-winners/46660

Thank you to everyone who submitted a film this year. We hope you continue creating wonderful films outside of Film Jam!

[lapis kayak]

Winners' emails have been sent out this morning!

[gentle cedar]

https://fxtwitter.com/i/status/1968025997518967002/

VRChat (@VRChat)

Spookality announcement is tomorrow👻

**🔁 1 ❤️ 7 👁️ 55 **

FxTwitter · Sep 16, 2025, 6:55 PM

[regal olive]

oh shizzzzzz

time to get spooky

[lapis kayak]

Spookality 2025 starts on Sept 22! The theme is: ANALOG HORROR.

Read our blog post for more info: https://ask.vrchat.com/t/spookality-2025-jam/46681

[zealous otter]

Question for the world portion of the jam: is it preferred to make a brand new world within the time span, or could we majorly update an existing world that already fits that theme lol 👀

Ah! scratch that, just read the "worlds must have been uploaded after the start of the jam"

[tiny vapor]

Do we need to wait until the 22nd to start?

[tawny shore]

Are there plans to feature other horror worlds outside of the contest? Such as new worlds uploaded prior or don't follow theme?

[rustic mural]

Asking a world with replayability in a month is quite a challenge.

[tiny vapor]

Therein lies the game

[slate agate]

the challenge is part of the fun

[rustic mural]

Daily jumpscare

[plucky carbon]

time to lock in

[regal olive]

based, most of the creators that participate in these jams are new or not very experienced creators and their pretty much gatekeeping them which is the exact opposite of what a jam is and the reason why they created it

[rustic mural]

I dont think that was the plan. That would make no sense to prevent users to make content on every side of the argument. Calling it gatekeeping is quite extreme. Probably they didnt think that far, it would be intimidating for new creators.

It does intimidate me too tho.

Good luck to all participant!

[dark glade]

More time also doesn't solve that issue anyways, since it's also more time for experienced creators to build out and polish more and further that potential divide.

Imo the jam provides exactly the kind of opportunity to get people a reason to make avatars/worlds in the first place. Use the joy of participation and making something others might enjoy as motivation, and not allow winning to be the only consideration of value.

[regal olive]

Yea i think they should show all of the world in a side bar category in the worlds tab so people can see all the submissions not just the ones vrchat chooses, and have another tab for the winners. A game jam is about having people who aren't too experienced to push themselves and get feedback and for new new or inexperienced developers to get into game creation. With them only choosing to show the top 10 makes winning the only value rather than feedback, innovation, and creativity which is what a game jam is all about. They ask for a lot like game dev levels of a lot when most people who submit aren't game devs or have little experience in creation and cant reach the goals vrchat sets and it should be more open ended. And I defiantly agree more time it would make that gap much bigger.

there recent jams for the past couple years feel like they dont care anymore and it kinda sucks tbh

[subtle talon]

Honestly I don't think "Analogue Horror" is a good fit for an avatar jam, as most of the genre is derived from locales bending or breaking normality rather than singular entities. It's a tall ask, especially as you can't do anything fancy effects-wise (eg; glitching/vhs-esque video effects) on Android/IOS.

All you're gonna get at best is a whole lotta Slendermen and Fazbears.

[median latch]

Honestly I totally agree. I'm thinking of doing something with analogue technology but like.. it's hard to make it horror themed tbh without video and/or sound, and that's just not really the point of an avatar

[subtle talon]

Most entities also exist within a locale or have surrounding lore/context, and you can't really wrap that up in the instant first-glance read required of an avatar.

[median latch]

Mhm, it would be much better suited as the theme for the world category

[loud kettle]

Hey, just wondering if we're alowed to start working on game jam projects before the submission dates?

[rustic mural]

Yaa

Some world are gonna be allready released worlds after all

[slate agate]

just the submission date of your world needs to be after the start of the jam

[loud kettle]

Ok, thanks :))

So I can upload the world before the jam starts, to test it with friends?

[slate agate]

technically. you'd just need to reupload again later for your submission

[loud kettle]

Thanks

[lapis kayak]

if you didn't see it already, ALL worlds will be featured in the world row! The 10 winners will just be shown at the beginning of the world row.

The only w orlds that w ill not be showcased are ones that cannot be showcased by VRChat. (ex: IP-infringing works)

[cyan pollen]

I think I have a good idea. I’m just praying that I’ll be able to do it in time. Procrastination is one of my greatest strengths.

[median latch]

honestly i got nothing

all i'm thinking is tv

no clue how to incorperate the horror into analog or the analog into horror in regards to an avatar

it really is something that's best expressed in formats that analog technology uses (video, audio, video games, etc). It's hard to tell a story with an avatar, and it's hard to make the technology creepy without telling a story

it really feels like a better prompt for the worlds than the avatar

honestly i wish they were swapped

an avatar that changes subtly every time you use it, or shifts over time

[cyan pollen]

You can do a world for this, no?

