Phonodroid VRChat avatar Big Important release info

Hello! April sure is coming fast, isn't it? Certainly a lot faster than I had originally anticipated when setting a deadline of finishing the Phonodroid VRChat avatar by the end of March.

All this is to say that, well, the model isn't quite ready for release yet. It's getting along very well and is usable, but there is a whole ton of tiny tweaking, animation making, and other behind the scenes stuff that I want to finish up and I feel its ultimately better to push the release back to April rather than rush it and make sacrifices to the overall quality of the model.

As I was thinking about this I realized I forgot to ever post a public announcement about my original release plan,   oops. It's been a very wild month, my apologies.

But, I was doing some thinking on it as well and I think I have some better ideas on how I want to handle release anyways. Heres the deal:

The plan was (and still is) to make a brand new $10 tier on my patreon (coming April) where people can get full access before anyone else to VRChat avatars I make including the source files allowing for full customization potential! Between full avatars I can make optional customization stuff on a monthly basis like clothing, alternate parts, etc. that patrons in the tier can add and make use of if they would like.

The new part is, public releases! Initially the idea was that the only way to access the VRChat avatar in any form was to become a patron here or purchase it on a site like Gumroad, but I realized I really like the idea instead of making a public avatar world for them with base avatars available for free. The idea being that there can be a few different color options or so there, but for people that want to properly customize they can get the source files on Patreon. (And I think it would be a lot of fun playing around with making a Phonodroid world in general)

This leads nicely into the next bonus available to all Patrons of any tiers, credits! In said avatar world will be an area with a list of all my Patrons as a thank you for supporting me! If you wish to not be included you can let me know via a Patreon messages to opt out of it;;

I don't have a concrete new release period for the VRChat avatar besides just, "Sometime in April", but I'll try to come up with one when I'm able to... There is a lot to do still, from proportion adjustments to writing up documentation for the source files for anyone wanting to customize stuff!

Last but not least, here's a little peek at the model in unity.

The model right now stands at 62097 triangles (So no quest compatibility I'm afraid,) and has a total performance rating of "Good". It has lip syncing and eye-look support and makes use of dynamic bones in the tail, ears, and antenna! Right now I am working on adding animations to the radial menus ranging from emotive eye shapes to opening the record compartment on the front!

The Patreon source versions will include a blender file of the model, the unity scene where its set up, and .pngs as well as .psds of the textures to make editing them as easy as possible! (Please note that dynamic bones requires a purchase on the unity asset store that the user publishing the avatar must make and so cannot be included in the source files, but I can at least include the settings they use for the default model so you can adjust yours to be the same!)

I will continue to post WIP stuff here on Patreon for both the model and the upcoming avatar world, so if you are interested in seeing that stuff and want to support my work on all this consider throwing a dollar or 2 my way here!

Thanks for reading!