And I have as well! 😀
This post probably won’t have much interesting content, but it’s to be made as a ‘response’ to my previous one. But after I made the previous post, I found this video showing how to make “the next best thing” (of 3D modeling): 2D modeling (aka taking a picture and making it into an avatar (without requiring the use of Blender)).
The first thing I needed to do, was to get a program I highly debated over in the past (though I forgot the content of said debates). I think it was because how it sounded like a virus.
I’m talking about ‘GIMP'(GNU Image Manipulating Program), like a free version of Photoshop. And since the guy uses it, I’ll use it. No forced account required to use it (a plus for me).
But the main reason I got it, wasn’t because he was using it (got your brain messed up, didn’t I). The real reason is GIMP has an auto-crop feature (which takes the image and chops off all the excess, leaving only the very edges of the image). He said it was highly important to do so.. ergo, why I had to get it.
Moving on, there were two areas of the video, where it felt it was semi-outdated. The first one thankfully, has a known workaround. Basically, tells me to grab the default model in this “ThirdPersonModel’ folder in the VRCSDK folder (but no such folder exists). Instead, it’s under ‘TutorialAvatar’. I’ve questioned why would you even need this model. He claimed it was for reference, but it still made no sense to me.
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And the second thing is when he said to get the picture into Unity, either by importing it as an asset (or simply dragging it in). This wasn’t the problem, what was is when he said “now click on the picture and do this on the right”. The ‘this on the right’ part (the Import Properties thing) wasn’t popping up for me, for some odd reason.
Saw there was another video going over the same subject. I felt “hopefully this one is updated” and went to it. This video, didn’t tell me to do the whole “place the default avatar down”, instead it was more to the point.
So I followed it, closely listening to every word he said step-by-step (even having to do a bit of math to keep the aspect ratio of the picture), until eventually it was done and ready to upload. I felt quite excited, knowing that I’ve finally created an avatar (instead of uploading someone else’s work). Granted, it’s not 3D.. but screw that. I.. did this. Myself!! The pride was very strong. 😀
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Uploaded it fine, and got into VRChat. I wanted to make a private instance of this ‘Avatar Emporium’ world (as it’s quite popular, but I like its large mirror). Did so and went into it. Opened up the Avatars feature in the window, and saw my upload! EEEEEE!! 😀
…But when I selected it (and was about to change into it), I noticed the avatar was displaying weird. Changed to it, and I saw what so many others in the comments section of that video are having an issue with: 1/4 of the avatar is seen, with 3/4 of it in the ground. And there’s no fix listed anywhere. Ugh!
Asked for help in the Avatars channel of the VRChat Discord. I was half-expecting to get quick assistance (like most people in there), yet it was like I was being shunned for being into 2D modeling (as no one responded to my help requests for what seemed like, many.. many hours). Highly discouraging.
I came close to literally getting on my hands and knees and begging for help, feeling that my posts were being ignored. I did get a few responses, though most of them unfortunately weren’t that helpful.
Later on, I had the attention of a few people that were really trying to help me. They asked if the avatar has a bone structure, and I tried to reference them to the second video I watched (and saying how a lot of people are having the same issue).
One said that I might have to add a single bone on the bottom, for it to fix the issue.. but says I would have to use Blender. I talked myself into doing so, being slightly warned about the highly-complicated UI from one other person. Got it installed, and… that person was NOT kidding! WTF is all of THIS shit?! Here I thought Unity was out of my league ..this is WORSE! “Told you!” said the person who was warning me about the UI. Another person said “ehh, it’s not that bad”.
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I said “whatever, now how do I add this bone on the bottom?” Was told to upload my model. Looked at the Import options, and I’m not seeing anything about ‘Unity File’ and mentioned this to them. One said “Blender doesn’t support .unitypackage, you’ll need the .fbx or an .obj”, but I wasn’t seeing this anywhere.
