I've been tinkering with making a bead shader for #VRChat. Each bead is a little billboard, which means this whole bracelet can be just 72 tris. The beads can also be weighted to clothing, etc. Got nerd sniped by @elizacg.com who showed me that the new Nikki game does something similar. - ThreadSky

zekk.dev • 128 days ago

I've been tinkering with making a bead shader for #VRChat. Each bead is a little billboard, which means this whole bracelet can be just 72 tris. The beads can also be weighted to clothing, etc.

Got nerd sniped by @elizacg.com who showed me that the new Nikki game does something similar.

Comments

madevillemon.net•127 days ago

brikaro.bsky.social•127 days ago

This reminds me of a possible solution I saw for showing LEGO brick studs in 3d without a big performance impact. Can't wait to see how it turns out once you've got it finished!

Gif from https://simonschreibt.de/gat/lego-studs/

zekk.dev•126 days ago

Yeah! Very similar other than the sphere not having to be pre-rendered into some sort of spritesheet. Cause spheres are easy.

takanu.bsky.social•128 days ago

oh damn it holds up really well! Will depth be a problem with a shader like this in VR or are you counting on the fact the object is small enough?

zekk.dev•127 days ago

Currently I don’t think I’ve seen any depth related issues with this in VR yet (outside of some stuff like edges getting clipped due to perspective, but I think I can fix that).

Not exactly sure what you are referring to by Depth if not that though.

Could you clarify further?

takanu.bsky.social•127 days ago

Just the fact youre using billboards. Ive tried using billboard effects for things like tree fronds but at that scale the lack of depth becomes obvious and distracting, hence why i was curious.

zekk.dev•127 days ago

Ooooh! Because it’s just a raytraced sphere, I can use SV_Depth to output depth as if the billboard is a sphere.

You can see in the video that each bead occludes the beads on either side correctly rather than snapping in front or behind like quads would.

zekk.dev•127 days ago

If you have seen the bgolus article on “rendering a sphere on a quad”, I’m doing something very similar here.

https://bgolus.medium.com/rendering-a-sphere-on-a-quad-13c92025570c

takanu.bsky.social•127 days ago

Oh i havent, this looks awesome, thanks for the insight.

zenithval.com•127 days ago

Would it be possible to shapes other than spheres? Not a shader fiend so dunno the limitations. EG: Chainlinks ~ always done those with textured cards a lot for necklaces n such.

zekk.dev•126 days ago

This is something I’ve been thinking about. It’s possible, but for now I will probably focus on spheres.

The main limitation for chains is defining the orientation of the links.

I’ve also talked to another friend about an idea they might do for chains in a different way w/ same goals though.

zekk.dev•128 days ago

I started this from one of @XiexeVR's lit shader templates (on their github), which are crazy useful. Wish I had found them like a year ago haha.

Have a lot more I want to try with this. Took a break from Unity stuff for a few weeks, so I am getting back in the swing.

duinrahaic.app•127 days ago

@xiexe.bsky.social is their handle here.

zekk.dev•127 days ago

Whoops, gonna take a bit to get used to that.

duinrahaic.app•127 days ago

It's alright. It's a learning curve for all migrating. 😛

zekk.dev•128 days ago

This and the platform shader (which is pretty close to done) are my current focus.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply