Affordable way to be a critter?

[StarlightNecromancer]

Title, basically

I know I could google it but google has been so infested by ads and paid sponsorships that I, someone who is extremely VR-Tech Illiterate, can't tell what's actually good and what's wasting my time. I'm getting a pretty good PC that was built by a friend of mine and her Dad, so in running VR Chat I'm not too worried by itself. Among other things, it'd be really nice to go to Furality, probably the only furrycon I'll ever be able to afford to go to.


Specs, in case its relevant:
Intel core I7 8700K
32 GB
Ram
1TB m.2 SSD
Asus Rog Maximus X Code Mother Board
Nvidia 2070 RTX Founders Edition

[Mixi Blacksand]

Depends what type of critter you want to be, what technical skills you have, are willing to learn, or are willing to pay for. Making a custom VRChat avatar yourself involves at least learning Unity, and can potentially involve a number of other bits of software for model editing, creation, and texturing. The big VR-specific marketplace is Jinxxy. You can take a look around at furry bases on there to get an idea of what price ranges you might be looking at to start with.

[SwiriKo]

I personally have the Meta Quest Pro, it was given to me as a gift, so I can't say whether or not it's worth 800$, but here's some pros and cons:

Pros:

• Supports Eye and Mouth Tracking
• Lenses that are easy on the eyes. They handle low framerate moments by emulating a motion smearing effect which may help or hurt those with motion sickness. Personally, it's not visually offensive to me, but it is something to note.
• Controllers that have pretty long battery life, 8-12hrs depending on activity level. There's also built in gesture controls if you run out, but it does require a bit of additional setup to use those gesture controls in vr.
• Not too heavy headset if you like to play for long periods of time.
• Tear-downs and schematics are readily available online if you ever need to do repairs on it

Cons:

• Controllers lose tracking in low-light conditions, often have to be restarted to restore it
• Headset has a pitiful battery life of only 2-3hrs in VRChat, so either a battery pack or a link cable with data and charging is pretty much mandatory.
• Face Tracking on the eyes gets janky if the headset isn't tightly secured on your head
• Around the head fasteners are either too lose or too tight, so getting an additional strap that goes over your head so that it doesn't slant during play is recommended.
• It's associated with Meta, so a meta account--thankfully not a facebook account--is required.
• You will get sweaty wearing it, and so you'll need to wipe it down occassionally so that your sweat doesn't get in the face tracking bits.
• It's currently discontinued, so you'll have to buy it either second hand or off of another marketplace.
• The headphone and microphone are open-ended, so unless you have earbuds, you're gonna be using Push to talk to prevent audio feedback.

Overall: It's good as an all-in-one package for VR, but it's not a perfect package. There's a few quality of life issues that require additional purchases of accessories to work around. I despise Meta personally, but the only other options for having face tracking are still rather limited or expensive, so it's up to personal choice. At this price point, I wouldn't recommend it as a first time user or someone on a budget, but I would recommend it as someone who's willing to go that extra distance just for face tracking without blowing over a grand for something from HTC. Hopefully all this info helps with making a confirmed purchase decision.

[StarlightNecromancer]

Depends what type of critter you want to be, what technical skills you have, are willing to learn, or are willing to pay for. Making a custom VRChat avatar yourself involves at least learning Unity, and can potentially involve a number of other bits of software for model editing, creation, and texturing. The big VR-specific marketplace is Jinxxy. You can take a look around at furry bases on there to get an idea of what price ranges you might be looking at to start with.

I'm already learning blender and want to eventually make my own model, but that kind of skill takes a while to build up to anything workable (though I have looked at bases and most are canine or feline in nature, only ever found one for bats). I do have a friend who does commissions and I've spoken to him about getting my model done up and he does VRChat work so at least if I go with him, I know what my price point is.

I personally have the Meta Quest Pro, it was given to me as a gift, so I can't say whether or not it's worth 800$, but here's some pros and cons:

[...]

Overall: It's good as an all-in-one package for VR, but it's not a perfect package. There's a few quality of life issues that require additional purchases of accessories to work around. I despise Meta personally, but the only other options for having face tracking are still rather limited or expensive, so it's up to personal choice. At this price point, I wouldn't recommend it as a first time user or someone on a budget, but I would recommend it as someone who's willing to go that extra distance just for face tracking without blowing over a grand for something from HTC. Hopefully all this info helps with making a confirmed purchase decision.

That absolutely helps a lot, thank you!

[Mixi Blacksand]

Oh, I didn't realize you were asking about VR hardware too. Yeah, the Quest Pro is a hard sell compared to a Quest 3 at this point unless you reallllly want face tracking without adding a aftermarket part for it. Which headset you get depends on if you want or can have base stations, and that will influence in the future what kinds of full body tracking setups you can use if you choose to upgrade your setup. I currently rock a Quest 2 + Slime FBT combo, and I personally wouldn't drop a huge premium just for face tracking and foveated rendering on the Pro, but everyone has different priorities.

As for bats, yeah, there's not a lot out there. It's either the Nardobat or kitbashing wings onto a different base from what I've seen. I did at one point make my own bat, but I cannot find a picture of her for the life of me.

If you're not afraid of Blender you're already WAY ahead of the game, though. Knowing how to rig and skin your own parts gives you a lot of freedom most people don't have, even before you get to the point of doing full avatars. If you know some texturing skills, you have a lot of freedom to make a base your own as a stopgap until you can get a custom.

[StarlightNecromancer]

Oh, I didn't realize you were asking about VR hardware too. Yeah, the Quest Pro is a hard sell compared to a Quest 3 at this point unless you reallllly want face tracking without adding a aftermarket part for it. Which headset you get depends on if you want or can have base stations, and that will influence in the future what kinds of full body tracking setups you can use if you choose to upgrade your setup. I currently rock a Quest 2 + Slime FBT combo, and I personally wouldn't drop a huge premium just for face tracking and foveated rendering on the Pro, but everyone has different priorities.

As for bats, yeah, there's not a lot out there. It's either the Nardobat or kitbashing wings onto a different base from what I've seen. I did at one point make my own bat, but I cannot find a picture of her for the life of me.

If you're not afraid of Blender you're already WAY ahead of the game, though. Knowing how to rig and skin your own parts gives you a lot of freedom most people don't have, even before you get to the point of doing full avatars. If you know some texturing skills, you have a lot of freedom to make a base your own as a stopgap until you can get a custom.

I have some pretty strong delusions about things I wanna do in blender as a whole and I'm intent to make sure that they aren't delusions at all. Just need some time at least. I'm probably the lease scared of blender than some of my peers because I'm too broke to get anything that I'm constantly told that I should have (Like substance painter lmao, texture software good but I Cannot afford that sub fee so unless I get off my ass and sail the high seas I'm just gonna keep my ass in blender).

At least with face tracking I'm not that pressed about it. I posted my sona over in FurGen, and while its not protogen proper my artist did take some inspiration I think. So some pretty basic face tracking would probably be all that's needed.

[Enbyeon]

FWIW if you can find an affordable Meta Quest 2 or 3, that might be good enough to dip your toes before going all in. I used a Quest 2 for a year before upgrading to a Valve Index and it was fine to even see if I'd like VR long-term.

As for models, there's a lot of models that come with editable textures, so you can try getting something that's close to your avatar and either commissioning a texture edit or doing it yourself.