My VRChat Avatars

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

In the months since VRChat added support for using your own custom avatars I've been kind of making a name for myself as the "Avatar Guy". The label comes from my habit of trying to show up with a new avatar for myself every week, but also from the avatars I make for other people.

When making a avatar I try to have some fun with it. Make something a bit silly/fun/cool that can help make the weekly meetup that much more of a good experience for everyone. But alas, once the week is over that may be it for a avatar. And some people will have never known about them. So I figure I could compile a list of all the avatars I've made, for everyone to see!

Some day I'll hopefully even share some of these for public use. Also, since I have done some freelance work on avatars for others, this could double as a portfollio of my past work. Though of course a lot of these aren't 100% modeled by me, but instead maybe just rigged/skinned, had the Animation Controller setup, or bundled up as a VRChat compatible avatar by me. But I still put time and effort into them just the same.

I placed the images after the break as there are a lot of them, and they will take a bit to load. Press "Read More" to see them.


My Avatars

These avatars are the ones I personally used at the meetups.
 

Child Link:

Taken directly from the OoT ROM. I used this a few times. Later updated with a blinking animation. I briefly used a darkened version, then intending it to be my main avatar. The shortness of the avatar however grew tiring so that idea was abandoned.



Child Zelda:

Taken directly from the OoT ROM. I used this one too a few times, with different versions. Later a version with blinking. And for Easter I created a version with the Bunny Hood from OoT.



Pedo Bear:

Of internet MEME fame. Downloaded from a model website, but rigged by me. I came about using this as a joke response to people acting... a bit creepy torwards me when I used the Link/Zelda avatars. Many "lol"s followed. There was the 7 foot tall version pictured below, and a roughly 3 story tall version. As well as a couple copys packaged with copys of the Link avatar for more lol's and surprises.



Facebook Ads:

I think this was the 4th avatar I made, and of course the timing was the Sunday right after the big "Facebook buys Oculus" announcement. Things were pretty crazy and stressful that week, so it was a nice well received joke (At least at the meetup. Reddit users had less of a sense of humor) to lighten the mood.



Companion Cube:

Downloaded from a model website. It isn't rigged in any way. It was just a odd/silly avatar to throw together quickly.



Hatsune Miku:

The (apparently) popular Vocaloid (never head of it or the term before her) character, that has been overly popular with Japanese VR devs. I had to delete and redo all the rigging/skinning myself to make it Mecanim compatible. A goal with it was to jokingly "Beat Japan to the punch, before they made it a VRChat avatar". =p

I've used different movement animations with it once I was able. And made a alternate version with roller skates.



Link + Zelda (Height Boost):

This was the 3rd avatar I made, though I went awhile before I showed it, to little attention/fanfaire. Before then it looked fine, but by the time I showed it off, the default animations in VRChat changed and made it look very awkward. I made it for the comedy (even gave Zelda a grumpy face), and also as a way to be back up to normal height at the meetings.



Big Cucco:

Taken directly from the OoT ROM. Then scaled up a lot! I did this for the comedy value, and sheer randomness. I also scaled it back down for another version as it took up quite a bit of space. The rigging on it was weird as I set it up like a humanoid so I could use pre-existing movement animations.



Navi:

Taken directly from the OoT ROM. There were a few failed versions of this that I tried to show off at first. Eventually I took another crack at it when the VRChat SDK was sent to me. I added in the glowy animated light, flapping wings, floating up and down, and the signature audio clips of "Hey!" and "Listen!". I used this several times as it contained my soundboard of other clips, and was generally a nice change of pace to see from humanoid avatars. It was also the first avatar at the meetups to start showing some real animations other than movement.

Something few, if anyone will ever see is the blinking pattern I created for Navi is actually Morse Code. It spells out "HEY". =)



CATTRON:

The cat model came from a model website.

I came up with this on the spot when I was party crashing the first EuroMeetup (I'm from the US) as a single cat named "Meow". The cat lacked rigging, so it wasn't animated, and I quickly grew bored of it. Then the idea struck me to make CATTRON. The first version of CATTRON lacked rigging as well, but I later updated it to what I think of as CATTRON 1.5, with rigging.