It isn’t just avatars, right

[median latch]

the avatars and worlds have different prompts

i'm saying that the prompts would make more sense if they were swapped

the world prompt is very open-ended, so you definitely could do analog horror for the world

but for an avatar it just seems really limiting

the only other way i could see something fitting into analog horror is by just making a prexisting character, but that's not really allowed or in the spirit of the jam

[cyan pollen]

Yeah, it’s gonna be tough for the avatar guys

[median latch]

and i mean limiting like.. not in a good way. I'm sure there's ways to interpret it, but it feels like there's not much room for creativity before you stray outside of the theme

or just copy something else

[tawny shore]

Make a psx style generic person with a droppable tv that as the emergency messages and music with vhs toggles :3

[median latch]

honestly that's the other thing. it relies a lot on effects to emulate the style, as well as audio, all of which is not possible on quest, or would tank the perf rank making it invalid for entry

analog horror is all about utilizing analog technology to tell a story. It's a temporal/storytelling medium, and avatars really are not that

how am i supposed to make a glitchy visual effect or play music or anything like that on quest

I know I'm not the only one expressing dissatisfaction with the themes for this year

[cyan pollen]

It’s a shame for those working on avatars. But I’m excited to see what the community cooks up with worlds.

[median latch]

yeah the worlds theme is definitely a challenge, but it doesn't seem creatively limiting at all

[tawny shore]

I'm pretty curious also to see what people do for the worlds, but it's a shame they aren't adding another tab like last year for worlds that don't fit the guidelines/theme. Unless we can just submit everything regardless

[lapis kayak]

everyone who submits will be featured, winners will just be showcased first in the row

[lapis kayak]

what would you recommend for the avatar theme? Just not analog horror? keep it to shifting shadows?

[fossil sparrow]

in my mind a good jam theme can inspire ideas by making you think "i wonder what that even means?" when you read it and inspires you to try to come up with a "solution" to what the theme means. a lot of the time that kinda just comes down to wording regardless of subject matter.

"analog horror" sets expectations rather than inspire ideas because people already have an idea of what analog horror is, but something like "computer creatures" would make me be like, "ooh, i wonder what a computer creature is" even though it's just analog horror but worded differently

thats not really a perfect example but i think it gets my thoughts across well enough

the jam themes as of the past couple years have been getting a lot better at doing this but i agree that "analog horror" misses the mark a bit in that regard

now obviously that's not to say it's impossible to come up with something unique or interesting with a theme like this but it definitely makes it less tempting to participate

the "shifting shadows" theme for worlds /would/ have been cool if it was left as-is with no further clarification, but the specification that it has to be a replayable horror experience makes it fall into the exact same pitfall as i mentioned a moment ago of setting expectations rather than inspiring ideas

hope that perspective helps for future jams

[median latch]

honestly yeah, i think this sums up my feelings pretty well

analog horror in particular is based on storytelling media; it's a temporal thing (video games, films, records, tapes)

it's not really something that works well for an avatar, not unless you either forgoe the analog aspect and just make like.. a creature..

I mean there's ideas that have been done before, like TV heads or animatronics, but again that seems really limiting

i honestly would have prefered another techincal theme

i think many people are also confusing digital glitches/stylizations with analog ones

[subtle talon]

The problem with Analogue Horror is it's fundamentally NOT character-driven in the way other horror formats are. It's about tone and a general unsettlment of the norm. Characters can exist as a part of that, but not innately themselves in the same way you can ID a Werewolf or Frankenstein's Monster as "horror". Most Analogue Horror characters based on the concept of "It's just a guy, but weird" with surrounding lore to build on why that is. Even Slenderman is just A Tall Skinny Guy on his own.

The format is also largely video and sound-based (VHS tapes, government radio broadcasts and documents that appear... off, etc), which just can't be done for Android/IOS because of avatar limitations.

There's not a lot to work with here to even try to make an "Analogue Horror" avatar from.

Shifting Shadows could probably be a much better option, avatars that can somehow just be a little different each time they're on or something.

[median latch]

yess this exactly

[stuck flame]

I don't know what would be a great & unique example for replayability.

For puzzles: scatter puzzle keys around the rooms that has been done hundreds of times.

For doing objectives & escape, there are some games that already exist like that: Dead by Daylight, SlashCo, Outlast The Trials

Deathrun based game was done last year

I'm going to try to come think of something

[lapis kayak]

I think i'd be okay with seeing people interpret the Analog Horror theme more loosely, like someone mentioned Computer Creature and I think that would fit

we'd really like this year's theme to lean into Analog Horror since thats the overall Spookality theme (you'll see the home world get a face lift too...)

