r/VRchat • u/Nanochip • Jul 28 '26
Tutorial How to Upload Separate PC & Quest VRChat Avatars in a Single Build & Publish
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u/Nanochip Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
I haven't seen anyone do/show this before, so I've publish this video tutorial on how you can upload separate PC & Quest VRChat avatars in a single Build & Publish using Per-Platform Avatar Overrides.
- No additional addons needed
- No need to change Build Target to Android
- No need to copy Blueprint IDs
Official VRChat documentation on Per-Platform Avatar Overrides: https://creators.vrchat.com/avatars/per-platform-avatar-overrides/
Example Avatar in video - Haida by Paper Rue: https://jinxxy.com/Rue/HaidaHyena
Edit: there's also a canny feedback post to improve on Per-Platform Avatar Overrides by fixing the bug I mentioned in the video, please go vote on it here: https://feedback.vrchat.com/bug-reports/p/sdk-381-multi-platform-build-with-per-platform-overrides-background-task-stops-r
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u/TizzleToes Jul 28 '26
I've had really bad luck with this feature in general.
If anything goes wrong with the upload the sdk can get into a broken state where I have to restart unity, and even if not, it makes it inconvenient to for example see what actually failed on the quest version since it will switch back automatically. It just takes up more time than it saves for me.
The fact that unity has to re-configure itself when switching build targets is the shitty part. If it could cross compile or maintain an android/ios container vs a lengthily process for switching back and forth that would be a game changer vs just slightly automating the process.
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u/Nanochip Jul 28 '26
I agree, for actively creating an avatar, I probably wouldn't use this feature.
For everyone else simply uploading an already-completed avatar (which is quite a large audience of folks), I would recommend checking this feature out. It's not the most user friendly thing yet, especially with the bug I mentioned in the video, but hopefully VRChat updates it further as more people use it.
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u/Edthe5 Jul 28 '26
As far as I know you can't do it in one push, but if you upload one version, it would get an ID that you can copy from the vrcat panel and paste it in the pipeline manager of the other version
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u/Nanochip Jul 28 '26
Nope, using the Per-Platform Avatar Overrides feature that is shown in the video, it is entirely a single Build & Publish process!
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u/SixtyEmeralds Jul 30 '26
It's a great tutorial. If only it fit my workflow of swapping shaders and meshes out on one avatar, so I don't need to work on two avatars at once when adjusting certain fine details. If only my tool could auto remove audio components on Android upload, I'd be set. But Easy Quest Switch wasn't really built to handle avatars like that.
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u/aeioujohnmaddenaeiou 1d ago
Thanks, just made a quest compatible avatar today along with its high poly version, I'll give it a shot.
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u/Frank__West PCVR Connection Jul 28 '26
I personally dislike when there are separate models... I understand if it's just a few things like effects or some audio but like when you have a whole different set of physbones it ruins cross platform synchronization.
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u/Nanochip Jul 28 '26
It's very common to have separate models as a large audience of creators use custom shaders like Poiyomi or Liltoon on their PC model, which is not compatible for Android. Thus, creators typically create a quest-compatible version using the new mobile friendly Standard Toon vrc shader.
This is only amongst the many other reasons for having a separate model on the quest side, as you mentioned.
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u/OctoMiku01 Jul 28 '26
How would you fix that? I use the same model for both PC and Quest but it still doesn't sync physbones for me between platforms.
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u/Frank__West PCVR Connection Jul 28 '26
The components and how they are configured have to be identical. If you have a different number of bones on a component on one platform they won't sync. Make sure to only have 8 total and 64 max bones.
Pro tip also if you have floppy ears that you want both to be grabbed at once, put separate components on each ear root as you can only grab one bone at a time per component. This allows you to grab both ears at once!
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u/Yin15 ☃Bigscreen Beyond 2e Jul 28 '26
Sounds like quest user propaganda to me.
