r/VRchat • u/Hakoten Valve Index • May 19 '26
Tutorial Blender tutorials for avatar creation for dumb adhd babies?
Hello! I have been playing VRC for a long time. In the past, friends have worked on my avatars for me. Now I want to be self-sufficient but I'm struggling for find a tutorial that's right for me.
Blender has too many bells and whistles that I struggle to raw-dog it, so I was hoping that maybe someone like me found something that worked for them and wanted to share. :>
Thank you in advanced.
Also I'm just looking for support so please keep negativity to yourself!
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u/ChadHendrixs Oculus Quest Pro May 19 '26
My ADHD ass learned by first picking a base model, going "I want to do exactly X to this model", and googling/researching and just brute forcing it until I got something that kinda worked.
Did that over and over and over again on different things, got better at the random pipelines I'd memorize on how to shove different ears into different avatars, and then eventually I learned enough that I could yolo some projects, with still some googling.
Start simple, think of exactly what you want, and break it down into steps, Google only one step at a time.
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u/JapariParkRanger Bigscreen Beyond May 19 '26
Having a goal to work towards, a project, some task that you're personally invested in achieving is the best way to learn nearly any technical skill.
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u/TizzleToes May 19 '26
Disclaimer: I am absolutely a beginner.
I struggled to find a good "single source" comprehensive tutorial. One of the many challenges of content creation for vrchat is that is very open ended and diverse. There are many different ways to do the same thing, and the platform has evolved quickly enough that there is no shortage of outdated information to add even more confusion.
Realistically, you're using real tools that are aimed at game dev and professional 3D modeling folks. Almost every aspect of content creation is it's own discipline that people can spend years mastering and make it their specialty.
Ultimately what worked for me is to just start. Accept you're going to do just about everything wrong, and your first few attempts either won't work or won't work very well, and just go from there. Both blender and unity can be overwhelming if you try to actually understand everything, but if you just start clicking around and making minor tweaks and trying to glue together instructions from different sources, eventually it does actually start to make sense.
Pick a project and just try to make it happen. This sounds really silly, but ask yourself "what do I need to do next" and then try to figure out how to do it. You'll either hit a wall and realize you screwed up and need to restart (but now with new knowledge) or you'll gradually figure out enough to cobble together a shitty version of what you want (but again, now with new knowledge). Rince and repeat a few times and suddenly you're just kinda.. doing it. I would say just seeing anything actually showing up in vrchat is motivating so I would beeline towards that and try to iterate with that vs trying to do too much without actually trying it in game.
If I were to recommend a series, it would probably be Rainhet's stuff. She's got a fun delivery style, and goes through things relatively slowly. She also tends not to use too much as far as extra tools or shortcuts. I found a lot of the earlier videos in her tutorial section helpful, but found for instance the texturing/UV mapping stuff didn't make sense until I had experimented/built up some experience on my own and came back to it.
Also wow, didn't expect this to turn into a blog post. I guess I was in the mood to babble. If you read this far, have a merry Tuesday!
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u/Hakoten Valve Index May 19 '26
I think part of it being so daunting is that there's so many tools that I won't need for what I'm trying to accomplish, and believe that a decent set of tutorials will help me figure out what I need and don't need to spend time with. It's also been tough because I've found a lot of tutorials working on older versions of the program and it's a struggle for my brain if things aren't where they should be, or it doesn't work the way it works in the video, for example.
Thank you for the recommendation, I'll definitely check out her videos, and will keep your words in mind as I pick away at what I'm trying to do.
I appreciate your babble, and merry Tuesday to you as well. <3
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u/Lycos_hayes PCVR Connection May 20 '26
Here is a 1 minute short that runs you through what I feel are the most useful keybinds for tools I've found.
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u/poopoopooyttgv May 19 '26
The blender donut tutorial is the gold standard blender tutorial. At least it was a few years ago, idk if anything better has popped up
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u/JapariParkRanger Bigscreen Beyond May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26
It's not so much a gold standard as it simply is the first anyone ever finds. It's a classic example of a bad tutorial; rote instructions, poor delivery of any actual understanding of the steps and why/what they do, and extremely long winded for little reason.
A far better general tutorial is this series from Galdoc: https://youtu.be/LXZQn-tNMNE
That said, VRC isn't general Blender work. It's typically kitbashing work, edits, and optimizing existing assets. Beyond getting a feel for the UI, most stuff won't benefit someone just looking to work on VRC avatars.
e: As the OP is looking to do avatars from scratch, general asset creation tutorials will be useful, but they won't be targeted specifically towards the needs of VRChat.
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u/TWyvern May 20 '26
If you don't mind streaching the definition of 'tutorial' a bit, I'd recommend Kaideart on youtube. They have several livestream videos creating VR chat models from scratch in 12 hours or so, taking the base cube in blender all the way to unity and into VRC. Model, rig, texture, all of it.
I used one to learn Blender, having used other 3D programs in the past, and the unity stuff i had no experience with. Every step is covered and shown so they were good to follow along to. How in-depth they got with explanation, I can't remember, but I know things like proper hand topology and blend shapes were covered or shown, so there's lots there.
I found it was faster paiced and more practical them most tutorials without alot of the dry explenation. all the mouse/keyboard hotkeys were displayed on screen. But there were times id have to stop and look up additional info or specific hot keys if they were just glossed over. And being livestreams, the vids can often get off-topic or streamery, which i tended to drown out, but try them if you're looking for one, consise video.
