NovaBee

Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea. They are currently considered a clade, called Anthophila.[1] There are over 20,000 known species of bees in seven recognized biological families.[2][3][4] Some species – including honey bees, bumblebees, and stingless bees – live socially in colonies while most species (>90%) – including mason bees, carpenter bees, leafcutter bees, and sweat bees – are solitary, and now you can have bee, too!

Requirements and nice-to-haves:

• VRChat-compatible Unity 2022 * project with Novabeast (1.0) or really any other avatar.
• VRCFury (1.751.0 or newer) — see Instructions below.
• Poiyomi shader (8.1.167 and higher) — recommended you install this before importing asset. See Instructions below.

* If you have tried upgrading your Unity 2019 avatar using the Creator Companion but are encountering major issues doing so, I may be able to provide a 2019 unitypackage. Please contact me.

Included files:

• Unity package (uses VRCFury)
  • Bee butt, antennae, wings, arm warmers.
  • Textures and texture templates

⚠ Photo gallery is for illustrative purposes only. Avatar and other assets are sold separately. ⚠

Terms:

✅ You may use on public avatars if you provide a link to this page in the description

✅ You may use this asset for personal, non-commercial purposes

✅ You may commission or sell texture commissions based off of this asset. Both parties must own the asset.

❌ You may not share or sell the unitypackage, FBX, or other files from this asset

Technical info:

• Polygons
  • 7,404 tris (3734 quads) total

Instructions:

Install VRCFury:

Make sure that VRCFury 1.751.0 or newer is imported into your project.

1. VRCFury's site has instructions, but the easiest approach is to first install VRChat's Creator Companion and add the existing project for your avatar by choosing the dropdown next to "Create New Project" and then finding the location of the directory for your avatar. If you are starting a new Novabeast from scratch, you'll just choose "Create New Project" instead of "Add Existing Project".

If you have trouble installing or updating VRCFury to an existing project (and have exhausted the different methods listed on VRCFury's site), it's easiest to just use the Creator Companion to create a fresh project with VRCFury included, then add back additional packages and assets. Once you have the needed packages, you can generally copy-and-paste assets with both your old and new project open simultaneously, or create a .unitypackage from your old project, then import it into the new one.

Install Poiyomi Toon (optional):

Although the Unity's 'Standard' shader will work just fine, I prefer to use Poiyomi. Here's how to get it.

2. Download the .unitypackage for Poiyomi Toon 8.1.167 and choose Assets -> Import Package -> Custom Package, then go choose the file from your downloads folder.

If you wish to get a more-recent version of Poiyomi Toon you can visit their release page.

Import and add the asset:

3. Download the ZIP file from the content page after purchase and export the contents to your folder of choosing. Afterward, choose Assets -> Import Package -> Custom Package to bring it in.
4. From the Assets/NovaAssets/NovaBeeGear folder, drag "NovaBeeGear" Prefab onto your avatar. Check the Hierarchy pane to make sure that it is nested one level inside of your avatar's root.

Choose the desired shader:

You may need to do this if you have a slightly different version of Poiyomi from the one used to create the dress asset OR if you prefer to simply use the Standard shader or another shader of your choice. If the asset imports textureless (usually pink) you'll need to do this:

4. Select the individual meshes one level inside each asset. Clicking within the hierarchy or within the scene should both work to achieve this.
5. From the Inspector pane, scroll to the bottom and find the lone texture slot. If Unity can't find the texture, it will show "Hidden/InternalErrorShader" rather than a real shader name.
6. Click the dropdown menu next to "Shader" and type Poiyomi, Standard, or whatever and select your desired shader. If you're using Poiyomi like I am, you'll pick Poiyomi toon (.poiyomi/Poiyomi 8.1/Poiyomi toon).

Build and upload the avatar!

7. Upload your avatar as you normally would via the VRChat SDK Control Panel. VRCFury will show a progress bar when you're performing the upload itself as its making the modifications to your avatar.

Try it out! There is a new toggle called "Become Bee" in the root of your expression menu and a toggle for the arm warmers under Clothing/Bee Armwarmers.

... If you wish to detach the asset from your avatar, you can delete the "NovaBeeGear" object from the scene hierarchy or just drag it off of the avatar into the scene root.

THIS IS A DIGITAL PRODUCT AND NOT REFUNDABLE.

Changelog:

2024-06-07 — Added toggle that switches between base Nova and Bee.

2024-06-07 — First posting