SDK Bug & Feature Requests

With the SDK 3.10.2 update, the Avatar Expressions Menu editor received the following UX change: When targeting a Boolean parameter, the Value attribute is now hidden and is always treated as enabled, since that's the only valid option for a Boolean (true when activated, false when deactivated). While I understand the reasoning behind this change, it removed a useful workflow that was previously possible. Before this update, it was possible to create two menu controls targeting the same Boolean parameter: one with Value = True and another with Value = False. This allowed both controls to toggle the same parameter while only the control matching the current state would appear visually active. For example: Badge toggle (Value = True) Nameplate toggle (Value = False) When the Boolean is true, only the Badge toggle appears active. When it's false, only the Nameplate toggle appears active. This made it possible to represent two mutually exclusive states using a single Boolean while providing clear visual feedback in the Expressions Menu. Since the Value field is now hidden and always forced to true, this behavior is no longer possible. I'd like to see the Value option restored for Boolean parameters, even if it's tucked behind an advanced setting or warning. While the current behavior is simpler for most users, the previous implementation enabled legitimate use cases that are no longer possible.

While double-checking how to get a timestamp that's consistent for multiple users, I arrived at GetServerTimeInSeconds, and then nearby noticed this: "CalculateServerDeltaTime(double timeInSeconds, double previousTimeInSeconds)" Which seemed weird? Why would there be a function for that, when you could just subtract one from the other with ordinary arithmetic? I asked on the Discord, and someone informed me that it's because GetServerTimeInSeconds can wrap ; apparently despite being a double, it's only a wrapper on GetServerTimeInMilliseconds, which is only an int. If this is true, it would be good to mention this somewhere in the summary for GetServerTimeInSeconds, and/or CalculateServerDeltaTime, I think! i.e. in this table: https://udonsharp.docs.vrchat.com/vrchat-api/#networking And honestly, it might also be nice to just provide some non-wrapping double too? (Maybe even just a convenience wrapper around GetNetworkDateTime().Ticks/10000000?)

Something that takes a lot of time when publishing avatar bases for my customers is going through every variant (pc, quest etc.) and ensuring that the pipeline manager is cleared before exporting the unitypackage. Is it possible somehow to restructure the pipeline manager so that the id is saved in the editor or something instead of in the scene/prefab. I feel like this could also greatly help with confusion around the pipeline ID since it really should be in the SDK UI instead of having to go back and forth between the SDK and the object to change an avatar ID.

If you just uploaded the PC version of an avatar, and you change the platform to Android in order the upload the Quest version 100% of the time there will be 2 nonsense warnings at the top of the SDK complaining that the last build was too big. Many people see those warnings and don't fully comprehend that they can be ignored and you can upload anyways. A super simple fix for this would be to just clear those warnings every time you change build target so that they never show up erroneously.

When I try building a world for Android for the first time, and then running it on my phone, I usually find that it's much too dark. It took me a while to realise that it was because "pixel light count" defaults to "off" on Android! I couldn't find anything about this in the docs -- it could be a good warning to mention somewhere in the world creation FAQs! (In particular, I'd love to know if that's the same on Quest, or specific to Android phones/tablets?)

I think it's great to add HelpURLAttribute to the all user-facing components on the VRCSDK. There is ? button on the inspector to open help page of each component. This is commonly used in unity-built-in components and recently used by many non-destructive tools such as Modular Avatar , AAO: Avatar Optimizer , lilycal inventory and more. However, because VRCSDK does not add HelpURLAttribute to their components, clicking the ? button will open invalid page like https://docs-redirects.unity.com/script-VRCAvatarDescriptor?version=2022.3 . I think it's better to fix this by fixing link with HelpURLAttribute.

VRC Object Sync by default is a continuously operating script that pings locations to all players even when objects are at rest or behind the player/occluded by the world. As a result, once the object pool reaches higher numbers, over 200, frame times are permanently hindered as the game waits for all these pings. I'd tested in my world the difference between VRChat's default Object Sync script and MMMaellon's Smart Object Sync on about 212 objects. Performance with default object sync raised frame times to 16.7-17ms. MMMAellon's Smart Object Sync brought framerates down to 2.4-3ms, an overall savings of around 4-5x performance improvement. And this is not on a slow PC - this is on a Ryzen 7 7800x3D with a Noctua NH-12s cooler, an RTX 4070, and 64 GB of RAM. You cannot simply add power to fix the problem. MMMaellon's script does a lot to improve performance, but the core function allows objects at rest to stop pinging unless exerted by an external force. They are also developing a newer version of the script that cuts bandwidth in half. As VRC adds more dynamic global objects through the inventory system, I fear this issue will only become more exasperated the longer global sync gets ignored. I highly recommend enabling higher performance syncing methods by default for newer worlds and enabling the older sync system only when absolutely necessary. As many maps feature QV pens, pool tables, grabbable pillows, coffee and drink prefabs, and other grabbable synced objects, this will have an immediate performance impact across the entire game, and it's something all creators need to be made aware. https://github.com/MMMaellon/SmartObjectSync

I'm trying to find the most efficient way to encode long videos for a VRChat world, and I found this table: https://ask.vrchat.com/t/hevc-h265-video-playback/17150 which in theory is exactly what I want, except, the table is two years old, and I have no way of telling whether the information is still correct (I have no Quest hardware to test with, for example). There should be an official table, either in the docs or on the wiki, that states what codecs we should expect to work in each situation (AVPro vs Unity, PC vs Quest).

An Udon API function to recenter the player to the station's Enter Transform. This would recenter the player's XZ position plane to the station's Enter Transform. An optional parameter (or secondary function) would be given to recenter the player's view as the new reference forward direction. Ideally a call like station.RecenterLocalPlayer(bool reorientRotation = true) would by default do both position and rotation realignment but reorientRotation can be set to false to only handle positional recentering (caused by play-space movement). This would alleviate the problem of a player getting into a vehicle or mounting any station in the wrong direction or moving too much, requiring them to leave and re-enter the station to recenter themselves. This would also give the opportunity for a custom station based character controller to utilize play-space movement as a mobility option without having the feet IK get stuck in one position for VR.

This page: https://creators.vrchat.com/avatars/shader-fallback-system/ describes how the "VRCFallback" tag can be used to suggest to VRChat which shader to fall back to. However, nothing actually describes which shader is chosen for each suggestion; i.e., one of the tags is "Unlit", but there are several shaders with "Unlit" in the name; which one should someone choose if they wish to create an unlit avatar that looks the same before and after shader replacement? A more general way of putting this might just be: what is the exact list of shaders that an avatar creator can choose, to make an avatar that looks the same before and after shader fallback? The docs mention that "toonstandard" and "toonstandardoutline" fall back to "VRChat/Mobile/Toon Standard" and "VRChat/Mobile/Toon Standard (Outline)" respectively; what do other tags fall back to? (Someone on the Discord suggested that none of the other fallback shaders are available for avatar creators to use; can this be right? Why would it be deliberate for people to be unable to make avatars with the same efficient shaders that the fallback system uses, if that's all they need?)