[subtle talon]

But that's not what analogue horror is at its best, or even as a premise. It works well for worlds, but characters are largely secondary aspects WITHIN the setting/world, not apart from one. The best analogue horror isn't even interacting with them directly, it's through media second-hand that infers their existence through sightings and after-accounts of something nebulous happening, without knowing what (because no survivors). Whenever one comes up (Slenderman, Sirenhead, etc) it's always with prior context of what they are to get full effect.

The fundamental problem is that you're basically asking us to create a lore-based entity, with no means to infer or supply lore around it. Especially when most analogue horror comes from perturbing the mundane (Eg; A government official asking Odd Questions, or an unknown department sealing an area because of An Event) rather than just Scary Monster.

[lapis kayak]

hmm... you don't think you could come up with characters that have compelling lore or interesting traits just based on the avatar?
I feel like there are opportunities to tell stories here through the avatar expressions / gesture manager... but I'm also not an avatar creator. I've run this feedback up the flagpole but we seem pretty set on keeping the Analog Horror theme for avatars :(

If it's too limiting, that kind of feedback will also be helpful after the jam, especially if less people participate because it was too difficult.

perhaps a middle ground is to just add a secondary theme? Not get rid of Analog Horror but offer another theme that avatar creators can make?

[subtle talon]

A secondary theme would be completely fine, sure. Analogue Horror is a great premise for a world jam (I have a thought for one myself, but I don't know if I'll have time to build it), but for avatars it's a very tall order because entities exist within the worlds but not separate, because the world builds why they're scary (Documents, sightings, after-accounts, audio logs, etc)

As a thought; Broaden the avatar jam to something like "mysterious entities". Not your classic monsters, something eerie and abstract. Still in the same tone, but giving a broader context to build from.

[mental shale]

There is a fair point on both sides. Especially in the case of avatar limitations on mobile. But, maybe, just maybe, I think they might have something in the works that could surprise us and change that! Who knows?

[fossil sparrow]

just adding my 2 cents that imo i think it's perfectly fine to just go ahead with this jam as-is, it's not terrible by all means. i just want my feedback to be kept in mind for future jams for the most part because i think they have the potential to be way more interesting

whenever i'm providing feedback here i never really expect anything from the current jam to change, nor do i really want it to because it can just cause confusion when the scope changes after the announcement

[median latch]

Yeah I honestly love the theme conceptually, I just think it would be sooo much better for worlds than avatars

[lapis kayak]

thank you for the feedback! This is really valuable feedback overall.

[median latch]

I know it's totally too late to change it this year, and I'm going to still try and come up with something, but I don't think it's going to align with the theme too well tbh

[lapis kayak]

i'd be curious to see what people come up with for the jam and then determine if it was too limiting

[fossil sparrow]

also regarding limitations, i personally think forcing people to be creative with limitations is super fun, but it's only a little weird in this context because it basically incentivizes you to make an avatar that is only a good contender for the jam on PC.

my immediate thought was that so many of the submissions are going to have traditionally "analog horror" things like crt filters, sound effects, etc. that only the PC version of the avatar can make use of

that's basically my only hang-up in terms of limitations

otherwise i think putting analog horror into an avatar is a neat concept

[lapis kayak]

just make whatever your heart desires!
Technically speaking, it doesn't really have to fit the theme:

here's the judging critiera:
Performance: Must be Medium or better on all platforms (PC, Android, iOS)
Style / Aesthetics: Is this a good-looking avatar?
Extra Features: bonus points for face tracking, desktop arm, etc.

[median latch]

As much as that does frustrate me, that is a creative limitation that can be worked around (except for audio unfortunately), and there has been a jam that literally required PC only features (last year's summer jam asked for audiolink)

[fossil sparrow]

oh for sure

[median latch]

Ofc! I'm still really caught up on seeing what I can do with a CRT, definitely more than just a face on the screen

[lapis kayak]

also we didn't really talk about it, but we're planning more than a jam for Spookality...! so there's a lot to look forward to

[median latch]

For me the issue is pretty much what whaddageek said. Analog horror is really based in analog media being used to tell a story, and the lack of information implying something you don't understand (which can totally be dome through a world). Characters really are secondary, and without an environment for them, they're really just spooky characters. The best you could do to counter this is to literally add the technology into the avatar, but then you run up against the PC only limitations.. like file size being too large (if you want to add videos), can't add audio, can't add cameras, etc

And you really do need to have some sort of video, audio, etc for it to tell that story, otherwise it's just analog technology but no horror

I'm gonna try my hardest to get something that focuses on the quesr experience first and still fulfills this though

Like playable tapes or video games

[median latch]

Oh actually flare I wanted to ask you one more question about spookality if that's alright?

