Developer Update - 2 February 2023

Welcome to the Developer Update for 2 February 2023! This is the third Developer Update of 2023.

If you’d like to catch up, you can read our previous Developer Update from January 26.

VRChat 2023.1.1 Release

We’ve just released VRChat 2023.1.1, which has a ton of quality of life features, improvements, and some nice bug fixes to boot. You can check out the release notes here, oooooor you could check out our Video Patchnotes!

We’ll be releasing Video Patchnotes with every full release (not for p1, p2, etc.) going forward. They’re meant to be quick to record, quick to create rough summaries of features. It turns out that some people don’t like reading giant walls of patchnote text!

Creator Companion Reminder

We’re currently planning to wait on the release of the updated VCC with the Web UI (we call it “VCC-Web”) before fully swapping to VCC.

Due to feedback, we are investigating direct downloads of packages. They’ll be VPM-compatible UnityPackages instead of the legacy ones. VCC will continue to be the recommended and primary method to set up the VRChat SDKs and keep them updated.

Once VCC releases, SDK2 will be deprecated simultaneously and SDK2 will no longer be available for download.

:new:Unity Version Upload Blocking

Starting immediately, we will be blocking uploads from Unity versions older than 2018. From our analytics, this should affect an extremely small number of users.

Any users still on a version before 2018 should follow the below upgrade guides, and work their way up to the Currently Supported Unity Version.

In the near future, we will begin blocking uploads from Unity 2018 as well. This will impact more users, but still a very small amount.

As noted in previous Developer Updates, at a future date (within 1-3 months, if I had to guess), SDK2 worlds and avatars will no longer be permitted for uploads. We will support existing SDK2 content within VRChat for as long as possible.

Ongoing Development

Extra-Cozy Earmuffs

In an upcoming update, the Earmuffs feature will be getting a new feature that allows you to morph the shape of the earmuff “area of effect” to more closely match the typical “conversation circles” we often see in social situations:

Of course, it also rotates with you when you turn!

Finally, we’re adding an icon to your nameplate that others can see that indicates when your Earmuffs are on.

Multi Layer Camera

Multi-layer camera mode lets you take layered pictures! This mode saves each “mask” layer to a separate image. If you have Local Player, Remote Players, UI, and Environment enabled, each will be saved to their own image, with transparency enabled for applicable layers (usually players and UI). You can re-combine these layers later on in image editing software.

Notably, remote and local players are merged into the same layer if they’re both on.

This feature was released with VRChat 2023.1.1! Find this new mode in the Camera tab of the Quick Menu or the Camera Mode UI on the camera itself.

Grab-To-Adjust FBT Calibration

This feature adds a few modes to the Tracking & IK section of the Quickmenu for adjusting your full-body calibration on the fly:

That means even when you’re sitting down all comfy in Yet Another World Full of Blanket-Covered Furniture, if you notice that your tracker calibration is a little off, you can fix it without getting up! Here it is in action:

That’s not all! In the Main Menu’s Tracking & IK section, there’s also a new option to set if this adjustment applies per-avatar or globally:

Grab-To-Adjust FBT Calibration is now available in VRChat 2023.1.1!

Udon MIDI Playback

World creators have been able to make amazing musical worlds that respond to MIDI Instruments for years now, but they’ve always required MIDI devices to see the effects. Coming soon, you’ll be able to play back MIDI data along with audio files to make all sorts of AudioVisual Experiences which can be enjoyed at any time!

As a world creator, you can use MIDI files to simply trigger the existing Midi Note On and Off events on UdonBehaviours, with Note, Channel and Velocity sent as usual. You can also inspect the data of the MIDI file in the Unity Editor or right in VRChat to build and modify worlds from the tracks, channels and events in the file before they play.

Cameras in Stations Bugfix

There’s currently a bug where cameras in stations act oddly, and end up getting really jittery with smoothing enabled:

We’ve got a fix on the way!

Not only does it work at 80mph (128kph), it also works when you’re flying at Mach 1!

Portal UI Refresh

We’ve been working on refreshing the Portal UI a little bit, because it’s pretty dated! Here’s a preview of where we’re at so far:

It also includes a nice banner for when the portal you’re dropping goes to a Group instance:

(the text being kinda blocky is gonna get fixed, that’s just weird Editor aliasing)

Coming soon! Let us know what you think, we’re looking for feedback!

Conclusion

That’s all for this week! Whew, a release, video patchnotes, and a Dev Update in the same day. :sweat_smile:

We hope you enjoy the new additions and improvements that came with VRChat 2023.1.1! We’ll see you next week!

24 Likes

Finally a new UI for Portals! I love it!
(Now please also redesign the portal it self xD)

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Nice to see Portal UI refresh! Did you plan to update the (laggy) particle effect around them as well?

