Developer Update - 1 June 2023
Welcome to the Developer Update for 1 June 2023!
The Dev Update thumbnail today features the world I N I T I U M ⁄⁄⁄ イニシャル by Artsy Glitch. Explore the lore by hopping into I N I T I U M and putting the story together, world by beautifully crafted world!
If you’d like to catch up, you can read our previous Developer Update from May 18.
Dev Updates are now biweekly!
As a reminder, Developer Updates are now on a biweekly (once every two weeks) schedule. The next Dev Update will be on June 15.
Important Info / Announcements
VRChat 2023.2.3 Open Beta
We’ve got an Open Beta up right now with the next version of VRChat available for testing! Hop into our Discord and scroll down to the Open Beta channels to learn more.
Here are the patchnotes so far. Here’s some of the standout features!
New Group Instance Types
We’ve introduced new Group instance types: Group+ and Group Public! You can find these new options in the Instance creation flow:
Group+ instances are similar to Friends+, where friends of occupants (not just group members!) can join the instance. In addition, Group Members with the appropriate permissions can moderate in that instance as if they were the instance owner!
To support this and the other features introduced in this update, we’ve added a bunch of new Group role permissions. Find them on the site, all sorted towards the bottom:
We think Group+ instances will be great for Groups that want to socialize and find new friends-of-friends in that special way that Friends+ instances typically do.
Group Public instances are similar to Public instances! Anyone can join, and they are listed alongside other Public instances. Just like Group+, Group Public instances can be moderated by anyone in the Group with the appropriate permissions.
We think Group Public instances will be great for Groups that want to curate a completely open experience, allowing Groups to moderate their instances actively.
Group Ban Improvements
In addition to these new instance types, we’ve also given Groups a bit of a level-up when it comes to Group moderation: you can now ban anyone from your Group, and that user will no longer be able to join your Group’s instances.
Moreover, if you hop into a Group instance where someone’s being a bit of a jerk, you can bap them out of there with a Group Ban – assuming you have the right permissions:
You can find the Group Ban button in the Quick Menu, when you click on said jerk:
When you ban the jerk in question, they’ll get removed from the instance – and they’ll no longer be able to join any other instances hosted by that Group. Out of sight, out of mind! If they were being a REALLY HUGE jerk, like… a ToS-breaking jerk? Feel free to report them, too.
Group Locations View and Group Search
We’ve added “Group Locations” in the Social Menu, which lets you see every instance of all Groups you are a part of in one place!
In addition, we’ve implemented a pretty basic form of Group search! You can now search for Groups in the Groups tab. No filtering or sorting yet, but we’re working on it.
ClientSim 1.2.5 Released
VRChat ClientSim is a way to simulate the client in your editor, permitting easy testing of your worlds and Udon scripts! You can use it to simply run around your world and try things out without launching VRChat, or go so far as to implement automated testing for your Udon code.
We’ve just released ClientSim 1.2.5, which has a bunch of new fixes.
Twitch isn’t working in VRChat video players?!
It was reported and we confirmed that Twitch streams no longer work in VRChat video players. This is not a VRChat bug but is instead the result of a change in Twitch’s API.
The URL resolver we use has to be updated for Twitch to work again. We rely on an open-source upstream project for this, so we must wait patiently for them to figure things out and fix it. We’re watching the conversations on those issues closely.
It seems like that Twitch has just rolled back this change. From what we’re seeing, this may just be temporary, but we expect the open-source projects impacted by this change to get ready for it to be re-enabled at some point in the future.
Ongoing Development
“Ongoing Development” is a section where we talk about fixes and features that are on the way! They’re usually 1-3 months away, but sometimes more, sometimes less.
If we post about something, but don’t post more about it later on – don’t worry, we didn’t forget about it. Development is hard! Sometimes we get diverted, delayed, distracted, that kind of thing.
More Group Things On The Way!
So, we just put out Group Instances, Bans, and more, right? What else is on the way? Hold on, lemme find a microphone to drop first.
Group member cap will be raised from 10,000 to 100,000, a 10x increase, in an upcoming update. We’ll keep an eye on the servers to make sure they don’t fall over with larger groups.
In that same update or one soon after, we will be releasing Member Search so you can easily find people within your Groups. This will make it much easier to assign and manage roles on members, especially with larger groups.
Performance Improvements
We’ve used a slightly more clever approach to the method we use to make mirrors and shadows work. As a result, we’ve gotten a boost in FPS when those things aren’t in use. As a bonus, this always applies on Quest, since shadows aren’t a thing there.
Settings Search
We’re working on adding search to the Settings menu!
It can even detect misspellings to some extent:
Login Flow Localization
We’re adding localization to our login flow – arguably one of the most important things for a new user in VRChat!
We’re still working on improving our community-based localization process and flow. If you’d like to contribute, check out our guide to learn how to get started!
Fixes! Fixes for some REALLY annoying bugs!
We’ve got some really cool (and highly requested) bug fixes coming up in upcoming releases!
These first four are in 2023.2.3, which is currently in Open Beta.
BUG: Camera smoothing and camera stabilization trails behind avatar - “Smooth” movement behavior on the camera will ignore locomotion once again. This means the smoothed camera should no longer clip into avatars while running around. This one’s been heavily requested by streamers and video creators!
BUG: Mouse horizontal sensitivity is super low - Mouse movement now feels a lot smoother in some scenarios, especially horizontal movement! It should now always stay at the same speed as vertical.
BUG: Friending someone and reloading their avatar doesn’t enable cameras - Cameras on avatars still only work for friends, but after friending someone you can just reload their avatar (or have them switch into it again) instead of having to rejoin the instance to make it work.
BUG: Quick menu and Main menu cursors jump around when moving in a station - QM, MM and camera will become usable in stations with this fix! The menus are rock solid, including when you’re zipping along at Mach 3.
These next three are on the way with the next major release (after 2023.2.3) if all goes well.
BUG: Shaking your head while sitting in Fullbody creates body jittering visible from remote users - The good ol’ “moving my head in FBT makes my body shake for remote players” bug.
A fix is on the way! This addresses this Canny post from 2018.
BUG: Video Players do not work if yt-dlp user config is present - User profiles will no longer interfere with video players, which fixes video players for users who had their own yt-dlp profiles defined.
BUG: The camera is unusuable at high speeds, like in planes - You can now spawn and use the camera, even at very high speeds!
Votekick Notifications
If you participate in a votekick (as a voter or an initiator), you’re informed of the result when the voting finishes.
We’ve also added some more logging for moderations to the output log.
Conclusion
That’s all for this week! Please remember to go check out the Open Beta. There’s a lot in there to try out, and it’s Live Compatible!
See you next time!