Are we allowed to collab on a feature across avatars?

Me and some other people from the AVM server were planning in making all our avatars have a trick or treat feature. The basic idea is just having the same menu icons for it so people know they're compatible systems, and then just using the same contact tags so they can interact!

[lapis kayak]

ohhh this sounds adorable!

i think the tricky part is judging it on its own

so the way we judge avatars is that all the judges get on in the same world and test across multiple platforms (iOS rep, Android rep, Quest rep, PCVR with face tracking rep, etc) and then we all wear the same avatar at the same time to judge it t ogether

so under that logic, we should be able to see the trick or treat feature between avatars so i think that's fine!

[median latch]

Alright! Thank you so much!

[lapis kayak]

i think it would be helpful to list here in this channel (or in the AVM discord) which avatars are able to interact with each other so i can mark it while we're j udging; i'm sure some of the judges will want to test across avatars

[subtle talon]

Honestly that sounds a little unfair for an avatar jam, because it's weighting some creators working together against individuals if I'm being honest. I'm sure it's a fun prefab, it sure sounds it, but contest-wise you're kinda creating a divide of "has shared prefab, and not" in the submissions if they're judged off it and one that's kinda unrelated to the actual jam category at that.

(Just to be clear as I know I've been a bit negative, this is only intended as constructive feedback and not derogatory, I'm quite curious to see what may come of the jam and have a rudimentary idea for a submission myself)

[lapis kayak]

i think we'd judge it under the Extra Features category; i wouldn't expect all the trick or treat avatars to w in just because they had a shared prefab

[cyan pollen]

I hope I’ll be able to get it done in time but I have a heck of a world idea for you guys to judge.

[rustic mural]

With you saying to loosen what would be analogue horror i think itsnt too bad for avatar. I can only think of a reference cube avatar but that would be lazy

[lapis kayak]

Reference Cube that turns into a mirror that distorts ur appearance

[rustic mural]

Not quest friendly

[median latch]

I can totally see that.. my hope is that for the judging, the trick-or-treat feature is just an individual thing, since ideally all avatars should be compatible with themselves, and I know I'll try my best to make it as compatible with avatars that don't have it

they were discussing sharing a prefab but I really don't think it's necessary tbh. we really just are going to have shared contact tags that anybody can use

so the actual feature is set up per-creator

I'd encourage anyone else to join as well tbh

I just don't want to share more info until we settle on what the contact tags are (and their expected behavior, but you can deviate from it ofc)

the idea right now is that there's a trick sender and a treat sender. You have total control over when, how, and where these show up, and then if you receive a trick or a treat, your avatar will respond however you'd like. Treats would give you candy, and tricks could cause a change to your avatar, something like that

so an Idea I had for my avatar, is you put in a trick or treat tape, and it'll choose randomly a trick or a treat. Then on the screen it'll show something related (maybe a scary face or claws come out of it, something like that) and activate a large trick sender. If you get treat, then it'll show candy falling down the screen (like a slot machine showing coins falling down or something) and candy will shoot out of the VHS player, into a bowl, or maybe on the floor, that has a treat contact

it's still a nice interactive feature for people who don't have it on their avatars

but if you have an avatar that can react to the contacts, it'll add an extra fun thing

[analog cairn]

There's something about the rules I didn't understand

My world (on labs) was uploaded a few months ago, does that mean it's not allowed for the jam and I need to delete it and re-upload once the jam starts?

[lapis kayak]

we will only be accepting entries that are uploaded to VRChat after Sept 22 at 12am PT!

[cunning oriole]

I'm also in Camp not sure how analog Horrors even functional on Quest compatible avatars or just conceptually at all given that it's more about the format the story is being told in then the contents in analog Horrors

and like most of the things that would be Avatar shaped in analog Horrors is like normal guys with weird faces or piles of body horror that would be too inappropriate to show up in the jam

[night harbor]

this years jam is gonna be mid lol

need to be less strict on the rules

(maybe I'm wrong but having seen all the previous years idk)

please prove me wrong if you're making something

I love good horror but the last few years have been mostly underwhelming minus a few really good worlds

really really hoping everyone proves me wrong tho like fr

[subtle talon]

Question with the Jam; Do avatars have to have total feature parity across platforms, or can we have a few extra toys on the PC version?

[simple mirage]

@lapis kayak
Thank you for planning such a fun event !
I have one question.

Worlds MUST be cross-platform (PC, Android & iOS!)
The rules state that iOS compatibility is required, but since iOS is currently in closed beta, doesn't that mean only a limited number of people can create and test it?
I'm sorry if I'm wrong. If so, could you please point me to a page with instructions for iOS compatibility for the general public?

[dark glade]

In practice from my experience with the iOS beta, android compatibility is basically iOS compatibility. Meaning that for the most part if you build for android and it looks/works right on a phone, it should be comparable to what you build for iOS.

But it is a fair question on making that a requirement if it's possibly judged on compatibility for something you can't fully test for.

[simple mirage]

Thank you for your comment : )
I also thought it would be pretty much the same as Andoroi, but I've seen cases where Japanese characters that work fine on Android break on iOS, so I wanted to do a full test.

[cunning oriole]

it can get a bit more Goofy with shaders on iOS from what I've heard that aren't the VRC mobile shaders

[lapis kayak]

that is correct, unfortunately you may not be able to test your iOS content on your own. However, you might be able to coordinate with some people in #ios-discussion or #ios-dev to test out your world.
Additionally, if you feel you are a prominent creator and should have access to iOS, we should probably escalate you into the beta.

[simple mirage]

Thank you for your reply !
I understood that I can't test alone. I will do my best to prevent bugs to the best of my knowledge!
Also, the deadline is short and I can't devote all my time to this, so I don't have time to interact with unknown iOS testers right now. I would like to help out once the jam is over.
Finally, I think it's better not to include platform support that general users cannot test in the rules for general users. It's extremely difficult to prevent bugs without testing.

[cyan pollen]

Just to clear things up, a world must be uploaded on PC, android and iOS to be accepted, correct?

[subtle talon]

iOS isn't really a reasonable requirement then if we have no means to test our work (Hoping someone im the beta testers MIGHT help isn't really a reasonable ask in this case) as we can't access it ourselves or know if there's platform bugs that may get us unduly judged harsher than otherwise

If you want us to include an iOS build just to give your team a random sample set of worlds to test against that's fine, but it shouldn't be used for final judging in the Jam itself.

[subtle talon]

Also do avatars need feature parity across all platforms, or can we have extra things in the PC version and cull them from the other platforms to meet requirements?

[regal flume]

I doubt they are expecting perfect iOS support. As long as it kinda works I assume they would be more than happy with it.

[subtle talon]

Then it needs to be formally stated as such, currently it's outlined as equally weighted in the Jam requirements.

[median latch]

I think they prefer feature parity but it's not required

[lapis kayak]

correct. if possible, you should be able to describe what's PC Only in the menu

[lapis kayak]

this is closer to what i was imagining!

[subtle talon]

I can work with that, just wanted to confirm. My avatar's at a point where it'd be done if platform parity was a requirement, but now I've got some extra PC-only things to add...

[lapis kayak]

have fun with it!

[subtle talon]

Oh I shall, haha

[lapis kayak]

also i'm passing your feedback about the iOS requirement back to the team. it's 6am PST right now so give us some time to think about it!

Personally, I'm torn... we want more content for when iOS launches so we'd like to get people in the habit of making iOS content. But it's also not entirely fair to upload content that you can't test...

[subtle talon]

Just asking for an iOS upload as part of the contest is okay, it's just an extra checkmark to click on our part after all, the jam contest just needs to explicitly state that bugs/issues won't be judged against an entry for that platform due to it being in closed testing.

[lapis kayak]

iOS out of closed beta WHEN

i'll see if i can quorum on how to address it

[lapis kayak]

updated:

As a note, we understand that not everyone will be able to test their content on iOS for worlds and avatars! For that reason, while we’d like you to upload them for that platform, no points will be deducted for bugs exclusive to iOS.

https://ask.vrchat.com/t/spookality-2025-jam/46681

[median latch]

Awesome!

I wish apple allowed open betas

[worldly tide]

Is there a height requirement for the spookality avatars?

[night harbor]

I'd honestly guess just make sure it isnt outside of either of the default height limits <0.2 or >50 meters

or just be reasonable about it lol

[opaque lotus]

yo

[unkempt inlet]

Question, "As a note for that last one, winners may submit paid OR public" does that mean we can make a paid avatar for the jam that doesnt have a public version. Or does it have to be submited as a public, and a seperate paid version? :o

[lapis kayak]

you can submit a completely separate paid avatar for the avatar row, doesn't have to have a public version at all!

or you can submit both, the more the merrier. submit your winning Spookality entry AND a paid / separate avatar

[heady bane]

Yeah i agree the theme is quite tricky, im thinking of going down another route and trying for 80-90's nostalgia, like 1982 Poltergeist, The Ring, Stranger things, Even fallout, the tricky part is going to be emulating/rendering those effects maybe audio link will work?

[subtle talon]

It's probably fine so long as it's within the typical world requirements of 0.2m-5m. I won a few years back with a fairly small avatar.

[nimble hemlock]

I have no idea what to call this thing

[unkempt inlet]

Anno-Droid?

[lapis kayak]

this is so cool!

[nimble hemlock]

I dont know about that qwq

[nimble hemlock]

thank you so much ^^

[heady bane]

Is this yours?!?! your already finished my my !

[clear delta]

https://tenor.com/view/glorp-alien-cat-noted-noting-this-down-glorp-noting-this-down-gif-9671578544383486034

[nimble hemlock]

Nah it’s far from finished, but the base mesh is almost done

[heady bane]

I havent even started my moodboard xD

how are you emulating the static on the avi; audio link or shader? 🙂

[nimble hemlock]

It’s just a blender compositing nose setup I used from an old music video project left unfinished

Still figuring out the material and shader setup in unity for it

[subtle talon]

@lapis kayak Is there a clean template of the "Spookality 25" logo somewhere we can use for worlds/avatars?

[lapis kayak]

let me see if i can get that for you!

[proven dust]

Composer and sound designer here. If you need a audio person for your team, I am looking to join one.
I can write music in most styles but am more experienced in fantasy, synthwave, and chip music.
Here is my website: https://www.oliviacirilla.com

[heady bane]

Yeah I'm mulling over that myself :3

Since its very VHS thing:)

[regal flume]

For anyone who felt constrainted by the world theme and has not read this:
Shifting Shadows. This is not an aesthetic theme, but more a directional one.

So seems like it's more about the gameplay being different than anything else. (yes I did not read that at first lol)

[median latch]

<@&397642795457970181>

Crypto scammer :/

[clear delta]

if there is one i would want to snag that too

[clear delta]

WOOO HORROR

https://tenor.com/view/groovy-ash-evil-dead-gif-13951678

[vernal ravine]

Last year we were able to submit worlds that were just halloween themed, like a hangout world. We are not able to do this, this year?

[lapis kayak]

no general Halloween category this year, unfortunately.

[vernal ravine]

Alright 🙁 Thank you for the response!

[rain cape]

Is there a reason why I can't submit my marketplace avatar to the Jam? It only gives me the option to submit public avatars, and I thought we could submit paid ones too.

[rain cape]

I think mine might be bugged or something.

[lapis kayak]

nono, the jam only accepts public avatars! Paid avatars will be featured in the same halloween-style row through a form in the AVM Seller Discord

if you're a WINNER you can submit a public or paid avatar

entrants for the jam can only submit public

[rain cape]

ohhh
that makes sense
Can I submit a public of the same avatar for the jam tho?

[lapis kayak]

yep!

a couple of previous winners have made "Lite" versions of their paid avatar be the public submission

note that we will ONLY be judging the public version

[rain cape]

so if i submit it as public, does it go into the row like that if I win?
or can i choose to put the paid version in instead?
Sorry haha I just wanna understand how it works

[lapis kayak]

yep so let me clarify:

If your (public avatar) submission wins Spookality, you will have the option to submit a paid avatar that is Halloween-themed OR the public avatar that won

or... both!

[rain cape]

okay got it, thank you so much!

[quasi cloud]

@lapis kayak can we add content warnings to worlds or should they be avoided? (does it affect scoring)

[lapis kayak]

I believe we ask that all entries be 13+ appropriate, so the content itself shouldn't be too gorey or adult

I dont believe the tags will harm your entry

[subtle talon]

Any word on the clean Spookality logos?

[molten maple]

SMILE WEREDOG.JPG - created by me :D

i hope more people post their models for the jam to see what im up against cus im so nervous

[lapis kayak]

we were talking internally about whether we typically give out logos for people to use; i'll have to follow up on Monday

[subtle talon]

No worries either way, just wanted to check

For the record though, it's been done last year.

[timid pollen]

I'm making a sort of PSX-style TV-headcrab thing.

I wanted to make the screen change based on which radial submenu is selected, as if "browsing the files", but i might have found a bug in how that works?.. or maybe i'm missing something?
https://feedback.vrchat.com/bug-reports/p/radial-submenus-with-parameters-behave-strangely

[subtle talon]

I'm just curious, what's the menu parameter for,

[timid pollen]

changes animation for what the screen is showing.
menu sets parameter > parameter sets screen animation

[subtle talon]

So what are the parameters inside the menu for then?

[timid pollen]

?
all of the submenus set which screen to show, some submenus show different screens.
unlees i'm not understanding what you're asking or something.

[subtle talon]

Just why you'd need a menu parameter for that, is all. I'd just put the different screens on the same Int so they don't overlap and use the menus to break up the categories.

[timid pollen]

ohh i think i see the confusion, i have the parameter set on the SubMenu items themselves, not as manual toggles, so that it is set as soon as the user enters the SubMenu, automatically. All screens are indexed by the one Int parameter as you say.
the "bug" here is about how adding a parameter to the SubMenu item seems to change its behaviour in unexpected ways.

[subtle talon]

I get that much, my point's more what's the intended use here instead of a simple toggle?

[timid pollen]

for immersion.
since the menu for this avatar is structured like a filesystem, i wanted to show a file browser, or a text viewer, or an image, depending on what "folder" or "file" SubMenu the user is looking at.

[subtle talon]

Yes and no, if you don't mind my saying it feels like you're conflating folders and files here, when submenus parse as a folder on their own (which is what they basically are). It feels a long way to work around just having a folder icon on a submenu and toggles for "files" inside. It also makes it harder to tell if there are legitimate submenus or not, because they're all submenus.

Having them as toggles would also fit your throughline of a file being "displayed" on the avatar's monitor, it's contents aren't being opened within the submenu after all.

[timid pollen]

mhm, i can absolutely do toggles for the images. though, that still leaves the "browsing files" screen out. i do also have "text files" that are submenus with only text inside so the avatar wearer can read them, maybe bad design, i can understand for this case.
i'm kinda just, trying something new with the menu that i haven't seen anyone do before.

as for the confusion on what's a "real" submenu, I do have an icon set I'm using for this that should communicate item types relatively clearly.

[subtle talon]

The problem with the "real" submenu thing is you're not accounting for VRChat's UI having its own existing language that contradicts anything you'll add. You can't get around the standardized visual cues for what is a submenu/toggle/radial and should work with it rather than against it. It's not a bad concept fundamentally, but you're working against existing design language that serves a purpose.

What you could do is make the submenu with your text AND the toggle inside beside it.

[timid pollen]

mm ok.
i can adapt non-folder items to use toggles if that ends up working better.
but, the underlying issue of the submenus with parameters not behaving as expected still exists though. my use (or abuse?) of them this way shouldn't change that.

[subtle talon]

Oh absolutely, that's an entirely valid thing.

[timid pollen]

well, thanks for the feedback. i'll probably scrap the dynamic screen thing for now, at least until the submenu thing is fixed.

[median latch]

if this issue does not exist when using bools you could use those instead

a bit of an annoying workaround, but you could use bools, then convert them to an int for easier logic + syncing

just like an int toggle setup but using the corresponding bool instead and just have animations that don't do anything and use parameter drivers to set the int value

[timid pollen]

i see, i'll look into that then.

[hushed cairn]

Parametering a submenu would mean the parameter controls the submenu visibility since they are entirely tied to it
Use bools then have each image swap have multiple conditions for each bool

Like smf1 smf2 etc
Submenu file 1
Submenu setting 1
Sms1 sms2

[timid pollen]

so, changing the value of the parameter closes a submenu using the old value? i haven't seen that documented anywhere but that seems like the behaviour i'm seeing.

[hushed cairn]

Yes

[hushed cairn]

Submenu open? Paremeter value true
Submenu closed? Parameter value false

Setting the parameter value to false means the submenu cant possibly be open

Cause if it was then the parameter has to be true

The only way to really int a submenu is with bools and either parameter driving or just using multiple transitions for each bool

Latter being better since a parameter driver is unnecessary

[timid pollen]

i see
explaining it with bools makes a lot more sense

[hushed cairn]

Can submenu then submenu under that but thatd be excessive

Like the root menu has the parameter
Then the subsequent submenus are stuck as whatever that menu is
Like a settings menu with every submenu being stuck as settings
Files menu with every submenu under it being exclusively file toggles

Whichever you wanna do

[timid pollen]

maybe the docs need to note this behaviour, cause i had assumed it was ONLY "set when entered" and that other things could change it afterward.

[hushed cairn]

Well

When you leave the menu (entering a submenu in a submenu is not leaving it) it sets the parameter to false

[timid pollen]

but yes it definitely makes sense now haing a chain you can quckly jump out of

[hushed cairn]

Like its literally a toggle of its own

A submenu is a toggle but temporary

Its a hybrid of button and toggle

Only enabled when the menu is open

Rather than open with held or toggle

[timid pollen]

my confusion was "set ON enter" and "unset ON exit", vs "set WHILE open" and "unset TO exit"

thanks for explaining

[hushed cairn]

[median latch]

really? I thought the menu open states were read only from the avatar's side tbh.. that seems really easy to abuse. Can you force a menu open this way?

