Automatically generated in-world previews on World Details
kurotori
Related to:
I think the main problem with AI-generated world thumbnails is not AI itself, but the fact that a thumbnail can be completely disconnected from what the world actually looks like.
Currently, the only reliable way to find out is to download the world and enter it. For larger worlds, that can mean spending significant time and bandwidth just to discover that the thumbnail was misleading.
I propose adding automatically generated in-world screenshots to the World Details page, separate from the creator-provided thumbnail.
When a world is submitted to Community Labs, or when a new public version is published, VRChat could load the world and automatically generate preview images from inside it.
The important distinction is that these images would be generated by VRChat rather than uploaded by the world author, and clearly labeled as such.
〇 Capture locations
At least one screenshot should always be automatically captured from the world's spawn point.
World creators could then optionally specify several additional capture points in the SDK to showcase important parts of their world.
・Automatic screenshot from the spawn point: required
・Additional creator-defined capture points: optional
This gives creators some control over presenting the interesting parts of their world, while still giving users an objective view of what they will actually see when they first join.
These previews could be regular screenshots, or potentially 360-degree captures.
〇 Advantages
This would not require users or moderators to decide whether a thumbnail is misleading.
Unlike a rating or review system, it would also avoid issues such as subjective moderation or malicious downvoting.
Creators could still freely use artwork, renders, logos, or AI-generated images for their main thumbnail.
Users would simply have an additional way to compare the creator-provided promotional thumbnail with an automatically captured view of the actual world before downloading it.
〇 Possible manipulation
Of course, this would not make deception completely impossible.
A creator could build an area specifically for the automatic capture, or attempt to detect the capture process and manipulate the scene using shaders or Udon.
However, the goal does not need to be perfect anti-cheat.
Requiring at least one capture from the spawn point, combined with additional viewpoints or 360-degree captures, would make manipulation significantly more difficult than simply uploading an unrelated thumbnail.
Even if the system can theoretically be bypassed, a clearly labeled "Automatically captured in-world" preview would still give users much more information about a world before they download it.
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Project slop slayer
Lugzx
For far too long we have been shown pictures of one world only to go in the world and be disappointed with a world vastly different from their submitted picture/preview. And i mean i get it you have high hopes, but don't post up pictures of something beautiful and make me waste my time discovering you are very far away from that dream.
I also can't imagine this to be good on vrchat's servers. People downloading a world then bailing out to do it again and again and again. Especially with ai making it easy to create these slop worlds.
This feature involves taking at least two world random pictures taken before you join the world and attaching them to the world preview.
I have included an example.
Photo Viewer
View photos in a modal
jumius（ゆみうす）
The October 6 Creator Guidelines update rightly addresses misleading world thumbnails. But I worry that a strict requirement to accurately represent the experience could also restrict traditions like game-style cover art or playful misdirection (e.g., a horror-looking thumbnail for a surprise birthday-party world).
Thumbnails currently serve two roles: promotional artwork, which needs creative freedom, and previews, which need accuracy. There is also an incentive problem: an attractive thumbnail can bring visitors regardless of the world itself. Since visiting a world takes time and may mean leaving friends, players cannot easily check what is inside. If reliable in-world screenshots were available, players could favor worlds that show their actual content, reducing the payoff from misleading thumbnails.
Building on the discussion here, I suggest separating screenshots from thumbnails and revising the guidelines accordingly:
- Optional screenshots. No requirement or ranking penalty for omitting them, especially for worlds with spoilers or surprises.
- Creator-selected, not automatic. Let authors choose locations and compositions that represent their worlds.
- Authentic, unedited captures. Submit directly through Unity or VRChat tools, without retouching or AI alterations.
- No misleading screenshots. Even a real capture can deceive (e.g., a close-up of a beautiful picture on a wall). These should be reportable and subject to moderation.
- Creative freedom for thumbnails. Allow cover art and playful misdirection without demanding screenshot-level accuracy, while still prohibiting deliberately deceptive advertising.
I recognize that adding screenshots takes work. Making them optional and easy to capture would reduce that burden. Older worlds, or worlds whose thumbnails already work as previews, might not need them.
The goal is not just to police misleading images, but to make misleading thumbnails less rewarding while preserving VRChat's creative culture.
POP✩STEP
This seem useless. The world would have to be loaded/played in some way, every single world, and screenshots taken of what? spawn? Many worlds have nothing in particular at spawn or start in a separate area before the entering the full map. Anyone looking to deceive or craft a particular preview image would just learn the preview image pattern (when and where in the world the image is taken) and account for that. Good world creators would suffer and now have to make sure there map looks enticing in these preview images. The preview images would do a bad job of showcasing a world. Its not like the preview can show anything beyond the starting state of the world anyway. For many maps nothing much is revealed or learned this way.
はい
I think it could be useful if, every time a world is uploaded, VRChat automatically detects areas that are likely to contain content—such as places with UI, chairs, or clusters of interactive objects—and takes multiple screenshots.
After the upload, or through the website, the creator could choose around three screenshots from that upload to be shown on the World Details page, with displaying them being mandatory.
For worlds such as puzzle or horror worlds, where showing the content in advance could itself be a spoiler, creators could mark the entire world as a Spoiler. In that case, the automatically captured screenshots would not be shown publicly at all.
However, the screenshots could still be kept on the server for moderation purposes and used as one of the references when a world is reported.
If the Spoiler option is intentionally abused to hide the actual quality or contents of a world, I also think there should be a relatively strong penalty for that.
