Chirp!

Welcome to this third update log for the Mike'Vali! A whole month late after releasing the 1.2.0 packages, sorry for that, stuff hit the fan this past month, but better late than never!

I've got some nice things to show you today! First, this might be the last update for the Mike'Vali for a while. I want to start working on other projects and get some new things ready for Furality Umbra in June! The next Mike'Vali update might or might not have a little teaser at the end of this devlog ;)

(you can read upon the full patch notes at the bottom of the post as usual)

VRM SUPPORT!

The Mike'Vali is now compatible with the VRM avatar format! This means you can build your own Mike'Vali VRM and import them into any app supporting VRM with ease! There are some slight quirks with some apps that utilizes the BlendShapeClips a different way (such as with VMagicMirror breaking eye blinking if using a version of the avi with permanent eyelashes, unlike VSeeFace) but overall compatibility seems to be pretty stable!

PUPPETS!

It is now possible to puppet around the ears and the tail of the Mike'Vali! Both ChilloutVR and VRChat support this new feature by default.

Tail Wag!

Thanks to a community proposition that I simply couldn't say no to (because of it increasing the Cuteness stat to 200), there is now a tail wag animation on the Mike'Vali! You can adjust the speed of the wags and the intensity (how far left and right does the tail swings around). This wag also takes into consideration the puppets and will wag from the position of the tail from the puppet. Oh! And if you nuzzle long enough, the tail will start wagging by itself and get a bit stronger and faster if the nuzzles continue further (can be disabled via a toggle in the avatar menus). Both ChilloutVR and VRChat supports this new feature by default!

NOTE FOR VRC USERS: Both these latter features add quite a bit of parameter bits (49 total). I've done some animator adjustments so that both the regular and face tracked version can fit in while using a 3rd party Protection System, which fills up the rest of the bits. The main change is that the Shorter Teeth slider has been replaced with a toggle to turn on or off shorter teeth (instead of being analog AKA possible to be partially shorter). If you wish to add your own toggles and sliders for all kinds of accessories and effects, feel free to delete in the parameters list and the menu items any option that you aren't touching in-game. Sorry if this causes inconveniences, I too hate compromises. This issue does not affect ChilloutVR, as the parameter limit is MUCH larger than VRC.

Soon™

World: Portal to Nowhere | My own WIP VRC world inspired by the 2018 loading screen of VRC, found here!

I got bored at some point and over-engineered some AudioLink for my own personal Mike'Vali. I figured "Eh, why not include it in the official Mike'Vali package lol" sooooooo the next update will include AudioLink templates! I never bothered with it until now since I had no way to make custom shaders utilizing the tech. But now that the AL package includes Amplify Shader Editor Function Nodes, I can play with these fun visuals for anything I make! This will add one Bool parameter, so an extra synced bit for VRC (sorry in advance XvX) but it is well worth the price. And if you want to always have it on or off, feel free to delete that parameter and menu. SOON™

And now, here are the full patch notes!

New Features

• (VRM) VRM SUPPORT ADDED! A new Unity Package has been added for VRM versions of the avatar! All facial expressions work and are assigned to Blend Shape Clips. Some quirks with some programs exist however (such as VMagicMirror not handling very well the blinking from the Eyelashes always on versions) but they should all work in anything in general!
• (Unity + CVR + VRC) TAIL WAG! New toggles and sliders exist for a tail wag animation, with speed and intensity sliders. This animation also triggers over time when being nuzzled for some time (which can be turned off with a toggle).
• (Unity + CVR + VRC) TAIL AND EARS PUPPETS! You can now puppet around the tail and the ears using new sliders provided.

Changes

• (VRC) Removed Boop, Pat and Nuzzles parameters from the parameter object, as they are not required for these interactive expressions to work.
• (VRC) Changed the Shorter Teeth to be a bool instead of an analog float (so that the avatar can be used with protection systems without modifications by the user).

Bug Fixes

• (General) Fixed the toe claw not being properly adjusted with the Plantigrade blend shape, which affected VRC Quest and Beat Saber before this update.
• (Unity) Fixed all plantigrade prefabs not having the Plantigrade blendshape on by default.
• (Unity) Fixed the abomination that happens on the face when combining the "Disgust" and "Sad" gesture animations.
• (Unity) Fixed FBX import settings that were affecting normal maps badly (tangents being very quirky).
• (VRC) Smaller Shoulders parameter has now been set to save (it should have been but it wasn't).
• (VRC) Fixed the Quest Face Tracked Nuzzle animation having the wrong parameters assigned in the Animator Controller (a duplicate with the wrong name existed, which was the one assigned and caused zero effect in-game. These duplicates existed in the PC version too, but were unassigned and are now cleaned off too).
• (Blender) Fixed the collar armature's parent constraint having been unlinked from the main armature (an oversight from the Face Tracking update).

How to import this new update:

Reimport the Base Unity Package and then the one from the platform of your choice. The new Base Package include the new animations required for the Tail & Ear Puppets and the Tail Wags. The other packages (such as VRC and CVR) contain the new Animators, parameters and menus to take advantage of these new animations. The Source Files are completely unaffected except for the Collar fix in the Blender file, which takes 2 seconds to reassign the constraint correctly in the old 1.1.0 update.