There’s currently a bug where cameras in stations act oddly, and end up getting really jittery with smoothing enabled

To be honest the jittering stuff is already an issue with contacts and physbones. Hopefully we can get a fix for that too :smile:

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that’s better pretty cool! :heart: ^-^

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Love that camera feature that should open up lots of picture editing capabilities

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Any word on giving world creators a world settings section on the menu to add their world settings to?

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Avatar audio on Quest is bugged. You can’t hear any of the audio. Will you please fix it quickly?

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I am not sure if everyone has experience this bug, but whenever I join a world, there is an off chance are that I spawned in the “wrong location” and if I move, I will be thrown off and literally fly off the map.

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Great stuff as usual. I have to see it in person but I think the portal UI should be slimmed down. Loved the update video.

Okay, this is awesome! Was actually hoping for an update to the earmuffs like this, with the directionality.

Is this something where the visibility can be toggled for users? I know VRC was against doing a UI element on name tags for users that have your avatar hidden/blocked. I can see potential abuse of the earmuff UI feature, so it’d be nice to toggle the visual off for others.

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Oh crap~! Didn’t even think about MIDI playback.

Speaking of, do you have any plans to add .MOD or other tracker formats (e.g. those that can be heard in Commodore Amiga music as well as the original Unreal and Deus Ex). If not ,then that’s another suggestion I highly suggest you look into if its not any trouble. :3

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I would love to see the live topdown view be implemented in the earmuff menu when youre adjusting the settings. Would be very useful to adjust a proper falloff distance behind you with the new earmuff mode shape.

This is not a bug!

Quest has never permitted audio sources on avatars.

image

It was a bug that some users could modify their SDK to work around limits and have audio on Quest avatars. We fixed this bug.

This isn’t a bug report thread, please post to our Bug report forum! (I have also experienced that bug, but rarely. Hit “respawn” and then recalibrate your FBT)

No news on this front.

They’re laggy?? News to me. :thinking:

No plans at the moment, but cool idea! While MOD is cool, MIDI is a bit more widespread, so I imagine that’s why @momothemonster went for that first.

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oh man it would be absolutely epic to:

  1. be able to somehow see on the ground what someone’s earmuff mode is while they’re highlighted. Imagine being able to see multiple ppl at once and you can see who can hear who :open_mouth:
  2. feel like going through a stargate as you enter a portal xD it’s weird coming out the other side of a portal, I want to feel like when I hit the portal I move through it into another space! Extra epic if people reliably disappeared from the world right when they hit the portal. Obviously this doesn’t work as well if you have trigger-confirm when going through the portal, but maybe if you’re holding down the trigger as you approach the portal you get that experience? But really I’m just so desperate for the portal to feel like a scifi portal
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That’s a cool idea, but we do already get a lot of new users turning on the Earmuff feature accidentally and getting lost. Imagine turning on someone else’s and not knowing what the heck was happening?

I’m sure there’s a way to make that work, though. It isn’t something we plan on doing, to be clear. For one, we don’t transmit your volume settings to other users right now, and I think doing so might be a little abusable, at first thought.

Sorry, just throwing wrenches into idea gears! I’m good at that :smile:

Chevron 7 locked

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awesome stuff, that calibration moving is huge. hate having to get up just to move my hip tracker over. big thanks

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Hmm. I guess so. I just mean, like, when you’ve got the floating, hand-bound menu on your left hand (these menus need clear names when they’re open so I can refer to them for new users easily, heh), it would be cool if people who have “show that I have earmuff on in my nameplate” checked also have a faint glowing line on the floor showing where they can hear. Idk. Really, I just want this for meeting purposes in specific worlds, and ideally it would be something people opt into. But currently there’s no way to implement it as a world dev that isn’t horrible, I’m sure jc can tell you about that.

anyway what I mean is just, the collision dynamics of hitting a portal, and the art of the portal itself, could feel like a magical physical object that one enters. The stargate-ish portal in furality aqua oceans of luma is a good ref for what im thinking, maybe the person who made that could contribute?

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Did the station fix also fix the smoothed camera, with just moving around?

Am talking about this bug! Canny

To reiterate on a previous reply, when UI update phases were initially announced, phase 2.5 included access to that UI tab for world creators. Among the rest of the things mentioned in the UI update roadmap, we’ve been given everything other than that so far, I think.

For all of the things that we have been given already in regards to the UI update, I am grateful! I think many of us are!

Having said that, the World tab for World creators can be such a huge addition, but I haven’t heard anything else regarding the progress on that in a long time.

I look forward to seeing worlds taking advantage of that tab. If we could get some news on that at some point, that would be great. It sometimes feels like it’s been forgotten.

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