Invertex
This is definitely a good idea, though I imagine the type of people who like to grift with AI will just end up downloading an addon that hooks into the upload process to block this in some way or overwrite with their own image.
Any world creator is already comfortable with installing addons and it would end up becoming the norm for these people.
But if VRC can prevent hooking into that part of the process, that'd be great, though very hard due to how open to modification/interception the C# based structure of Unity is. (having them do it server side would be nice, but I understand they want to avoid the processing costs of that)
Regardless, I'd still rather have this system than not since even beyond fighting the AI slop, it's just nice quality of life to be able to see actual screenshots. Just like looking at a game cover and flipping it over to see what are usually in-game images on the back.
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More ideally I think we need a proper world ranking/voting system with weighting based on account trust level and other factors. But that's a case for a different request.
narazaka
It would still create more hassle, so speaking from my own self-interested position as a world creator, I would also prefer that this not be adopted.
I question whether saving users the few minutes it takes to enter a world with a misleading thumbnail, realize they have been duped, and leave is really worth increasing the amount of work required to make a legitimate world.
面倒が増えることには変わりないので、ワールド作者のポジショントークとしてはこれも別に採用されないことが望ましいとも思う。
詐欺サムネワールドに入ってひっくり返る数分のコストの軽減は、まともなワールドを作るための労力を増加させるに値するのかが疑問であるからして。
Invertex
narazaka Taking a couple minutes at most to set camera capture points is not an undue burden on world creators... Especially when you're trying to make the argument that it is not a burden for users to have to download and enter a world to see if they have been duped. Except that you're saying that burden should be put on potentially thousands of other people instead of a one-time burden on the world creator...
Making a world takes dozens of hours at least if you're making anything good, placing a few camera points is a drop in the bucket of that dev time.
narazaka
Invertex A couple minutes of work, you say? Sure, sometimes it might only take a couple minutes, but it’s not hard to imagine cases where it doesn’t. The time spent doing the actual task isn’t the only cost involved.
I can’t agree with the idea that the cost of dealing with worlds that use deceptive thumbnails should be borne by all the other legitimate world creators.
I understand that potentially thousands of users may have a bad experience because of them, but please don’t turn that into some kind of collective responsibility and deliberately impose it on those of us who, individually, are providing enjoyment to tens of thousands of users.
When using the number of users who visit a world as an argument, please keep in mind that world creators are in an extremely unfair position. Most of the time there is only one creator, so we effectively get pitted against public opinion at a ratio of 10,000 to 1. You should seriously consider what piling even more miscellaneous demands from tens of thousands of users onto creators does to their motivation. And since we are not the ones pushing deceptive thumbnails on people in the first place, I don’t think it follows at all that we should obviously be the ones to bear that burden.
If you’re going to introduce something like the ability to upload additional images, I think it should be a feature that lets creators say, “There are other cool things about this world that you can’t see from the thumbnail,” rather than, “Here’s proof that this isn’t slop.”
This Canny proposal in particular comes at a time when controversy over AI-generated content is raging, so it’s not hard to imagine dogmatic anti-AI people using any excuse they can find to make unreasonable accusations. I’d like whatever measures are taken to avoid spreading that hassle to people who have nothing to do with AI slop.
For example, I think making it easier to report worlds with deceptive thumbnails would be a more direct and healthier approach. (And apparently the ToS has already been changed along those lines, from what I’ve heard.)
kurotori
narazaka I think your concern is fair, especially the point that legitimate creators should not be put in a position where they are expected to prove that their world is "good" or "not slop."
That was not really what I wanted this proposal to become.
In the original automatic-capture idea, the required spawn image was intended to be generated entirely by VRChat, without the creator having to place or configure anything. The additional capture points were meant to be optional.
That said, I agree that even an automatic system can create indirect pressure on creators — for example, affecting how spawn areas are designed, spoiling introductions, or creating an expectation that creators must present their worlds in a particular way.
After reading the discussion here, I think the simpler optional approach I mentioned above may actually be a better first step: allow creators to attach multiple in-world preview images, possibly including images that VRChat can verify were actually taken inside that world.
I also don't see multiple preview images as being useful only for preventing misleading thumbnails. They could simply be another way for creators to show off their worlds. A single thumbnail is often not enough to communicate the scale, atmosphere, different areas, or activities a world contains, so having several preview images could be useful even for worlds where misleading thumbnails are not an issue at all.
Importantly, I would not want the absence of those images to be treated as suspicious, lower a world's ranking, or imply that the creator has something to prove.
For me, this is also somewhat separate from AI moderation. The broader problem I want to solve is that World Details currently gives users almost no way to see what a world actually looks like beyond a single promotional thumbnail.
Improved reporting for deliberately misleading thumbnails would be useful too, but that is mostly a reactive measure against bad actors. In-world previews could also be a general discovery and presentation feature that benefits ordinary world creators.
WubTheCaptain
I wouldn't agree using AI Nanachis House as an example to be a good example, because it's a perfect illustrative example of what the model can do.
Jasper Raine
It's also worse for the servers to have to host hundreds of AI slop worlds that nobody goes to.
あおなん（ aonan ）
It might also be a good idea to give only world creators permission to take screenshots from an avatar’s point of view inside the world using VRChat, and allow them to upload those screenshots.
I think it would be easier to understand what the world actually looks like if the previews showed it from the same perspective users would see in VRChat.
Shadowriver
あおなん（ aonan ）This is what LittleBigPlanet was doing for example, but they did have screenshot upload system. VRChat technically already has system that could be used for this, which is prints, and its already moderated. They just need to allow to view those on user profile and tagged world, photographers may love this feature.
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