(Novabeast) Punky Hair

Tired of your avatar not looking vaguely like FF7's Cloud Strife? Tired of a general lack of agonized screams when nuzzling with the homies in VRChat because you accidentally poked them in the eye with one of your angular locks? Tired of your avatar's hair looking like it came from Ikea? If you answered 'yes' to any of these questions, this product is for you. It will work for most avatars although it was designed to work for the Novabeast.

Setup for this asset is easy with VRCFury; see Instructions below. The content page available after purchase has my contact info in case you need support 🩹!

Requirements and nice-to-haves:

• VRChat-compatible Unity 2022 * project with Novabeast (1.0) or 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)
  • rigged model (FBX)
  • Textures and texture templates
• Substance Painter 2022 (.spp) files (forward compatible with 2023)

⚠ 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:

• Verts: 3206
• Polygons: 6050 tris

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 .unitypackage file from the content page after purchase and choose Assets -> Import Package -> Custom Package to bring it in.
4. From the Assets/NovaFrontHair folder, drag "NovaFrontHair 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 NovaFrontHairMesh one level inside of the dress 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! The hair will be off by default, and can be turned on using the radial Expressions menu under Hair -> Nova Front Hair.

... If you wish to detach the dress from your avatar, you can delete the "NovaFrontHair Prefab" 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:

2024-02-20 — First posting