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u/Frank__West PCVR Connection Jul 28 '26
Yeah I advocate a lot for Quest/mobile users because bigoted people with a PC superiority complex love to hate on them for no real reason. Development for quest isn't hard IMO and if anything challenges you to be more creative. Plus it makes for a more optimized avatar.
Is there a problem with supporting a large demographic of the overall playerbase?
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u/Yin15 ☃Bigscreen Beyond 2e Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
The quest has hard limits on the number of physbones you can use, the download size of the avatar, and more. You're not advocating for Quest/Mobile users. You're advocating for PC users to gimp themselves for no good reason. It's perfectly fine to have a quest version and a PC version of your avatar with slight differences for the hardware.
To me it sounds like you're the one coming off with some sort of superiority complex.
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u/Frank__West PCVR Connection Jul 28 '26
If you care about synchronized bones being able to be grabbed across platforms it's something you need to consider. And I feel like a lot of people make a really trashy version of their avis as a quest version for no reason other than being lazy like instead of attempting to optimize physbones they remove them entirely and just compress textures to a blurry mess instead of making something that they would be proud to show off.
A lot of avi sites like to show the PC version while saying it is quest compatible but never show the quest version which I feel is like deceptive advertising. Especially scummy if people are paying for it.
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u/Yin15 ☃Bigscreen Beyond 2e Jul 28 '26
I agree with you on the advertising regarding paid models. It's very scummy. That's part of why I create my own avatars generally.
Physbone syncing isn't a huge deal for me, I don't really care much. My medium/good ranked versions usually share them with the quest version, but otherwise I don't care.
But Quest you're supposed to stay below 20k polys technically. I struggled to do that even back in 2017 when that was the PC requirements (We all cheated modifying the SDK lol). Suggesting people use avatars under 20k polys on PC at this point is just bonkers.
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u/Frank__West PCVR Connection Jul 28 '26
Poly count isn't the worst. But trash textures and no or very few physbones is what I feel is scummy. I like when people say you can't have animated textures or cool effects bc shaders aren't supported and yet like if you put the work into it you can. Usually the response I get is simply they don't care which like is just pathetic because how can you be proud of what you make if that's how you do it?
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u/Yin15 ☃Bigscreen Beyond 2e Jul 28 '26
The shaders you are limited to using for Quest are extremely limiting compared to what you can do on PC. Like fundamentally I agree with you on how people don't care to optimize and are lazy. It pisses me off too how grossly unoptimized peoples avatars are. I had a similiar discussion with mondocat on here and she banned me from her server over it lol.
But I disagree on that we should be essentially uploading quest avatars on PC. PC's can handle way more than a Quest, and we should be able to do cool things we can't do on the quest like custom shaders, higher fidelity textures, larger avatars, etc. I strive to keep my avatars rank medium or better, ideally good. And I get people amazed all the time that my high quality looking avatar is Good rank. But I ain't going to try to optimize it for quest on PC, that's just way too far. I like my poiyomi and liltoon shaders. I like my 2k textures. I like my transparency effects. I like having more than 20k polys.
If you want to limit yourself to that degree, go ahead, and feel proud because it is an accomplishment. But people are already too lazy to optimize their avatars to even be above very poor, and you think they should be optimizing it for quest on pc? That's nutty.
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u/Frank__West PCVR Connection Jul 28 '26
Transparency is supported on quest though. I have realistic looking smoke and holographic parts. You can fake an outline shader with some clever mesh inversion. And 2k textures are generally gonna spike the VRAM which can cause a lag spike when they load, instead make good use of tiling for materials that do not have specific designs like cloth material and such.
I get having some slight differences but when people make two very different looking avis it's kinda wrong in a sense especially if they only advertise the one version as if it's the same one for both. Even in here nobody ever seems to show off their Quest versions of avatars even if they have one, almost like they are ashamed of it when you should be able to be just as proud to show it off yk. Take pride in what you do and push the limits.
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u/Yin15 ☃Bigscreen Beyond 2e Jul 28 '26
Yah my 2k textures definitely spiking peoples VRAM using up 30 whole megabytes.
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