Great Idea: VRChat Ranking Avatars By "Excellent" to "Poor" Optimization

With VRChat now working for Oculus Quest, the company is putting out new optimization policies for users of the portable VR headset, and also for PC users, to generally improve the performance for everyone in the virtual world:

You can choose to block avatars based on their Avatar Performance Rank. This option is available in the “Performance Options” menu, accessible as a button in the top-right of the Safety tab in the main menu.

When you choose a Performance Rank in this menu, all avatars that are below that rank will be blocked by default and replaced with a placeholder avatar. You can choose between “Medium”, “Poor”, or “Very Poor”.

On VRChat for PC, the Minimum Displayed Performance Rank is set to “Very Poor” by default. This means that no avatars are hidden by default on PC. You can choose between “Medium”, “Poor”, or “Very Poor” options.

On VRChat for the Oculus Quest, the Minimum Displayed Performance Rank is set to “Medium” by default.

Veteran virtual world user and 3D graphics artist "Cake" of Juicy Blog (known as Aemeth in both SL and VRChat) sees this as a smart way to not only encourage optimization, but turn it into a kind of game:

"This is a great idea," as she puts it. "Not only do people become render-conscious, but now even random players I run into know what polys are. It isn't just a 'designer' thing. Everyone is aware. You're giving a score and told exactly what's wrong and what you should do to improve it."

Doing this puts more power in the users' hands, she argues (and I agree), and challenges content creators to optimize -- something VRChat and other virtual worlds (looking at you, Second Life) surely need:

"The mysticism of avatar optimization is taken away, whereas that lack of knowledge with consumers in SL made them rely on designers with blind faith that they would just know what they were doing. And as past NWN articles have pointed out, not everyone does. A side product of this is the encouragement to join VRChat's Discord. And if you join one, you're joining more than one, and chances are it's about learning how to upload an avatar, how to edit, or work with Unity, which is empowering you."

Amusingly, VRChat's definition of an avatar with Excellent optimization is one with 32,000 or less polys, while Poor is 70,000 polys or higher. By contrast, the most popular avatar shapes in Second Life run in the range of 80,000 to 200,000!

Pictured: Cake's VRChat avatar, with 19,000 polygons.

Comments

[seph]

Have you discussed why Second Life's equivalent feature isn't up to par in your opinion? We've had this feature for 3 years: https://community.secondlife.com/blogs/entry/1967-why-are-all-these-people-made-of-colored-jelly/

This blog post kind of makes it sound like we don't have tools to set thresholds for which avatars render and which don't.

[Cake]

It's not a personal attack. It's a suggestion for SL to take up. Why not start "grading" avatar complexity? People love getting a top score on things. Turn it into a game for them.

[seph]

Probably most SLers wouldn't trade their desired avatar appearances to play a grading game.

We have both fine-tuned (avatar complexity slider) and brute (right-click derender) ways of controlling just how much other avatars effect our performance. That seemed to be the most important bit.

[sirhc desantis]

Easy enough to knock up a game with the current tools (a bit lacking as they are). Whats the budget ? :)

And - thats 19000 polys? Hmm, basic sl ruth comes in at a mere 7186 tris and even that can be further optimised - especially for painted on hair. Is there a market for this stuff in this - place. (BTW that medium link shows a few other numbers for the diving helmet version)

[Cake]

Yes, there's a market for avatar creation and optimization. People offer services for uploading avatars for those who don't want to do anything with Unity (a few clicks will earn you $50 basically), or a full custom avatar rigged for $300.

That avatar I created in the picture was done with a free program called Vroid. It's very popular with Japanese VRChat users especially. They sell clothing (or give away free ones) on a Pixiv-controlled site called Booth. The hair you see there, I custom created it. The program is also something you can use to create hair AND export it into SL on its own. It's a hair creation program for SL avs too!

I could learn to optimize my avs further, but at most I concern myself with combining the materials and coming up with costume design. That's where I have the most fun.

[Cookie]

Is a system which further excludes players really what a dying community needs right now? I'm sure we can all agree that optimization is a problem, but doesn't it need to be solved on a more level playing field? You shouldn't punish people because they don't want to worry about all of this stuff.

Sl is unfriendly enough. Let's make it even more unfriendly and complicated because it makes me feel even more smart and superior. Let's fill the place with things that are forbidden and lets make people pariahs when they use them. It's a great way to get new users. I'm sure they would enjoy adding an extra week of boot camp learning about all of this.

Optimization is becoming less important because we are being quite effective in driving away everybody.

[Brad]

Not only this, but when you open your menu in vrchat, You start seeing the symbols on everyone’s name tags, everyone wants that green star now, so it’s a great idea

[Cake]

Isn't that complaint too late? SL already has a jellybean slider for avatar complexity. A grading system might just simplify it and help more people understand what to wear and what not to wear to make their avs more efficient. It also already warns about things like HUDs that are laggy, etc. To talk about superiority with this to browbeat the Lab's intentions that are already in motion.

[seph]

The avatar complexity system right now simply tells you your numeric complexity with a toast notification saying "you might not render for some people" or the like everytime you log in. Surely you see the difference in tone between that and "Very Poor" with some big red marker on you for everyone to see.

A grading system is by definition judgmental and creates criticisms between users. A 'game' to you is a huge nuisance and eye sore to others that don't want to use SL the way you do, and should have the right to continue using it the way they want to.

