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Preview Mode

Preview Mode is an animator parameter that indicates whether the user is currently previewing your avatar in the VRChat menu. Your Animator Controller can use this parameter to play a specific animation to make your avatar preview look more appealing.

Usage​

To set up a preview mode animation for your avatar, follow the steps below:

  1. Open your existing Base (Locomotion) Animator Controller.
    • If you do not have a Base layer set up in your Avatar descriptor, you can copy the existing Animator Controller provided by VRChat. It is located under Packages/VRChat SDK Avatars/Samples/AV3 Demo Assets/Animation/Controllers/vrc_AvatarV3LocomotionLayer. Copy this animator controller into your assets and assign it to the Base slot of your Avatar Descriptor.

Base Layer Sample

  1. Create a new Animator parameter of type Int and name it PreviewMode.

PreviewMode Parameter

  1. Create an Animation Clip to house your preview animation, choose a name (e.g., PreviewOn), and drag it into the Animator Controller.
  2. Set up a transition between the Standing locomotion blend tree (usually the Default state, marked in orange) to the PreviewOn state, and set the condition to "PreviewMode Equals 1". Uncheck the "Has Exit Time" checkbox.

PreviewOn Transition

  1. Create another Transition in reverse from PreviewOn to Standing and set the condition to "PreviewMode equals 0". Uncheck the "Has Exit Time" checkbox.

PreviewOff Transition

  1. The final setup should look something like this:

PreviewMode Setup

  1. Now assign your Base Animator Controller to the Controller slot of your Avatar's Animator component, and set up the animation to your preference.

Plug In Animator

caution

Please note that Material swapping animations do not work correctly when previewed in the menu. However, you can still do most other things like toggling objects, or adjusting BlendShapes.

  1. When you're done - you can Build & Test your avatar.

Pose Sample

  1. When you preview your avatar in the "Other" section of the Avatars list - you should see it animate into the pose you set up in the PreviewOn Animation Clip.

In Game View

You can use different kinds of animations for the preview mode, so feel free to experiment.