[hushed cairn]

Yesnt

[median latch]

this is interesting though, you could use this to lock menus

that's a nice feature

i'm sure it's been used for demo avatars or locking them/locking features

a fun way I'd implement that though is an avatar with a game that you need to play to "unlock" menus with additional items

[timid pollen]

oh yeah i suppose you could lock menus like that, that's pretty neat.

[median latch]

i've done something similar to lock toggles before

it didn't end up working out, but i was trying to make an avatar that you could play tag with

i wanted people to be able to choose their starting role, but not be able to switch it during the game, so your role (it vs not it) is locked unless you leave the game

[molten maple]

hey im havin an issue with the shapekeys where the mouth is constantly open after speaking (theres no jawbone)

i think it maybe has somethign to do with this but i dont know

i saw a video about someone saying the issue is its a missing viseme but i dont think i have any missing

[past elbow]

When you open the FBX export options from blender, go into the geometry section in the FBX export settings and change the Smoothing option to either Face or Edge and check Tangent Space, so smoothing groups are generated and put into the file instead of unity calculating them.

Tho for all of that, that's really just how lighting reacts to the model in the end. I recommend you do that anyways to keep things clean. I have no idea why sometimes it just doesn't respond. You could try renaming the mesh (in blender again, it's green not orange) to Body specifically.

[molten maple]

i get this error :(

it is so over

[past elbow]

You've got n-gons!

You can just check triangulate faces in the same section to "fix" that iirc. Or find your N-gons and make them quads or triangles.

[molten maple]

aha

[past elbow]

this is my typical

[molten maple]

testin it in game

[past elbow]

if it works that works, but try this if not since idt smoothing groups is going to change much other than make the model look more like how it is seen in blender.

[molten maple]

it didnt work 😔

[molten maple]

wait are u saying to rename the mesh to body?

[past elbow]

yeah.

[molten maple]

alright ill try that then

[past elbow]

common mistake is you name the object but not the mesh. make sure to do the MESH specifically

orange is the default for Object data

Mesh data is by default green

[molten maple]

i just renamed these two

forgive if i am incorrect im bit of a fool

[past elbow]

you can leave the armature as Armature

it's the t-posing stick figure

you did name the mesh

personally i've never had success with the default VRC blendshape behavior

always made my own custom viseme controller in an animator

[molten maple]

with my last model i never had any issues (i think i got lucky)

a friend of mine only uses shapekeys for the visemes

[past elbow]

id ig just see what's different between the two if that doesn't work

ohhh

there's a warning about this

https://creators.vrchat.com/avatars/creating-your-first-avatar/#viseme-blend-shape-recommended

very very slightly adjust one vertex for your Silent shape

so unity doesn't revoke it

[molten maple]

that is so weird

[past elbow]

makes sense from an optimization point

but weird that vrc probably requires one, instead of falling back to all 0s

[molten maple]

i will say tho all of the visemes are the same for the mouth i just copy pasted them to test if the model worked legitly

perhaps that is the issue

[past elbow]

maybe

tho it says empty specifically, meaning you made no changes from the Base

[molten maple]

hers the base and heres the mouth open

for sil ill just slightly edit it and maybe itll fix it maybe?

maybe since all of the visemes are copies maybe its getting confused?

even so thats kinda weird

btw ngl im kinda afraid to ask a ton of questions cus i dont mean to seem like im annoyin or nothin

[past elbow]

ig try setting them all as Aa and ensure Sil has something different than the Base mesh

[past elbow]

tbh, things will be slow until you do ask lol

someone is bound to answer them

i'm not an avatar creator! (anymore)

but i'm answering anyways lol

[molten maple]

do you know if theres a way to test visemes in unity?

i know i can slide the shapekeys around but that isnt the same

[past elbow]

for the vrc specific behavior, probably not. maybe try one of those avatar emulator tools that are in VCC's (a bit old) community selected packages

[molten maple]

i see

:O

its fixed!

although maybe i misread something but SIL is being used as the basis

which is weird

it isnt a huge deal now i now i gota make SIL the new basis

problem fixed :D

[molten maple]

i highly appreciate ur insight

thank u

[patent swift]

On the User. Sil is used as the Default Blendshape at all times. For others, the Base blendshape is used until you speak

[molten maple]

guh i see

[molten maple]

i submitted it :D

i was gonna go with this but i think the finalized thumbnail looks the best

[subtle talon]

@lapis kayak With the iOS upload, how are we meant to do that for avatars, as I'm seeing iOS greyed out? Or is that only for World submissions?

[night harbor]

you have ios build support on your unity install?

@subtle talon

[subtle talon]

Ahhh, that makes sense.

[night harbor]

ye that'll do it

[subtle talon]

Cheers, installing now.

[night harbor]

nice 👍