The problem of us crushing one another's graphics cards is solved. No need to force anything else on one another when it comes to rendering.

Platform providers like LL should do the bare minimum of steering the platform, or it wouldn't be a platform of many different things, it'd be Linden World. Let individual regions and estates police how they want to judge different avatar complexities. Plenty of RP sims for example have scripted boards ranking who's the most complex and shaming visitors into improving their costs. Other sims might not care about that at all and that should be fine.

If anything argue Linden Lab improve region and estate owners' tooling to police avatar complexity. Linden Lab themselves though shouldn't label things good or bad, this or that. Let us do that within our own communities.

[Finni Graves]

Thanks to NWN, and especially to Cake for leading the charge on this very important issue. Like Cake, I've invested a lot of my SL esteem in the whole crazy avatar adornment scene. Then one day, after trying to navigate a horrible shopping event, I've got to stop being so selfish and hogging so much resource. What's the point of looking good, if I don't feel good? These ridiculous mesh bodies, heads, hair. clothes, and accessories are literally sucking the life out of our SL. We must simplify ourselves because this whole hamster wheel isn't working.

Cake is right. All of us need to be graded harshly and it is our duty to ask ourselves, " do I really need this?". It's also the duty of content creators to make consumers aware of the optimization of their products and to guarantee it. They should have to be graded too, at least on Marketplace. Bloggers may be one of the most important links in our chain. It's time they "just say no" to wearing and promoting these incredibly selfish products. They need to take their cue from Cake and start being consumer advocates and stop being playground pushers of these terrible products. We must start seeing ourselves less of Barbie and more of Elizabeth Warren.

Cake has really taken a brave step to lead us to better optimization and it's our duty to follow. I look forward to the exciting optimization resource that Juicy Bomb has become. We all must become the change we want to see.

[Cake]

Seph, you sound like you're LL staff. Are you? If that's so, the hostility coming off in your tone is really offputting. I'm not sure a suggestion like this should be met with something like that. All I was doing was just pointing out something that might work. And yes, jellybean avatars still lag me because my viewer still renders people up until it figures out they are past the threshold I don't want to render them at.

I'm really second-guessing if I even want to remain in SL at all at this point when I see staff reacting to me the way you do. Do you work for Linden Lab?

[irihapeti]

it will probably work for a while on VRChat and good on that platform for giving their users some indication of their resource consumption

a caution though, using SL as an example about ordinary people's reaction to these things

SL Avatar Complexity was a cool thing for users to get into as well when it first came. Lots of good feels about how users were able to know how they rated compared to everyone else. Forum and blog threads with fashion photos from users about how we can all look good while being under 80,000 AC, etc

after a few months of enthusiasm and good feels then meh! and if anyone did take another person to task over this, then yawn! and block me

the thing about this is that people have differently capable computers. And many people who do have more capable computers are not going to dress down (when they themselves can dress up because computer) for those who haven't, when the people with less capable computers can block/derender

this can be seen as selfish maybe. But 3D anything is a pastime enjoyed for a few hours. Not a life critical situation

[Pulsar]

Usually people in Second Life are afraid to lose their prettiness and their favorite mesh body; they rather point fingers at potato-computers.

The problem, however, isn't that someone has potato-computers. Let alone that even hi-end gaming computers could enjoy a better frame-rate amid crowded places.
The problem is that avatars, as well as any item inworld, can look the same with fewer resources. There is an unnecessary poly-count and amount of texture anywhere in Second Life. That's all wasted processing power and bandwidth.

Mesh body makers for sure would like to keep their market-share: they did adapt to jelly-dolls and they would send updates if there is another change. So you will still have your bodies and you would still look as pretty as before.

With a well done optimization you won't lose anything aesthetically, but SL would be more enjoyable to anyone and accessible to more people too; moreover places and avatars would stay gray for less time as anything would also load quicker.

[irihapeti]

@Pulsar

everything you say is correct. There are any number of tutorials blogged by creatives who know their stuff, with lots of tips and guidance on how to reduce complexity when making stuff

a lot of this guidance is taken up by people new to creating. Particularly when making inworld models: trees, houses, furniture, etc. Creatives are penalised when they don't. SL Land Impact allowance per parcel is capped. Parcel owners penalise creatives who produce high LI models by not buying them. Parcel owners typically want to get as many individual items onto their parcels as they can. Fill up their rooms and gardens with knick knacks

with SL avatar attachments then there is no similar reasonable cap. There are limits on the number of attachments, limits on texture sizes, limits on faces, limits on linked objects, etc. But when max those limits out then Avatar Impact all becomes academic. X * faces for X * objects * 3 * 1024x1024 textures, etc. Max them out and even the sun would crumble

the answer that LL gave to this, and VRChat are now on the same path. Advise the users of their avatar resource consumption, and leave it up to them to do or not do as they like, without penalty for the wearer or the creatives, other than social approbation. Which ends in meh! block/derender me

[seph]

@Cake I'm not LL staff and I'm sorry I was offensive.

Put more plainly, I think your ideas are good for individual communities to do that want to do them, and LLs only part should be improving tools to make that more possible. I don't think its good for LL themselves to decide what's good and what's bad, because that's a path towards singularity and a platform like this is best as many different things catering to many different wants.

Nothing personal I just know many communities would think a grading system is awful, like the combat meter RP sims that want giant flashy particle weapons and armor and guns that shoot things and etc., but maybe a club that doesn't want too much in the audience going on would want something different and love your suggestions.