Wall of hopefully useful Tips/Advice and tools for VRChat Avatar creation

Just as a baseline I want to say
Don't discount Gumroad, Booth.pm, Sketchfab, Unity Asset Store, VRCArena, Discord Servers, Google/YouTube, etc
when looking for prefabs/avatars/models/assets they all have some nice stuff to offer depending on your goal and budget
oki!

Someone else made a really detailed and laid-out guide so I'm listing it here near the top
NEWER one -> https://vrclibrary.com/wiki/books/the-vrchat-creation-compendium
OLD one   -> https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?l=english&id=2190684978

And another guide this time on Booth.pm
https://secondmoon.booth.pm/items/3683905

VRCArena Guide on Optimization
https://www.vrcarena.com/avatar-tutorial/optimization

For anyone who plays VRChat and would like a boost in frames or to help a friend out etc
this might be a useful guide to look at
<https://github.com/uhKayla/VRChatOptimization>

This is just super useful for a multitude of things
_resizing, moving viewpoint to eyes, quick setup, etc_
<https://github.com/rurre/PumkinsAvatarTools/releases>

Pro tip: Unity ignores files and folders in some specific cases.*

Shove a period . on the beginning of a file/folder, or a tilde ~ on the end of a file/folder, and it'll be ignored. Do that before you convert over to Android to build for Quest and I'm pretty sure it'll skip it!

I've never actually tested this for Android conversion, so uh.. try it! If it works, let me know!

Also, I'd recommend making sure to keep your version of Poiyomi up to date.
*\<https://docs.unity3d.com/2019.4/Documentation/Manual/SpecialFolders.html>

 I can add one more _**EVEN FASTER**_  trick to this!

VRChat doesn't use any of the HDRP or other types of compiled shaders, and actually doesn't even use the post-processing shaders either (it replaces the settings with a copy on the client) so this takes a lot of time to compile. Not using a ton of different shaders helps a lot, (make everything VRChat mobile standard or something if your stuff works with it!) but, u/tupper you should know that Float3 made an incredible tool that basically yeets all the shaders that vrchat doesn't use from the compile process.
<https://github.com/Float3/3s-Unity-Shaders-Scripts/blob/master/Assets/Scripts/3/Editor/ShaderPreProcessor.cs>

Put this in your unity project and enjoy.

If you're a little more advanced, there's yet another ultra-fast way to swap projects involving junctions. I'll probably make a video on this sometime.
Copied from Reddit, image is from u/Megazard02, first comment from u/Tupper, then the reply from u/Lhun.


Meme \\/
<https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/905604369687396362/918689610677223484/unknown.png>

Easy way to create multiple sizes/heights of avatars
<https://booth.pm/en/items/2991401>
Not the most needed now since you can scale in game but eh

like 20s video on a Blender feature/keybind you might not know
_Shift + ~_
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-qUrPKVYt4&feature=youtu.be>

Automatic decimate, atlas, mesh merge, an, etc tool for Unity
In theory, it could make it "1 click" to make an avatar good with some sacrifices
I think it's more useful when combined with manual efforts
_Has a trial version but you can't save/upload with it_
_Actual version costs $30 so... aaaaaaa_
<https://markcreator.gumroad.com/l/Polytool>


if you want your avatar to load faster for people (lossy texture compression)
try adding this to your project, it'll compress all of the textures for your avatar/world, etc
<https://github.com/Markcreator/VRChat-Tools/releases/>

And if you use Blender which I highly recommend using and want to
make your avatars more FBT compatible you could try using this
<https://github.com/triazo/immersive_scaler/releases/> It attempts to scale the legs and arms more proportionally
Be aware
it uses the total height by default so if you have a tail that goes through the floor or tall ears etc
I'd recommend removing them first
then adding them back or with ears, you could try to account for their height when putting in your desired height
(add however big the ears are supposed to be to the total ig?)

Easy Screenshot \\/ is a basic extension for the Unity Camera that allows you to effortlessly take high-resolution screenshots.
<https://imtiara.gumroad.com/l/BwPOE?>

Also, you know how sometimes with avatars certain props/accessories will vanish when you/someone looks at the avatar at certain angles?
Yeah.. change the bounds click on the mesh of the model that's doing that and try setting the center to 0,0,0 and the extent to 1,1,1
I also recommend doing it for the main body of the avatar but possibly not as needed

If you want something like Poiyomi but more optimized (though less extensive with fancy effects)
use Liltoon
(It's what I'm using on my avatar it made it like a megabyte smaller and made it so when someone has custom shaders off in safety they still see me fine)
<https://booth.pm/en/items/3087170>
If your avatar looks green with mobile/Quest shaders this'll automatically remove vertex colors
which usually causes that among a few other things
https://booth.pm/ja/items/2436054

If you want to keep VRAM usage down with your avatars Thry made a tool to measure it in Unity
(Please use this as VRAM can heavily affect performance)
https://github.com/Thryrallo/VRCAvatarTools

This just has a variety of tools
"Non-Destructive Tools for VRChat Avatars
Clothing Attacher | Toggle Builder | Gesture Manager | Controller Merger | Avatar Optimizer | Modular Setup | All Reversible"
https://vrcfury.com/



