VAM2 NEWS: BETA1 - What to expect (Patreon)

I was checking the Trello tickets update for the VAM2 roadmap and I figured I might as well share my analysis on it, since things are so qui

I was checking the Trello tickets update for the VAM2 roadmap and I figured I might as well share my analysis on it, since things are so quiet around VAM.

This is only my understanding of the tickets and what they suggest. I'm not by any means an expert at any of this stuff, I just picked up on a thing or two playing with Unity.

These tickets might include other extra features which are not noted down. But overall, I think this should give a good idea of what to expect from the beta1 release.

These should be fixes for special cases where the model body was deformed, like bent shoulders or elbows, and optimizations. This does not sound like a lot but this is a big thing which VAM does very well and it's hard to achieve. The body looks very realistic when changing poses and with morphs applied. Many games struggle to achieve that and you see often deformations. VAM1 is far from perfect in that regard but it still very good. VAM2 alpha from what I remember was better. So this feature in beta1 - the way the body looks when changing poses - will very likely look very realistic. If it looks right and it works right, you don't even think about it and notice it, you take it as it is. But this is difficult to achieve and it's a big hurdle in doing complex models systems like vam's.

This is similar to what I mentioned in my devlog post for Aeternum Studio, the problem I have with the fingers and shoulders. "Blendshapes" are what morphs are called in Unity, they're basically like the morph sliders in VAM. They're great for small cosmetic changes, like nose and eye shape. They're not great for significant body changes that change proportions. For the latter, altering the bones, the structure driving the model, is much better. So this update I believe added that and beta1 will likely have lots of morphs to play around with similar to vam1, but with a more detailed body.

This should be the system to allow LOD (Level of detail) bodies. You know, how like in some game trees or building look lower quality at a distance and when you get close to them they switch and look better and more detailed. It's basically that. In VAM1 the model has one body and it's very detailed geometry wise. Having multiple models in a scene in VAM1 is a problem because of this (and other things). The maximum level of detail is necessary when you're very close to the model and you can actually notice that detail. But when you're far away, it's a waste of resources. And that adds up with every other extra model.

In VAM2 the default Genesis 8 models will probably have around 4 bodies with different level of details, and they'll switch automatically depending on the distance. This should help with performance a lot and allow more models in scenes, since you won't get their highest quality bodies all the time.

I believe this is a system to try to prevent duplicate morphs. If two morphs have different names but do the same exact thing, it will be possible to detect that.

Geoshell is like a second layer of skin, on top of the original skin. It follows perfectly the skin, sort of like a perfect body suit, and it's used generally for tattoos and tight clothing, stockings, things like that in some software, like Daz Studio. I think this was needed to fix some mismatches/seams between the normal DAZ body and the anatomy pieces which come as an extra.

This I believe should be a custom shader to calculate on the graphic cards the changes that some of the morphs will do to the skin, for performance.

Beta1 very likely will have a similar json files system to VAM1's and it should be possible to save and load models and scenes. Models for sure. The extent to which this will work for scenes is unknown so far. But I anticipate it will be similar to VAM1 and it will be possible to customize scenes already in beta1.

This is a very big part of Virtamate and what connects things. The parameter system allows objects (atoms) to store things and connect through triggers. I'm not sure if Beta1 will have triggers. I hope it will, because that would allow people to build & create cool things already. The parameter system is something that will be used intensively by the vam2 plugins, as a way to change things in VAM.

The undo system is aimed at people customizing scenes, which might indicate that scene customization is includeded in beta1. I don't think it will have many other applications besides that.

This is the biggest wildcard on this list. I don't have the slightest idea what they did in terms of UI. Which is a bit worrying.

This could make or break vam2 imho. From what they wrote about it, it was confusing to me and it seemed like it relies a lot on modders going creative. If modders are forced to get too creative with UIs, personally I think that would be a huge mess. I'm worried they might think just about isolated whitelabel-style uses, like vamx for example, how to make one special custom UI for one mod. I don't think they actually play vam or know how many people play vam these days with 5 different UIs on the screen. Multiple UIs are a mess even now. If their system is too abstract, has no structure and is an invitation for modders to do anything anywhere, that I think could go wrong in many ways.

Hopefully they figured out something cool. For me personally, the sidebar style UI I had for Alive, with apps, is the perfect fit and right way to go for something as do-it-yourself as VAM.

There is one other concern here, which is that the VR UI will be different. The beta1 will not have a VR UI as far as I know. Given that vam is so complicated, and the new UI sounds complicated too, splitting the UI in two is a bit worrysome as it might break the VR&desktop combo that worked pretty well in VAM1.

Default Genesis 8 models have no anatomy. Grafts are extra body parts that change the default body, like adding genitals. This update is related to getting the pieces to work together in Unity.

Same as above, for male models.

I think this is related to adding default textures as an addonpack, or whatever they'll call VARs in vam2. VAM1 had lots of built-in content. In VAM2 they said they're trying to do all the content as mods.

 Same as above, for male models.

 This is some old stuff from 2023, when they updated from an older Unity version that the old alpha release ran on. It was expected to update vam2 to Unity 6 for this release but they delayed it for a future release.

I think the basic idea here is that the way the skin works in Unity is not great, it has artefacts. Light acts weird in some cases, where the skin is distorted, causing bad shadows/shading. The nose area often has weird lighting for example. There's also performance optimization that can be done in this regard. So this update should help with one of these of both.