I should get a VRChat avatar ready by the time Furality Online happens, I think it'll be fun

Let's call this attempt #15, that's probably not too far off from the actual number. Box modeling starts, uh, soon, let's say

"Basic Box Model", just laying out an enclosed, unoptimized, and extremely not-final shape extruded from the default box. The plan is to Ship-of-Theseus this geometry into something with more moxie

Refinement of the head, face, and accessories (hat, glasses, shirt harness). There's plenty of wasted geometry in the untouched parts but I've heard it's easy to accidentally surpass Quest polygon limits, we'll see how much individually modeled fingers will make me panic

For the record, the polycount on this model is 3271 triangles and it completely owns, but has no moving facial geometry https://twitter.com/apogeeaardwolf/status/1078478955072516096

I'm going to softly tap against that 5000-triangle Quest geometry limit, it's obvious at this point

Fully enclosed, I can't wait to find out how many concessions I'll have to make to make this properly animation-friendly

(Divergence from the original design, also: I've tried to separate the shell from the lower torso enough to make twisting at the hip plausible. If I have to bring it up even further I'll completely understand why)

I've decided there'll be a second (PC-only) version of this with a larger polygon budget, I want to sculpt a higher-quality shell and include an open puffy vest with pins on the chest

I'm at the point in the 3D modeling process where changes start coming in smaller and smaller increments, which means I should probably finally venture into uncharted territory by setting up eye/mouth vertex groups/blendshapes and importing this MFer into Unity

(Animation-friendliness update, shoulder topology was a total mess; the polycount wiki was a lifesaver, but it's a process of trial and error that required repetitive pose testing to figure out. Also, I've completely lost track of my work hours, whoops~)

Easily the most ominous part so far of this process of morphing a cube into a reptile was the bit (in the Cats Blender plugin, a great little addon) where the tutorial encouraged pressing a button labeled "Fix Model" that does a bunch of operations all at once

(I pressed it, of course, though I can't help but feel protective of this thing I've spent a few dozen hours assembling)

Early days for this model (some world shaders display in front of it, I think because I'm using a Quest material on PC) and WMR tracking makes me move like a gremlin, -but- it's still fully functional with moving fingers at 4,998 triangles (pics by @Cynosurae@twitter.com)

(I ended up having to compromise on the shell bending, it'd either have required me to re-add that extra geometry I took out and disconnect it at the waist or be OK with a lot more distortion on the front half)

Updated roadmap! (The next step, "upload PC version with PC Standard shader", is a given.) The second list marks the feature-complete Quest model; end goal is to have a PC version that makes sensible use of the Excellent avatar budget (over 6X its current level of geometry)

I'm OK calling this the final Quest diffuse texture; I decided to remake the eyes to (in addition to featuring the inset pupil you often find in fursuits) provide the energy I typically bring to a conversation

I was at a VRChat meetup on Saturday, no screenshots this time because I scaled the model in Blender to my IRL height without reimporting into Unity and the armature came out all scrungly. The issue's fixed now, though

The last time I tested this in VR I took a popsicle prop from the world I was using as my home (Yayoi Summer Nights) and mimed taking a bite out of it; to my surprise it lined up with the model's mouth perfectly. What a surreal experience