For additional backstory on this, I kept my identity as CATTRON secret, figuring to have fun by creating a mystery/legend. Naturally I was the first one that came to peoples minds as the creator, and had to deny it a few times. In keeping my identity secret, I never talked on the microphone, just in text chat, staying in character saying "Cats can't talk.". (I had a response if someone pointed out that cats don't type either, but never got called on that. =p). I focused more on my typing to further the misdirection away from me, as I'm quite sloppy with real time typing. I played it up as a character, taking itself very seriously, and not just some person controlling an avatar. I typed "Meow!" to people to say hello/goodbye. Made a few in character funny statements/claims. And used the names "IAmCATTRON" and "The Legend of CATTRON", and "CATTRON, The Legend is True" or something like that.

It was finally revealed at the Palmer Luckey VRChat AMA that I was CATTRON all along, as at the time I repackaged the avatar in hopes that he would use it, and make people think it was him all along. But instead I just ended up using it myself to show it off along with a few others. =)




Child Shiek:

Taken directly from the OoT ROM.... Sort of. This of course isn't a canon Zelda character from the game. At least not at that age. I resized/reshaped the normal model from the game to be correct in the "what if?" scenario if we ever did see it.

Like the Link and Zelda models, part of my motivation for doing this was a hope to include the 3 in Project: Ocarina later.



Fantasy Spider:

I got this from the asset store. I first used it after I got comfortable with dealing with animation controllers, as that was needed for this being that its not a humanoid model. I included all the non-movement animations like attack, death, taunt, etc, as hotkeys. I modeled and added the Tophat and Monacle myself for the randomness/sillyness. Those can be toggled on and off.



UnityChan:

I grabbed this from the asset store. It came pre-rerigged with all the animations I could want. But I had to make a new Animation controller from scratch to be compatible with VRChat as an avatar.

It has 4 random idle animations, 2 Hotkey animations (I had to leave several out to not make the avatar to bloated), and 31 poses. It pushes the limits of the VRChat animation controller stuff, but works well. Just the shaders that come with it don't play well with the lighting in rooms. In half of the rooms she comes up mostly flat black, and in the other half she looks mostly fine except her green eyes are really pale.




Other Avatars

In addition to the avatars above that I put together for myself, I've done a few for other people. Some almost 100% custom. And with others my work was on the rigging, or animation controllers, etc.

There are also a few avatars I won't show here because they were simple "drop it in Unity and compile" with no animation or real work for me at all. Like a couple spiders that I made for myself but didn't use for to long. Others, like my helping Metatron with their Chess set. I did some work on the materials, which would barely be enough to list them, but there would be to many to list, and really... its Chess pieces. Everyone should know what they look like.


An Apple:

I grabbed this model from a model website. I made it for Apieceoffruit, a VR community and Metatron member. I wasn't asked to, but I just couldn't resist. I didn't do any rigging/animation or anything either, but it has seemed to be a big hit for its oddness.



EasterEgg Man:

I made this model myself with some bits from model websites. I made it for Gunter as both a loner avatar, and for the Easter Sunday VRChat meetup. Inspiration for it was drawn from Gunters being EasterEgg hunters in ReadyPlayerOne, I guess the California Rasins, and the Hunter S. Thompson glasses and cigarette I was modeling for his real avatar. It still needed a face, so I threw in a Trollface for fun. =)



Gunter S. Thompson:

This avatar was done by me in Blender and Makehuman. It was for Gunter, a VR community/Metatron member, and host of Virtually Incorrect. He wanted it to be very much like Hunter S. Thompson, but with ReadyPlayerOne references thrown in, which I obliged in the form of changeable shirts.



TF2 Medic:

The model for this was supplied by Ruuubick of the VR community, and moderator of CymaticBruces Sunday stream, and for me to turn it into a VRChat avatar for him. The work I did on it was primarily the rigging/skinning.



G Man:

This model and the animations were sent to me by WormSlayer of the VR community, r/Oculus sub-reddit moderator, and co-developer of the HL2 VR mod. My work was all in Unity as all I did was create the animation controller for it, and setup extras like a random idle animation, a hotkey animation, and a sound clip hotkey.




Contacting Me

I retired from making this content in 2014/2015. So this offer is no longer available. Sorry.

If you're interested in hiring me to work on an avatar for you, or if you just need some advice/help, you can email me at darkakuma [ at ] z-net.us. I can't guarantee that I will take the job, but I will listen to what you would like for it to figure out if I can do so or not.

Help/advice is free of course. But donations are always appreciated. It will all go towards my DK2 fund! =)

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