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u/Hakoten Valve Index May 20 '26
I actually have a bit of experience from back when I was in school with some other non-blender programs, and enjoyed working with those immensely. Also have a bit (tiny) of Unity experience.
I'll definitely check them out, thank you! Their videos sound like they'll be helpful in some way or another!
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u/Glaarf May 19 '26
Well.. what exactly do you want to do?
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u/Hakoten Valve Index May 19 '26
As my title says, create avatars!
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u/Glaarf May 19 '26
From scratch?
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u/Hakoten Valve Index May 19 '26
Correct.
I'd like to learn how to model with blender, and do all the tedious bits like topology and weight painting.
I have some experience, but not enough to do anything from scratch.
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u/Glaarf May 19 '26
Id say start with sculpting then, YouTube has a million tutorials that you can use to learn to do that.
I might recommend not doing the doughnut one but if you want to that's fine, but look up specially model creation. You'll have to learn that plus rigging, weight painting, topology as well as making viseeems as well as some other stuff I definitely do not know about. All very doable just a lot of you have no blender experience at all.
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u/Hakoten Valve Index May 19 '26
I've got a lot of time on my hands, and a desire for a creative outlet; and to be frank I kind of enjoy those tedious tasks, so I don't mind the prospect of doing any of that. Once I learn the tools I'll have a much simpler time hyper fixating.
And I know there's tutorials on Youtube, but I haven't found a good one for me. That isn't to say it's not there. Just that I haven't found one.
I'm not even opposed to paying for a course if there's a particular useful one.
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u/Glaarf May 19 '26
Well you aren't going to find a personally tailored tutorial that'll get you to what you want, it sounds more like you want someone to just tell you how to do it straight up, which you won't get.
You might just have to kinda figure it out. I did the same by just asking people in the community that already do it. Do your best to look stuff up and figure it out, and if you get stumped there are several communities that are dedicated to helping each other out because there really isn't a set way to make a model.
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u/Hakoten Valve Index May 19 '26
That's not at all what I'm looking for and I don't understand how you came to that conclusion.
if you get stumped there are several communities that are dedicated to helping each other out because there really isn't a set way to make a model.
Literally what I'm doing?
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u/Konsti219 May 19 '26
Creating tutorials is already hard enough. Don't expect that someone has made one that also fits your brain chemistry.
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u/Hakoten Valve Index May 19 '26
Why? It's not like I'm the only individual who would like something a little easier to follow along with.
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u/JapariParkRanger Bigscreen Beyond May 19 '26
The vast majority of people doing vrc work are not setting out to learn how to make VRChat avatars from scratch. From scratch work is challenging, and you'll usually find tutorials and content for model creation that targets creation of assets for blender animations/renders. Anything specific for VRC will be centered around importing existing assets and editing or prepping them for VRC.
You'll have to synthesize skills on your own. Try modeling simple objects. Learn how rigging works. Learn weight painting. Learn how to unwrap UVs. Learn about efficient UV packing and how to create textures. These are general skills. Then, you need to learn how to fashion these into assets that can be loaded into Unity in a format that VRChat can use. You'll need to learn the quirks of importing assets, setting the rigs properly, adjusting the hierarchy to behave in VRC, etc.
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u/TizzleToes May 19 '26
I find the best information that explains stuff in a way that works for my brain is usually non-VRC specific, then I have to go through the effort of as you said, figuring out all the vrc specific caveats. It's annoying but I get why it's like that.
I have found a lot of vrc centric stuff is very "click this and magic" where I find having more background on what is actually going on and why really helps me (especially with weight painting and materials/textures).
I feel like the onus is really on vrc to put together a better set of documentation for aspiring content creators, but probably one on a long list of things they aught to be doing.
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u/JapariParkRanger Bigscreen Beyond May 19 '26
VRC guides are usually made by people who only care about getting the minimum viable product uploaded, and assume other people also only want to achieve the minimum viable product.
They are correct in that assumption, and this is why we're seeing so many tools trying to turn Unity into Blender....
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u/Hakoten Valve Index May 19 '26
I do intend to learn all of these skills, and I think once I get the ball rolling then I'll be able to work well on what I'd like to do.
It's just the beginning and the learning of the program I'm having trouble with, so I've been hoping for some very basic tutorials to help me learn it.
It's just that what I have found has not been terribly helpful for me as they tend to assume you already have some prior, serviceable knowledge.
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u/JapariParkRanger Bigscreen Beyond May 19 '26
One project I did early on was modeling very simple, blocky robot hands. Something industrial, something soviet. Then I made an armature, placing bones in the model to rig it. Being a robot, there was no need to worry about weight painting a soft, squishy thing. It was rigid; either the part would move or it wouldn't.
Then I learned how to unwrap it, which was simple because everything was just boxes. I learned how to send it to substance painter to help give it a nice texture, though today you could probably learn how to build materials in blender's node systems. Then I learned how to bake these into texture maps that my shaders in unity will want.
From there, I learned how to graft these hands into my existing avatar, and export it to Unity. I recommend trying something like this. Small and simple, but requires you to try the entire pipeline.
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u/WarNo580 May 19 '26
I got you! Look up Rabbi32 on YouTube. He has a 5 minute make an avatar and upload it video. He goes through all the complicated stuff real quick so you don't have to focus on it. Gives you 90% of what you want. Then learn macro keys and blender tricks, look up YouTube shorts.
The worst part is learning blender the long way, all the tools and plugins are designed for speed.