My texturing and configuration of Maitake’s new #VRChat avatar base at https://toastysheeb.gumroad.com/l/PooltoyDragon?layout=profile seems to have gone well so far! Will be actually testing the avatar out soon enough.
@kistaro Oh that looks absolutely wonderful.
... also huh, they've updated the SDK to put the thumbnail thing in the dialogue box now. (Also this avatar can be used as a fallback??)
@Aether There’s a step to merge dynamic bones during setup which takes it down to 4 top-level bone sets (from 12 in this configuration before the merging step). Grabbing both ears or both horns simultaneously won’t work, but it pushes the performance rating all the way to Good. Uploading it without that step would give it Medium which is still better than the sweeping majority of furry avatars but I figure the downside is acceptable enough so optimization step seems worth it.
@kistaro I keep running into Android users that can't see my commissioned Maitake avatar and it's kind of annoying. I'm pretty sure VRC increased the requirements or something, because I swear I had more applicable avatars in the past.
I might experiment with this avatar at some point, but broadly I just want my own self seen by random Quest users more. > _>
@Aether Note that this is a PC-specific fallback, I have never gotten any dual-platform avatars to upload correctly at all, I currently have a broken attempt at doing so. Part of the performance relies on a custom shader with a tolerable fallback; using the Standard Lite shader in Quest should be okay, but to get all the way to Good it would need to cut its VRAM use in half, simplify its PhysBones further, reduce its polygon count by 75%, and come up with a new strategy for face rendering that doesn’t use a second skinned mesh renderer. Getting to Medium on Quest seems very achievable though, since that *does* allow for the second mesh and there’s that much more texture headroom.
@kistaro @Aether Note that you can also now generate imposters (the thingie that replaces fallbacks if it's available) for your avatars using the website. I did that for a few of my avatars, and folks on Quest reported it worked pretty well.
It has limitations that are different from Quest-specific fallbacks, but also something to consider for supporting folks on those devices.
@Goldkin @Aether I have clicked the Generate Impostor button for a few avatars and keep forgetting to check in-game what the result even looks like. Definitely a good feature for them to have added, though!
I feel like Maitake’s kit specifically feels tantalizingly close to Quest-ready on its own but I’m pretty sure the gap actually still requires an awful lot of work, especially to hit Good (and therefore only a single skinned mesh renderer) instead of Medium. Medium would be Good Enough For Most Purposes though. but I still don’t have the relevant skill to get there.
Now I have this weird ambition to commission Someone With The Relevant Skills to collaborate with Maitake to make the kit Quest-ready for *everyone*, because it won’t happen if nobody covers the cost of the time and skill it takes to pull it off and I would definitely prefer this kit be useful for more folks. ^..^