Embedded Files
2-A. Picking your .FBX file
2-A. Picking your .FBX file
Typically with slugcats the style of the eyes matter for both canon and OC characters. It's a distinct trait of the characters. In the case of the slugcat DX, there are two things controlling the style of the eyes: the .FBX file and the FX controller.
The .fbx file is responsible for whether your slugcat has both eyes open or one of the eyes permenantly closed. The alt. fbx files are called "Slugcat ArtificerL" and "Slugcat ArtificerR"
The FX controller is responsible for the expression of the slugcat: Whether they have a normal expression, angry expression or closed eye expression (like Saint)
This step is done first because we want to make sure you are editing the right fbx file! It would suck for you to make edits to your mesh and then realise that you were supposed to use a different mesh if you wanted one eye closed.
You will find the meshes in "Assets > Slugcat DX by Teevz > !MODIFY WITH CAUTION > Meshes"
You will also find a folder where all the Custom slugcat meshes are. These are the meshes that you will be saving over to make your custom slugcat.
Changing the mesh
Changing the mesh
Step 1. Right click in your project and select "Show in Explorer", this will open the location in explorer.
Step 2. Copy the .fbx of the style you want (ArtificerL or ArtificerR) Note: Don't copy the .meta files!!
Step 3. Go into the "Customs" folder, and delete the .fbx of what character you want to edit (Custom 1-3)
Step 4. Paste the .fbx and rename it to the corresponding Custom fbx!
When you click back into unity, it should automatically update and apply the change.
Side note: This is only required if your slugcat has one eye closed. If they don't, skip this step!!!
Changing the FX
Changing the FX
ANGRY EYES + CLOSED EYES:
Step 1. Click on your slugcat in the scene, and scroll down to the controllers. Click on "SlugcatFX" and it will take you to the folder with the controllers.
Drag the FX layer (Either Angry or Closed) into the FX section to replace the FX layer.
Step 2. Double click your slugcat until the outline is orange, and go to the "blendshapes" menu.
IF YOU ARE DOING ANGRY EYES:
Find the blendshape "Eyes.Angry" under expressions, and change the value to 100.
IF YOU ARE DOING CLOSED EYES:
Find the blendshape "Blink.Both" at the top of the list, and change the value to 100.
2-B. Customization Basics
2-B. Customization Basics
With the way the model is setup, all of the customization can either be done manually or can just be done through the VRCFury Toggles on the Toggles prefab.
Below is a list of all the possible customizations, blendshapes and what they do. (Blendshapes are italicized)
BODY
BODY
Chunky - Makes slugcat fatter
Slim - Makes slugcat thinner
ClawsHands - Pointy fingers
ClawsFeet - Pointy toes
BiggerEars - Bigger ears
Smaller Ears - Smaller ears
Cat Ears - Pointy ears
HideFur - Hides all the fur
(on by default)
HideGills - Hides the rivulet gills (on by default)
Thicker Gills - Makes rivulet gills thicker
EYES
EYES
HidePupils - Hides eye pupils. (on by default)
Eyelashes - Gives small eyelashes
PupilsSmaller - Makes pupils smaller
ThinnerPupils - Makes pupils thinner / cat like
ShorterPupils - Makes pupils shorter / frog like
MOUTH
MOUTH
Mouth.FangL - Adds fang on the left
Mouth.FangR - Adds fang on the right
Thicker Lips - Makes lipline thicker
Thinner Lips - Makes lipline thinner
Smile - swaps out the mouth for a smiling mouth
Frown - swaps out the mouth for a frowning mouth
No mouth - Hides both mouths entirely
SHader
SHader
Body glow - Changes body emmission / glow
Eye glow - Changes eye emmission / glow
Shadow - changes size of shadow
Shadow Intensity - changes shadow opacity
Highlight - changes size of highlight
Highlight Intensity - changes highlight opacity
Outline - changes thickness of outlines
HSV - (under colour menu) changes the colour, saturation and value of the body
2-C. VRCFury Toggles - Editing your Toggles
2-C. VRCFury Toggles - Editing your Toggles
VRCFury allows for toggles to be added to the model without editing the FX, Menus and Parameters. Basically, the toggles are added after the avatar is built in unity.
By default the prefab isn't able to be edited. You can just leave them as is if you would like, as the settings will be saved in your radial menu.
However if your slugcat looks a certain way by default, or if there are toggles that you just don't need and would rather free up parameter / fx space, then you'll need to unpack the prefab of your slugcat.
To do this, you'll need to right-click your slugcat in the hiearchy and then click:
"prefab > Unpack prefab"
Note that there may be reasons you don't want to unpack your prefab, basically if the prefab is edited it will automatically update your slugcat in the scene. An unpacked prefab no longer gets updated if the prefab is edited. In this case it's not a huge issue since the prefab is usually left alone, so it's just something to be aware of.
After that, you gotta also unpack the "Toggles (VRCFury)" object. After you do that, you'll finally have access to all the toggles which can now be edited!
Modifying Toggles
Modifying Toggles
Editing VRCFury toggles is easy!
To make a toggle default to being active, click
"options > Default On"
To edit the default position of a slider, just change the percentage. (For example, if you want your slugcat to be fat by default, you'd change the "body size" Default% to 100, or 0 for a thin slugcat!)
Deleting Toggles
Deleting Toggles
To delete a toggle/slider, right click the VRCFury Toggle and click "Remove component"
This option is good if you never see yourself using a certain toggles, because it frees up parameter and FX space so you can make your model more optimized or use the extra space to add your own toggles/edits!
SIDE NOTE: Editing these toggles won't change how your slugcat looks in your unity scene, but once it's built and uploaded to VRChat these edits will be applied. Here's an example. I turned the body size to 100, and then made the fur and gills default on. In the scene nothing has changed, but in VRChat itself the changes are applied.
2-D. Manual Customization - Fur, Rivulet Gills and other body edits
2-D. Manual Customization - Fur, Rivulet Gills and other body edits
If you don't care much to have toggles, you have the option of manually editing your slugcat in unity. there are a few pros and cons to this method. you can also mix and match this method with the VRCFury toggles method.
Anything you manually apply to your avatar cannot be toggled in game. This is a good option if you don't ever plan on using the toggle. As well, the changes will also show up in unity, making it easier to tweak and see what your character will end up looking like. it's also good in terms of refining the actual stuff on your avatar, deleting any physbones you don't plan on using for example.
The other benefit is freeing up precious parameter space to make room for any other toggles you may want to add!
The majority of edits are done with blendshapes, however there are a few exceptions:
The Fur and the Rivulet gills both use blendshapes, physbone objects and bone scaling
The tongue is done by physbone objects and bone scaling
The mouths (frown, smile and no mouth) are done entirely by bone scaling
All shader settings are done through animaitons, meaning you'll have to manually tweak the shader yourself
Important note: You have to delete the VRCFury toggle for any corresponding edit you do, since the toggles themselves override any edits you make. Simply remove the components depending on the edits you do.
Manually adding Tongue, Gills or Fur
Manually adding Tongue, Gills or Fur
Drop down your armature all the way to "head". You will see a bunch of bones here, relating to the fur and gills.
Fur bones: BackfurParent, CheekfurParent, FurParent
Gill bones: Gillsparent
Tongue bones: Tongue
You'll need to select the bones you want to activate, and then change the XYZ scale to 1.
Notice how only the gills show up despite me scaling the fur bones too? This is because The fur is also being hidden by a blendshape.
Simply double click your slugcat until the outline is orange, go to the sidebar and drop down the blendshapes menu. Then, find the blendshape "HideFur" and turn it to 0! Your slugcats fur should be visible now.
The final step to this is to go to the "Physbones" section of the avatar and enable any objects corresponding to what you want activated.
This allows them to move in-game! By default they are hidden, so if you don't do this there won't be any movement.
Side note: feel free to delete any that you aren't using for extra optimization!.
Manually Changing the Mouth
Manually Changing the Mouth
Drop down your armature all the way to "head". There are 2 bones here for the mouth:
Mouth.Frown and Mouth.Smile respectively.
Similar to the previous section, all you need to do is scale the one you want active to 1, and the one you don't want active to 0! Or both to 0 if you're going to a no-mouth style.
2-E. Example Slugcat
2-E. Example Slugcat
To help you understand the process of customizing, in the next section of the tutorial we will be building an example character! We will utilize both manual editing and VRCFury toggles. Here are the traits that they will have.
Left eye closed, both rivulet gills and fur, angry expression, chunky, claws, pointy ears, pupils and eyelashes.
So far we already have the first 4 settings done, so lets cover how to edit the rest. Lets say I want the claws, pupils, eyelashes and pointy ears to be active and toggleable, but I don't want the fur, gills and body size to be.
This means some of these things will be manually activated and the rest will be VRCFury toggles.
So lets tackle the VRCFury toggles first!
First, we have to unpack the prefabs so we can edit the toggles.
Then we're going to go through the toggles on the prefab, and then turn on the "default on" setting for anything we want activated.
This will include the following:
Claws (100%)
Cat Ears (%100)
Eyelashes
Pupils
After that, we will delete any of the toggles we don't want, including the ones I want to add to the model manually. We do this by right clicking each toggle and selecting "Remove component"
This will include the following:
Body Size
Fur
Gills
These are necessary because we are manually editing these onto our slugcat, and the VRCFury toggles override manual edits.
Finally, I will manually apply the edits I want to add. I will make the character chunky, and activate the gills and fur.
The chunky option is simply a blendshape, so I double click the model and then turn that to 100.
Turning on the gills and fur require editing blendshapes, bonescaling and enabling physbone objects,
Step-by-step directions are in section 2-D.
Here's what the test build looks like!
All the edits are applied in-game, the manually edited stuff has been removed from the toggles menu, and the things we wanted to keep as VRCFury toggles are still there!
In the next section we'll be doing a basic texture of this character using the .psd / .clip files.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse