Cross-platform material switching VRChat Stuff

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material-change.jpg

A commonly-desired feature for a VRChat avatar is the ability to switch materials, so as to change color schemes and the like. This requires a nontrivial amount of setup, and with the standard approach it is difficult to maintain cross-platform compatibility. As a result, creators will usually only set it up on PC, leaving Quest users unable to see these customizations.

Here is my approach to setting up material switching in a way that’s easier to support on multiple platforms simultaneously. This particular method is what I developed for my critter avatar.

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❝ This moment isn’t about decentralization Notes

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The core need being expressed by millions of users isn’t “get me a decentralized protocol that nobody owns where I can have my choice of algorithms and apps”. It’s “get me a platform that works consistently, with less abuse”. Sometimes it’s also appended with, “where I can build a following for me / my brand / my employer and measure my progress.”

[…]

Many of us have been wanting decentralized social networking for a long time — I’ve been a part of these conversations for around twenty years. It’s tempting to feel like people finally get it. But that’s a trap and a mistake. As always, quite rightly, most people want something that works for them.

Reminder that Usenet has been around since the 80s and was a toxic hellhole even then. Decentralization isn’t the answer to social media problems, it’s just an implementation detail.

Or, as I keep on saying: The problem with Twitter isn’t that it’s centralized, but that it’s Twitter.

The cycle fluffy rambles

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For the last few months I’ve been feeling restless to be doing not-much throughout the day, so I’ve been actively looking for a job. No bites have been occurring. So instead I’ve been working hard on new projects, like the VRChat avatar stuff and also redesigning my website (which I’m close to being able to roll out, incidentally).

But then it turns out that doing work makes my chronic pain flare up again, and now I’m in agony again.

So, I guess I need to find something that makes me feel satisfied with my day (and ideally brings in some amount of income) without being something that my body just absolutely rejects. But what could that possibly be? The stuff I’m good at and the stuff I enjoy doing is stuff that physically hurts to do.

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Become critter! fluffy rambles

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So whatever happened to my VRChat avatar project?

Well, it went really well, so well that I decided to make it a purchasable base model. You can get it for as low as $25 (with a suggested minimum of $30). It also comes with extensive documentation about how to add more materials and I feel like my setup for material swapping is really well-designed and makes things much easier than I’ve seen on other avatars. So it’s probably worth buying just for that alone!

At some point I’ll probably start putting some VRChat documentation onto this site (including the material-swap guide and an explanation of how I set my system up since it’s pretty easy to apply to other avatars and makes life much, much easier). But I kind of want to do some site layout refreshing first. And I need to figure out which section of the site is best suited for it. So, quick poll, what makes the most sense?

Monitoring my feed reader fluffy rambles

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Every time I get hyperfixated on a thing, I end up doing it at the expense of all else. Right now my hyperfocus is on working on making a sellable version of my VRChat avatar (which is almost ready!)

But I needed a break, so I checked my feed reader, and realized, oh wow, I haven’t checked my feed reader in a few days. Oops.

So anyway, I did what any good nerd would do, and gave myself some alerting and monitoring to track my feed stats.

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Even more VRChat tips and tricks fluffy rambles

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I’ve been completely redoing my avatar from scratch and this time around it’s turned out great!

Anyway now that I’ve learned more about Blender and VRChat in general I have a bunch more stuff to share since last time. (And some of this will apply to Unity in general too! Sort of, anyway.)

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Bandcamp Friday, May 2024 fluffy rambles

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For the next 23.5 hours, Bandcamp is waiving their cut of music purchases made on their platform, which makes it an amazing time to buy independent music there.

As always, I have plenty of stuff you can get there (including a recently-released 80-minute meditation album and an hour-long musical journey inspired by a variety of coffee grinders), and you can get a pretty decent discount on my music if you just buy it all at once as a discography.

I also like to keep a checklist of albums to buy on this day, and this month the two albums I bought are a recent release by my friend Sam and the discography of ratwyfe mostly because I heard someone do a cover of his song cryptid and I knew right away that I’d totally dig all of his music.

Anyway. Support independent musicians, both by buying the music that you like, but also spreading the word of mouth of the music that you like, too. You might not think you have much of a voice but every little bit helps way more than you think; every flood begins with a handful of raindrops.