How to create a VRChat avatar

Custom gestures

VRChat uses Unity's in-built animation system for custom hand gestures. It is complex but it is very powerful.

How to animate in Unity

A brand new empty animator controller

Unity has "animator controllers" which control which animation is currently playing for a game object (such as your avatar).

Unity (and VRChat) use these controllers to check which hand gesture you are making (eg. a gun) and switches the currently playing animation (such as a surprised face) to the new face (such as an angry face).

Layers

The default layers list

A controller has "layers" so that you can play different animations at the same time and Unity will merge them all together.

Click the black cog to open the properties for a layer and always set the layer weight to 1 (unless you know what you are doing).

Layers can have "masks" which restrict which body part the layer can modify. Usually leave this part alone unless you know what you are doing.

Parameters

A controller will always change which animation is playing with parameters - yes or no, a number, etc.

In-game VRChat will set a long list of parameters on your animator controller for you. The list is here.

States

Each layer has what's called a "state machine" which is how Unity knows when to switch animations. It starts at the green Entry box, moves to the orange default box then depending on the arrows will switch to a different state.

This is an example of toggling a hat on or off. The default state is no hat (no animation) and the other state is hat visible.

If we inspect the "on" state we can see an animation should play (which should toggle the game object active):

Transitions and conditions

The white arrows inbetween states indicate a "transition" between them. Transitions occur when a condition is met. For example a condition could be you making a "gun" shape in VRChat (which VRChat gives to all animator controllers).

The condition in the image is that the user must make a "point" gesture with their left hand (which is "GestureLeft" = 3).

Creating a gesture animator controller

We recommend you use a template provided by VRChat:

1. create a folder named "My Animator Controllers" in your Project panel
2. navigate to VRCSDK/Examples3/Animations/Controllers and copy "vrc_AvatarV3HandsLayer.controller" to the folder
3. rename it to "My Gestures" or something meaningful

Click it once and open the Animator panel to take a look at it. Note that there are only 3 layers - "Base", "Left Hand" and "Right Hand".

Also look at the parameters. "GestureLeft" is a number which corresponds to which hand gesture you are making on your left hand and "GestureRight" is for your right hand. "GestureLeftWeight" and "GestureRightWeight" is the percentage (represented as 0.0 to 1.0) you are holding down the trigger of your VR controller.

• 0: neutral (no gesture)
• 1: fist
• 2: hand open
• 3: finger pointing
• 4: victory (index and middle finger raised)
• 5: rock 'n' roll (index and pinky fingers raised)
• 6: gun
• 7: thumbs up

Change a gesture

Now that you have your own controller already set up with the default gestures, you can go ahead and change a gesture's animation.

1. click the left hand or right hand layer
2. click the gesture state you want to modify (eg. "Point") to inspect it
3. in the Inspector panel under "Motion" click the black dot and search for the new animation you want to play

The Toastacuga avatar does not come with an animator controller but it does come with animations you can use for gestures (and are named correctly):

Each hand can have their own gestures so you should add it to the right hand layer too if you want it for both hands.

Add the animator controller to your VRChat avatar

Finally you need to add the animator controller to your VRChat avatar:

1. inspect your avatar in the Hierarchy panel
2. go to the "VRC Avatar Descriptor" component
3. expand "Playable Layers"
4. next to "Gesture" click "Default Gesture"
5. click the black dot and find your animator controller

Now you can test it out in VRChat.