Sent a DM to this person who was helping me the most, who wanted pictures of what I was trying to do in Unity. We talked back and forth about the issue for a half an hour. The person found a converter for me, that will work.. the catch, is it costs $100 to download. WTF?! Yes, that’s real world money, I would have to pay. FUCK that noise!
It was not looking promising for me, running out of options to fix the issue. I tried playing with colorful buttons, turning knobs and pulling levers.. ANYTHING, to fix the issue. But nothing was working! WHY?! Why can I not have nice things, without feeling like I have to break one of my body parts to ease the pain of having to learn 3D modeling?!
The person showed me a few pictures in Blender (that gave me one idea). It said “notice the feet are in the floor?” This got me thinking, that maybe the model was too high up (and tried adjusting it). Sadly when testing ingame, I saw the same thing.
UGH!! The person apologized for not being able to help me (and sounded quite sincere). Told them it wasn’t their fault.
Before I closed out the DM, the person also grabbed my attention with another thing I noticed. Uploading the model keeps acting like it’s a new model, instead of an existing one(telling me to type in the info everytime I upload). Was told to ‘detach the Pipeline Manager’ to fix it, and that it’s a bug with the new SDK. But when doing so, I lost the ability to upload. What’s even more intriguing of what this person’s telling me, is “it’ll claim it uploaded, but nothing’s there”. It made me think all of these attempts to fix it, were not being applied.
Yet that’s silly, telling them a few days ago that I uploaded two avatars just fine. They said “it started happening today”, which makes literally no sense. I have the same version of the SDK I had when they updated it with the new update of VRChat.
I managed to restore the functionality of the upload, by allowing the pipeline manager (whatever it is).
Left the DM, and asked them is there still a way to import this to Blender (without having an .fbx or an .obj file). They were extremely confused why the model didn’t have an .fbx to begin with. One person linked a wiki post, of this code that has a .obj converter. Oh great, first 3D modeling, and now coding. Angry must be laughing his head off right now (if he was reading this).
Was told “its in this language, the coding is already done for you”, but when I asked how do I add this (as I don’t have any coding software installed), was told Unity has an “add C#” option for adding an asset, which I remember seeing before.
Instead… I completely wiped out the project and started from scratch (thinking I maybe did something wrong). And this second time, would prove to be my God and Savior.
But before I could get there, I had another issue– the transparency of the picture wasn’t working correctly in Unity. The shit didn’t make sense ..you were working before, why are you having an issue now??
I assumed it could’ve been a possible fragment of the old attempt. Verified I deleted everything of the old project, and restarted Unity. Same thing. Reported the issue, and got a fairly quick response. Instead of making a texture ball using Legacy Shaders > Transparency > Diffuse (as both videos said to do), to use Unlit > Transparent Cutout, and this worked!
I also noticed I was seeing that ‘Import Properties’ thing (that the first video said). Thought I finally found hope, and watched the first video again, restarting it from the beginning.
He did the tutorial avatar thing again. Continued to watch, then noticed he was trying to match the height of the Plane with the height of the model! My eyes bugged out, realizing THIS was the reason I was having so much difficulty!! I had it too tall! Wow. Not only that, but he showed me the proper way of setting the Avatar Descriptor (which was different than what I was told from the other video). He said the X axis is -only- if the model has a skeleton, and showed how to move the Plane (not the model) to get the Descriptor to be between the eyes of the model.
All I had to do next is to make the other side visible (which is one of the easiest parts of doing 2D modeling), and then upload.
Deleted the old upload (for some reason, the upload I made didn’t overwrite what I did) and got into VRChat. Closed my eyes and loaded the avatar, thinking I would have the same issue..
IT WORKS!! IT FUCKING WORKS!! 😀
Ohh HELL YES! FUCK YOU, Blender! I never needed you! 🙂 I actually felt like it would work this time, when he showed to match the height of the default avatar.
You have no idea how happy I am, actually making something and feeling proud that I did. I just wonder what others will think.
What I really hope for (which I feel is highly unlikely), is to meet someone that’ll say “Hey, I could make that into a 3D model for you, no charge”. You know I would jump for that.