Blender Add-ons you may find useful

https://mmemoli.gumroad.com/l/tOKEh Mesh Data Transfer
Let's you transfer shapekeys from mesh to mesh
And UV from Original Mesh to decimated/retopologized Mesh
etc

https://3dbystedt.gumroad.com/l/JAqLT
Blender addon - Bystedts Blender Baker

https://amanbairwal.gumroad.com/l/TransferImages
TransferImages Bake to new UV (No margins tho)

https://amanbairwal.gumroad.com/l/bake-a-node
Bake Procedural stuff to Texture

https://onlinerender.gumroad.com/l/blendercamera
Will align camera to viewport and auto enable camera lock.

https://bookyakuno.gumroad.com/l/user-translate
Make the menu screen familiar by making the English text of the external add-on the language of your own country.

https://amanbairwal.gumroad.com/l/CavityPass
Allows you to render and composite a cavity pass of your render to add fake bevel and light effects.

https://onlinerender.gumroad.com/l/faceextended
A very simple addon for Blender 3D adds an additional option to the right-click face context menu in Edit Mode.

https://kushiro.gumroad.com/l/iutJRq
Can attach a geometry on top of another geometry. It moves the first geometry and attaches it to the second one.

https://kevinlorengel.gumroad.com/l/SuperResRender
Splits the render into smaller chunks
allowing you to render in extreme resolutions without insane memory usage

https://kevinlorengel.gumroad.com/l/SuperImageDenoiser
Uses Temporal Data Denoising to denoise decently even with really low samples

https://johnniewooker.gumroad.com/l/WlEKi
Shaper is an addon that provides a functionality similar to the Transfer Attributes tool from Maya. It was designed mainly to support workflow with Marvelous Designer.

https://johnniewooker.gumroad.com/l/eXkfO
Blender addon allowing to export model with PBR textures as Unity package file.

https://close2animation.gumroad.com/l/hWOth
Alpha WIP Video to Mocap animation with Blender

https://cgtinker.gumroad.com/l/rotom
BlendArMocap is a Blender add-on to perform Hand, Face and Pose Detection in Blender using just a Webcam.
The detected data can be easily transferred to rifigy rigs.

https://bookyakuno.gumroad.com/l/morph-uv
Geometry node that transforms the mesh into a UV layout

https://randum.gumroad.com/l/xZwYL
This is a simple tree and planet generator. To use the model you have to install Blender and Sverchok add-on.

https://maxedge.gumroad.com/l/bulletholes
A geometry nodes setup that lets you add bullet holes to any surface using empties!

https://github.com/SavMartin/TexTools-Blender/releases
TexTools, Makes baking and a load of other UV/Texture related actions much easier!





Useful World stuff

https://github.com/oneVR/VRWorldToolkit/releases
https://vrcprefabs.com/
https://github.com/jetdog8808/Jetdogs-Prefabs-Udon/releases/
https://cyanlaser.booth.pm/items/3194594

Occlusion Culling - I highly recommend it
https://gitlab.com/s-ilent/SCSS/-/wikis/Other/Occlusion-Culling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC1kXk-mQHs

Baked Lighting - Recommended in general
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKgUJccjWRU

VRC Mirror Proxy Area - Recommended alternative to just a skybox/player mirror
https://gitlab.com/s-ilent/vrc-mirror-proxy-area





And here are some random VRChat/Unity Avatar tips and such
Make sure textures are generally maximum 2048x2048 see if you can make them lower like 1024x1024
Don't have dynamic bone colliders on every bone
Check if you're using the latest version of Unity and your Shaders etc
Check to see if your textures are .dds I think they work fine for PC but ehh I'd use png or jpg just to be safe
Make sure your FBX has read/write and legacy blendshape normals enabled
Also important to mark your FBX as 'Humanoid' (if it's Humanoid obvs) so it animates in VRC
VPNs can be wonky with VRChat servers so if you can, try not using one when uploading
Click the mesh of whatever is on your avatar (probably just something labeled 'Body' under the Armature) and make the bounds center is set to 0,0,0 and extent is 1,1,1 (Unless the Armature isn't scaled to 1,1,1 if that's the case do something else?)
If working with gamerips/MMD models in Blender I recommend importing the CATS plugin/addon
If the Console has an error about "thy editor" when uploading, just find the thy editor in your assets, delete it, and try again
For Quest, the Matcap Lit shader is the same as Toonlit but it lets you use Matcaps I recommend giving it a try to add a bit more to your avatars on Quest
Just as CATS is useful in Blender PumkinsTools can be very useful in Unity



And if you want to make stuff for ChilloutVR
Here are some tools/resources that may be relevant
https://booth.pm/ja/items/4032295 Phys Bones to Dynamic Bones converter
Different converter for Phys bones
https://github.com/Dreadrith/PhysBone-Converter/releases/latest/download/PhysBoneConverter.unitypackage
https://github.com/imagitama/vrc3cvr VRC 3.0 to CVR converter
https://developers.abinteractive.net/cck/setup/ ChilloutVR (CVR) SDK stuff

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vWB3VN98i7erA8anywUxxGoT39hrh8oHMmU6uaAnGu0/edit#heading=h.qnhhau6wy2zw