ChilloutVR News

We have just released a new update for ChilloutVR on the stable branch.



This update contains the upgrade to Unity 2021. We decided to release this update earlier in order to get our update schedule back to a steady pace.
Many other changes were held back by some issues that were introduced along with the Unity engine update. Most of those issues were the responsibility of third-party developers to resolve, which caused a setback in our schedule.
The most prevalent of those issues cause random crashes when loading a portion of uploaded content. This bug was reported to Unity, and subsequently fixed in recent versions, but has yet to be fixed in 2021.
We have a plan to work around this issue by iterating through uploaded content and patching the affected content accordingly. We are positive this will be resolved in the coming days.

By releasing the engine upgrade now, these issues are no longer preventing future releases from making it to the stable branch. As a result, updates frequency can be expected to persist now that this is no longer a problem.

This update contains the following major changes:

[h2]New Voice Chat System:[/h2]
ChilloutVR’s voice chat system will be switching from Dissonance to Vivox. This fixes a number of issues experienced due to limitations of the former, such as crackling and cut-outs; whereas Vivox demonstrated much better voice quality and stability in both development and community testing, offering an improved experience for user-to-user communication

[h2]Shader Replacement System:[/h2]
The shaders for content that were uploaded with cck 3.3 or earlier will have their shaders replaced in VR mode.
An attempt is made to match the shader in question with available shaders in the game. If the shader is unknown, it will be replaced with the Standard shader.
This ensures that legacy content will not render in only one eye.
Content that is uploaded after this update with incompatible shaders may still exhibit this behavior.
If present in a world where shaders are replaced, an appropriate icon will be displayed in the Quick Menu and World Details Page.
Material swaps will most likely inhibit the Replacement System from working properly.

[h2]OpenXR and SteamVR:[/h2]
The Game now supports SteamVR and OpenXR. The default will continue to be SteamVR since a lot of implementations, such as Device Management and Haptics, currently work much better in SteamVR.
The following launch option can be used to launch the game in OpenXR Mode: --force-openxr

[h2]Graphic Presets:[/h2]
The Graphic menu now contains a preset option in order to make the graphics customization more accessible.

[h2]Mod Network:[/h2]
The Mod Network is a built-in networking layer that mod developers can utilize.
It allows for Mods to communicate between Users in the same instance in a secure way without needing any third-party Networking library or services.

[h2]Animator Driver:[/h2]
The Animator Driver is a new Component that can be added to animator states and can switch Animator Parameters on State Enter and Exit. The functionality is comparable to the Variable Buffer Arithmetic of the Interactable.
If used on Avatars it will sync corresponding Advanced Avatar Values. On Props, it will set the Sync values as well if the Parameter matches.

[h2]Spawnable Pickup Markers:[/h2]
Spawnable Pickup Markers can now be placed in Worlds. They work comparably to the Avatar Pickup Marker, and are similar in design.

[h2]PlayerMaterialParser:[/h2]
This new component can parse the positions of players to a Vector4[255] on a specified material.
This component gives you access to the following positions:
- Root
- Hip
- Head
- Left Hand
- Right Hand
- Chest
- Left Foot
- Right Foot
The W component of Root will contain the Avatar Viewpoint height.
This component can be used to have shaders react to Players without the need for cameras for example water or snow.

[h2]General fixes and changes:[/h2]
- Fixed some issues regarding depth buffer on AMD GPUs
- Fixed a bug that lead to velocity not being transferred to the player correctly
- Fixed an issue that lead to Compatibility Issues with some RenderTexture creation on AMD GPUs
- Fixed an issue that lead to Step Offset Error Spam
- Fixed an issue with AvProPlayer causing Error Spam when Resyncing
- Fixed an issue with "undefined" Microphone Device
- Fixed an issue with Microphone Device Names being too long and overlapping the dropdown
- Fixed an issue with SchedulerSystem using the wrong Time value
- Fixed an issue with setting Home World and it not changing until restarting the game
- Fixed an issue with the Current Instance button not showing World Details when in your Offline Home World
- Fixed an issue with the Microphone Device dropdown flashing when open
- Fixed an issue with Video Player Ui having hard-to-read text
- Fixed an issue with auto-placed pointers and colliders
- Fixed an issue with Microphone Device not finding the correct device at startup
- Fixed an issue with Gamepad Sensitivity being incorrectly calculated resulting in lower-than-expected Turn Speed
- Fixed an issue with Current Avatar not being set if the avatar is changed after login
- Fixed an issue with AAS not being set properly while someone is still loading an Avatar on their side
- Fixed an issue with Thumb Tracking on Index Controllers
- Fixed an issue with mixing different VR Controllers
- Fixed an issue with CVRDistanceLod not working when the player teleports
- Fixed an issue with Video Player Volume not being set properly
- Fixed an issue with FBT Calibration orbs not showing
- Fixed an issue with FBT Knee Tracking not working properly
- Fixed an issue with FBT Elbow Tracking not working properly
- Fixed an issue related to IK for non-humanoid avatars
- Fixed an issue related to rendering on headsets with more than 180° FoV
- Fixed an issue where some Magica Cloth actions could lead to a crash
- Fixed an issue related to the image download queue breaking in some cases
- Fixed an issue where you would interact with things while in prop delete mode
- Fixed an issue where crouch and prone states were not reset when entering a chair
- Fixed an issue where Transitions colors would not properly reflect by the preview in the menu
- Fixed an issue where Props could be placed on Player relevant layers
- Fixed an issue related to props being needed to be picked up twice in order to sync/work properly
- Fixed an issue where ParticleSound Components were not filtered by Audio filters
- Fixed an issue where your avatar would be offset a huge distance when upside down in chairs
- Fixed an issue where the fixed rotation offset of the Attachment Component was not respected properly
- Fixed an issue where The Emote and Toggle list would show the wrong names
- Fixed an issue related to malformed animator parameters breaking avatar initialization
- Fixed an issue that led to Video Player Playlists on Props not generating properly
- Fixed an issue where the menu would not be forced open when using the interactable show props details page action
- Fixed an issue related to Lipsync not properly working in some configurations
- Fixed an issue that lead to the Avatars snapping around when changing away from the playspace center
- Fixed an issue with full head bobbing not pivoting with avatar head
- Fixed an issue where CVRParameterStream EyeMovementY was returning the wrong value
- Fixed an issue related to CVRSpawnable SpawnerPosition and SpawnerDistance entries returning playspace center position when in VR
- Fixed an issue related to respawning/teleporting not working while affected by a movement parent component
- Fixed an issue where the world far clipping plane setting was not copied to the portable camera
- Fixed an issue related to the hud message queue not getting cleared on world change
- Fixed an issue where the local avatar would hover above the ground in some cases
- Fixed an issue related to the left controller dead zone setting
- Fixed an issue where deleted or blocked props would count toward your prop limit
- Fixed an issue related to the Loading Avatar not following the Player
- Fixed an issue related to your feet kicking out on Avatar load
- Fixed an issue related to the Quickmenu losing the Advanced Avatar Setting list when using F5 to reload the menus
- Fixed an issue related to gravity not being reset properly when in flight mode
- Fixed an issue related to ik locomotion affecting FBT calibration
- Fixed an issue related to Index Required Grip Strength not working on lower values
- Fixed an issue where changing Advanced Avatar Setting in the quick menu would not update the main menu
- Fixed an issue with Desktop LookAtIk not being disabled while playing an emote
- Fixed an issue with VRIK locomotion being scaled before it was initiated
- Fixed an issue with VRIK locomotion not being disabled while not grounded
- Fixed an issue with VRIK locomotion not being disabled while flying
- Fixed an issue with exiting seats enabling VRIK locomotion while in FBT
- Fixed an issue with Visemes would randomly break when switching Avatars when using Oculus Lip Sync
- Fixed an issue where useVisemeLipsync as false on CVRAvatar would cause it to constantly force Visemes to 0 weight
- Fixed an issue where worlds that use bakery could break lighting for following worlds
- Fixed an issue preventing you from doing emotes while in Drone Mode
- Fixed an issue regarding the player colliding with the menu in some cases
- Fixed an issue related to CVRToggleStateTrigger initializing with wrong settings
- Fixed spelling of Salute in Default Emote Names

- Added oculus lip sync as the main viseme controller. You can change this in your experimental settings.
- Added Kinematic check for CVRPickupObject
- Added Public Player Profiles in User Details
- Added the ability to set Process Affinity using a launch option
- "--affinity="
- Mask can be calculated using a tool like https://bitsum.com/tools/cpu-affinity-calculator/
- Added the option to disable haptic feedback
- Added Threshold Customization for Muted Speech Notification
- Added Smooth Mic Meter toggle to Hud Customization (Disabled by default)
- Added Microphone Volume Customization
- Added Double Jump for Flight as a toggle (Disabled by default)
- Added Go Home Functionality
- Added Gamepad Customization
- Added VR Quick Menu Hand Customization
- Added VR One-Handed Control
- Added VR Movement & Turning hand customization
- Added a Video Player Hardware Decoding toggle to Experimental Settings
- Can be forced off using the launch option --disable-vphd
- Added the option to customize sprint behavior on desktop and gamepad controls (Hold, Always)
- Added an option for VR sprint behavior (Hold, Always) where Always is the default behavior
- Added finger spread as networked Data. Some rudimentary spread will be detected for Index Controllers
- Added a setting for independent HeadTurnMode (Hold, Toggle, Hybrid) Where Hybrid is the old implementation
- Added DisplaySpawnableDetailPage Interactable action
- Added Attachment can now attach to snapping points
- Added an image loading indicator to the main menu
- Added Object Push Pull functionality in VR (Enabled by default)
- Added the ability to enter crouch and prone in VR without full body tracking
- Added a menu framerate option in order to minimize resource usage of the UI system

- Implemented Game Event System for Modders
- Implemented Mod Network support for Modders
- Implemented Pretty-Printing of Configs to make external editing easier
- Implemented single viseme lip sync
- Implemented Jaw Bone lip sync
- Implemented Smooth Amplitude for Nameplates to make them less flashy when Players are speaking
- Implemented Viseme Loudness Smoothing
- Implemented Viseme Smoothing for Muting

- Adjusted Cohtml Rendering to increase performance
- Adjusted Video Player Audio Mixing
- Adjusted Player Voice Audio Mixing
- Adjusted Double Jump for Flight to feel more like that one block game
- Adjusted Nameplate Margins to be more aligned
- Adjusted Emoting with Vive Wands to be paralleled
- Adjusted Instance Reconnect Timer
- Adjusted Default VR Quick Menu Offsets
- Adjusted the placement and size of Dynamic Bone default Colliders
- Adjusted the default Audio options to be more friendly for new users (quieter Video Players etc.)
- Adjusted the default Content filter settings to be more friendly for new users (more enabled by default)
- Adjusted sync behavior of snapping attached props to reduce occurrences of it being synced by the wrong player
- Adjusted the menus to be more useable while falling
- Adjusted the Desktop Zoom behavior to feel less sluggish
- Adjusted implementation enabled settings to be separated for Desktop and VR
- Adjusted nameplate fade speed to better match menu open/close speed
- Adjusted viseme calculation to be more smooth. This can be adjusted in the updated CVRAvatar component

Hello there, and thank you so much for checking in!

This month’s Status Report includes a recap of some exciting new changes for the next update, a new web developer, updates to our infrastructure, and news on Cross-Instance Calls.



With the next stable update for ChilloutVR soon approaching an official release; we wanted to quickly go over some of the important changes being introduced, as well as some of the process we’ve gone through to get here, once more while we continue to squash a few remaining bugs in the meantime.


The move from Unity 2019 to 2021 has been a big and complicated undertaking. While this was initially the plan from the start, due to some bugs with this version of Unity that were found during development, we considered switching to 2022 instead. However, even more problematic issues were found, so we ultimately decided to stick with Unity 2021 for now and work around the core problems. Thankfully in that time, Unity was able to fix some pressing issues that were impacting development, so we could proceed with less on our plate. We will continuously look for new releases and evaluate if further upgrades would benefit the game, but we can assure that future upgrades will be a smoother process.

Benefits of upgrading to Unity 2021 include better performance, fixing some long-standing bugs with the Unity game engine, easier handling of multi-platform support (such as Pico and Quest), as well as increased compatibility for future hardware, software, and features.


Unity 2021 introduces a new rendering method called Single Pass Stereo Instanced. Simply put, this provides a more optimized method of rendering meshes by drawing it once for both eyes rather than once per-eye, essentially reducing both GPU and CPU usage while cutting down the amount of necessary draw calls by half in many situations. However, for uploaded content to utilize this new system and be displayed properly, the shader applied to the material(s) a mesh is using must support it. Otherwise, it will only display in one eye in VR. This may affect some legacy content, but systems are in place to mitigate this issue as much as possible by replacing the shader, or falling back to a standard shader. Not all content will be compatible with these replacement methods though. We urge creators to take this time to test and update their content with the current Experimental Beta before r171 launches.


ChilloutVR’s voice chat system will be switching from Dissonance to Vivox. This fixes a number of issues experienced due to limitations of the former, such as crackling and cut-outs; whereas Vivox demonstrated much better voice quality and stability in both development and community testing, offering an improved experience for user-to-user communication.


ChilloutVR was planned to switch from OpenVR to OpenXR with this upcoming update due to the deprecation of the former, as well as to better unify development across all VR platforms. Unfortunately, limitations of OpenXR prevented a smooth transition, and introduced some problematic issues for some hardware setups. Because of that, the Steam release of ChilloutVR will continue to use OpenVR. However, OpenXR implementation is still planned for additional supported platforms, such as the Oculus/Meta store for PC, Quest, and Pico standalone headsets, upon release.

For those who still want to try out our OpenXR implementation with the Steam release of ChilloutVR, the following launch option can be used in Steam: --force-openxr


Along with the upgrade to Unity 2021, an updated CCK will be provided for compatibility, in addition to a few extra new features for creators:

• Spawnable Pickup Markers
  
• Suggestive and Nudity advanced tagging
  
• DisplaySpawnableDetailPage for intractable actions
  
• AnimatorDriver StateMachineBehavior
  - Allows animator parameters to be changes on State Enter and Exit
• Snapping points for attachment targets
  - Allows defining snapping behavior to predetermined points
• PlayerMaterialParser Component
  - Component that allows parsing the following positions of players to a Vector4[255] on a specified material: Root, hip, head, left/right hand, chest, left/right foot

A preview of CCK 3.5 can be downloaded to use these new features from our Discord’s Experimental section now!


New accessibility options have been added for VR input customization by allowing users to select which hand they would like to use for movement, turning, and opening the Quick Menu. Additionally, One-Handed Control now allows users to fall back to using a single controller for movement and Quick Menu controls if the other controller becomes unavailable.

We hope that this enables more people to comfortably play ChilloutVR the way they prefer, and want to continue adding more accessibility options in the future for that very reason. Try them out now in the current Experimental version.


Last month, we announced that a Web Developer position was open for applications. We’re happy to mention that this new position has been filled!

As mentioned on our Hub, a major rework of our website has been planned for some time. They will be focusing on the rework of the hub alongside other - completely new - pages that will help users to find the information they are looking for. We aim to make it as easy as possible for those who are trying to dive into the worlds of ChilloutVR for the first time by providing necessary information on easily locatable sources outside of the game itself.. We hope to make this available in the near future.


Our backend developers have been working on upgrading ChilloutVR’s infrastructure to increase the reliability of our network. While we’ve already made great efforts towards this over the past year, now being able to handle many more connections and interactions, our goal is to support a much larger scale in the long term with minimal interference. To do this, we will be adding more hosts to our supported regions for better reliability and network redundancy, among further necessary optimizations. Additionally, we will bring the AS server region back.


Members of our community that are familiar with the Main Menu have more than likely noticed an unoccupied “Call” section. This was a very early look at a planned feature intended to allow users to communicate across worlds and instances, but was never fully implemented. We’ve wanted to revisit it for some time, but limitations of our old voice chat system were not ideal for supporting such a feature. However, with the introduction of Vivox, this concept is much more conceivable and with convenient features built right in.

It’s too early to say when Calling will make an appearance, however the foundation has been built and we’re very excited to see how the community utilizes it to further expand player communication across ChilloutVR. We hope to have more information in the near future.



As always, thank you for your continued interest in and support of ChilloutVR's development.

Going forward, all Status Reports will be posted within the first week of each month, rather than a set date that may be delayed due to various circumstances.

Tune in next month for more updates like this, see you next time!


Find us on social media with the links below:
Discord: https://discord.gg/abi Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlphaBlendNET YouTube: https://youtube.com/@AlphaBlendInteractive Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChilloutVR/


Like every company, we need financial support to be able to push updates and improve our product. We are grateful for every bit of support we get.
If you want to support us you can do so here: https://www.patreon.com/AlphaBlendInteractive

We are more than thankful for your support!


Use the link above to join our discord server and get in touch with our wonderful community, get help with creation-related topics and find people to play with.

Hello there, and thank you so much for checking in!

This month’s Status Report will cover further progress on the next major update, updates to our search system, detailed information on scripting, and new funding!



From the very beginning, ChilloutVR and its services have always been funded by ourselves, our wonderful Patreon supporters, and those who have purchased an unlocked account. Online games like this aren’t cheap to host, and can incur a fairly hefty cost.

We want ChilloutVR to thrive, and really build something great while making sure we can continue to support the hard-working people behind the project for all the time and effort they spend to make it what it is.

Well, we’re happy to announce that Alpha Blend Interactive has secured the funding that enables us to do just that! It will allow for some exciting new opportunities that seemed impossible before. This has been in the works for quite some time, so we’re very excited to finally share this information with you all!

One such opportunity, and foremost on our agenda for quite some time, is converting those who have put their passion into this game and community for many years into paid full-time staff. Their commitment to this project has made it what it is today, and while we know that many things still have to be done in order to make ChilloutVR the platform we want it to be, this is a significant step in the direction of achieving this goal.

Though, we do want to make something very important clear. While this news may raise some concerns, we want to assure our community that we are committed to the goals and direction that have driven us. As such, we have made sure to retain all creative control in the process of obtaining funding.

We hope you’re as excited as us about future prospects afforded to us by these new developments, we certainly don’t want to disappoint. Expect to see much faster development with the increased resources available to us going forward!



We are currently hiring for the position of web designer/web developer. This is a paid position, and those looking to work part-time or full-time are welcome to apply.

Requirements include:

• 2-3 years of experience in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
  
• Experience in designing websites from scratch
  
• Ability to work as a team
  
• Able to attend meetings and conferences during German work hours
  
• Strong interest in the growth of ChilloutVR
  

Interested parties can submit their application to [email protected]

Please be sure to include as much information as possible, including a CV.

We will have additional open positions and job opportunities again in the future, so keep an eye out for those.

We look forward to welcoming new members into our Team!



During the month of May, our development team has made significant progress on fixing many issues and polishing up the game in preparation for the release of ChilloutVR r171! While we generally take this time to highlight some of the more notable changes from recent Experimental versions, because a vast majority of changes introduced were a quantity of minor fixes, we instead recommend reading through the full changelog for ChilloutVR 2023r171 Ex6 in our community Discord if interested. An invite can be found at the bottom of this post.

Other than general fixes, an option to toggle the Video Player Hardware Decoding has been added for compatibility with some hardware and systems. If you are experiencing issues using an AMD GPU with ChilloutVR in worlds with video players, we highly recommend testing this to see if those issues are resolved. If so, please let us know!

Additional modding support for developers was also added by way of the Game Event System, which makes it easier for modders to add listeners for certain callbacks, and the Mod Network, which was discussed in detail in the May Status Report. More information and documentation will be available at a later date!

Back in December, we announced our intention to move ChilloutVR from OpenVR to OpenXR due to the deprecation of the former. Unfortunately, issues were found during development which were not be ideal for some VR setups. Such issues are why the SteamVR release of ChilloutVR will continue to use OpenVR for the foreseeable future. However, we still plan to implement OpenXR for hardware and platforms that have better support for it in the future.

We will continue to look into these issues over time; but currently OpenVR poses no issues for the game, and so the decision was made to postpone it’s replacement in favor of focusing our resources on more crucial tasks required for the release of r171.



We heard you wanted some improvements to searching, so we put more search in your search!

Search results have now been expanded from 30 to 100!

Now, it’s much easier to find what you’re looking for; whether it be avatars, worlds, props, or even users with a larger variety when searching via the in-game Search menu. If you were experiencing difficulty looking for something in particular before due to the limited results, you may have better luck!

In the future, we plan to support paginated results and filtering by tags, author, and more! This means that results will be divided into pages instead of one singular long page, as well as more refined searching filters, so it will be much easier to find exactly what you’re looking for!



With the move from Unity 2019 to Unity 2021 comes a new rendering method named Single-Pass Stereo Instanced, or SPSI for short. This significantly optimizes draw-calls by only rendering a mesh once for both eyes rather than once per-eye, essentially cutting the amount of draw-calls required to render an object in half in most situations. This results in reduced CPU and GPU load for better performance.

Read up on it here: https://docs.unity3d.com/2019.4/Documentation/Manual/SinglePassInstancing.html


While that was a very brief explanation on the topic, it should more or less give you an idea of the kind of performance improvements that can be expected with this upgrade. But what does it have to do with legacy content? Well, there are a couple of caveats. First, the old rendering method, Single-Pass, no longer exists in Unity 2021 and beyond. Second, shaders being used must support this new rendering method for it to be properly rendered in VR. If not, a mesh using an incompatible shader will only be visible in one eye. This means that any old content using outdated, incompatible, shaders will not display correctly if left alone.

Shader developers will likely be able to update their content by using the information contained in the documentation linked above, but considering a vast majority of users are using publicly released shaders, what can you do? Well, to start preparing ahead of time, we recommend that creators check all of their uploaded content using the current Experimental branch of ChilloutVR in VR mode. This can be accessed via information posted in the Experimental section of our community Discord. If everything looks good, then there’s no need to worry! Some public shaders already have support for SPSI, but others may not. In which case, you may need to update, modify, or change the shader being used.

Currently, we are working on ways to remedy this issue as much as possible by analyzing outdated shaders and replacing them automatically.

• Any content uploaded using CCK 3.3 and below will have their shaders replaced
  
  • This is because SPSI shader variants were ignored before CCK 3.4, even if supported
    
• Shader replacements will be matched as accurately as possible, otherwise Standard is used
  
• Content with replaced shaders will display an icon on the content’s Details page
  

Please keep in mind that this is by no means a perfect solution. It is still recommended to update your content with CCK 3.5 (when available) if possible, even if there are no noticeable issues.



For ChilloutVR, we’re working on Lua as our first client-side scripting language so that users can add new scripted behaviors to props, avatars, and worlds. We would like to add additional languages in the future and have written it to be modular enough to accomplish this. While we could have opted for a more complex, custom solution like some other games have chosen to do, we decided that it would have increased development time and introduced too many moving parts to a game of our scope and team size. Lua has been used for embedded scripting for a long time, meaning that it’s had time to mature, has a large support base, and - most importantly – can be customized later on if we feel the need to.

Users new to Lua, and software development in general, may find these first steps challenging; so we plan to offer more accessible methods via in-game scripting and editing. This will allow for a whole new level of creative freedom and expand upon what is currently possible to create new and enjoyable experiences.

ChilloutVR is using a Lua implementation called “MoonSharp”, which has a few minor differences from its ancestral C implementation. While we’d like to expand upon what these exact differences are, we’re still in development, and there may be updates to MoonSharp or CVR’s implementation that resolve or at least mitigate some of the more problematic ones in the future. We don’t want to tell users to prepare for something we aren’t certain of. The biggest reason behind using MoonSharp, though, is that its implemented in C#, and has Unity support, so integration with Unity is much more simple. That fact allowed us to automate much of the task of exposing CVR and Unity to Lua scripting.

Making use of CVR’s Lua scripting will be just like putting together MonoBehaviours in Unity: You tell the game what information your script needs in the game (in terms of standard Unity messages or CVR events and schedulers), and you can choose how to react to those events by interacting with standard Unity structures, or by calling some simplified APIs we provide for things such as requesting players in the instance, or which props are currently spawned. All scripting is done in the editor for now, but we have some ideas on how to provide in-game editing and debugging in the future. We will also be providing full wiki-based documentation and even LuaLS-compatible auto-complete libraries for your favorite IDEs.

To prevent any security issues, many methods and properties are blocked from being accessed by Lua by an allowlist. If a script attempts to access something that has not specifically been permitted, CVR will throw an exception explaining the problem and halt execution of the script. Access restrictions will vary based on whether your script is being run on a world, prop, or avatar. These restrictions are documented, including in auto-complete. We’ve also implemented additional checks for things like infinite loops and rendering calls that take too long.

For scripts that need to interact with other scripts, we’re working on a system similar to the Mod Network that we’re tentatively calling Script Network. It is still early in development, but will allow all client-side (and eventually server-side) scripting to be kept in constant communication, so things like HUD indicators and damage can be communicated to other scripts. Our current prototype can broadcast to scripts by the same script type and instance ID, all scripts with the same script ID, or even all scripts in the instance.

There’s much more we can show off here, like how scripts can be directly linked to avatar, prop, or world objects/components, but there’s still much to be done. Stay tuned for further updates, and we appreciate your feedback on the feedback site!




Find us on social media with the links below:
Discord: https://discord.gg/abi

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlphaBlendNET

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl8toTHzEER6PXoJyZcTFjg

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChilloutVR/


Like every company, we need financial support to be able to push updates and improve our product. We are grateful for every bit of support we get.
If you want to support us you can do so here:
https://www.patreon.com/AlphaBlendInteractive

We are more than thankful for your support!


Use the link above to join our discord server and get in touch with our wonderful community, get help with creation-related topics and find people to play with.

Hello people of Steam, welcome to our monthly Status Report! This will be the first post migrating from our old Forum website, so expect to see these regularly around the beginning of each month.


This month’s Status Report will cover progress on the next major update, information on the upcoming Standalone version of the game, a new Networking feature for modders, and news on our other resources.



Continuing on with the development of the next major update, we’ve introduced many new additions and fixes that draw us closer to a final release. There is still more work to be done before then, so let’s take a look at some of the highlights from Experimental updates during the month of April:

• ChilloutVR is migrating to Unity 2021.3.23f1
  
• Significantly expanded the customization options for quick menu, movement, and turning
  
• One-handed VR Movement was added
  
• Microphone volume can now be adjusted
  
• The “Go Home” feature in the exit menu is now functional
  

…and much more! These are only a few of the changes we’ve made; a much larger changelog can be found in our community Discord server and by navigating to the Experimental News channel.


On an additional note, we are aware that this update has been taking much longer than initially expected. This is mainly due to considerations and research required to find the most stable and compatible unity version to upgrade to and migrate old systems to the new foundation. We want to ensure that the stable updates add to the game's quality and performance, not diminish them. We are confident that we have the majority of issues derived from the Unity engine upgrade resolved and hope that we can give everyone access to the new version of the game within the next month.


With that said, if you’re a content creator and have not already checked out the current Experimental build of ChilloutVR, now is the time! Rendering changes introduced in Unity 2021 cause some incompatibilities with old shaders in VR, so be sure to prepare and update your content when the new CCK is available if necessary!


More information here: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/SinglePassInstancing.html

Please don’t hesitate to ask for help in our Community Discord!



While additional work on a standalone port is still required, we still want to keep those interested up to date and informed of new information when we have more to share.


Development is proceeding well, as we’re currently working to provide early test builds to chosen participants who answered our call for applications back in March. All spots for the first wave of testing are filled but we are hoping to let more users test the standalone builds early once the first working builds are made. We are also looking into possible ways to allow public experimental builds for both Pico and Quest at a later date - just like currently available for Steam builds.


For the creators out there; shortly before, we’ll be aiming to provide a CCK capable of building and uploading content for the Android platform to use with Standalone headsets. This will allow new content to be uploaded, or existing content to be updated for support. Unfortunately, this will introduce a separation of content between PC and Standalone, but an indication of platform availability will be added to specify if a world, avatar, or prop is available for PC, Standalone, or both. A future development goal is to establish a custom asset format that allows building for all platforms together and loading the content generated for one platform on other platforms as well. This is a goal for the rather far future and we will elaborate on this further once we get to the point where we are able to move on regarding this specific feature.


If you have any more questions, feel free to ask over in our Community Discord server at the end of this post!



As some of you may know, modification of the ChilloutVR game client has allowed developers to express their creativity through more than just the avatars, worlds, and props that we directly support. These can be anything from small tweaks to entirely new features and overhauls. The possibilities that modding can bring to a game are endless and we enjoy the idea of users making the game their own within reasonable bounds.


Of course, modding isn’t very common for online multiplayer games to support for understandable reasons. However, our team understands the benefits that such creations can bring to an open sandbox like ChilloutVR through our own experiences of using and creating mods for games that we love.
As such, we try to show our support for the modding community by equipping them with the tools and entry points needed to create something new and exciting.
With that said, we will soon release a tool that will expand the possibilities granted by modding by a new layer; the network layer. Introducing the Mod Network.


Simply put, the Mod Network will allow mods to send and interpret messages and information over the network between users using our game server network. Such messages and information can only be sent to users connected to the same instance. Though this is already possible by creating a custom networking solution for mods independently of the networking of ChilloutVR, it is often outside the scope of small projects. In those cases, developers will likely find the Mod Network much more convenient and favorable to use.


Recently, we’ve been working with a few selected mod developers to test the capabilities of the Mod Network, and the results have been great so far! We’re really excited to get this out there and see how people put it to use!


Documentation on its use will be available in the near future, along with its public release, so keep an eye out for that if you’re interested.



Just a quick update on our forums and documentation websites; both are currently unavailable due to changes to our infrastructure. We will bring them back in the upcoming days and will have a new, reworked documentation site - that the community will be able to contribute to - very soon; as was announced in former status reports. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused to anyone.



Our website developers are currently working on a new status page system to effectively inform the community about the current status of our infrastructure. This will allow the users to self-diagnose if a network connectivity issue is related to their connection or our network. This will include status indications for the game servers in all regions, the API, the hub, and other services like the forums. Upcoming features and systems accessible to the community will also be monitored and shown on the status page.


The status page will also provide a small API for developers to display the current network status on community websites and use it in discord bots.


The status page will also offer a feature to directly report outages without the requirement to send an email.



As always, thank you for your continued interest in and support of ChilloutVR's development. Tune in next month for more updates like this, see you next time!



Find us on social media with the links below:
Discord: https://discord.gg/abi

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlphaBlendNET

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl8toTHzEER6PXoJyZcTFjg

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChilloutVR/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/661130/ChilloutVR/



Like every company, we need financial support to be able to push updates and improve our product. We are grateful for every bit of support we get.
If you want to support us you can do so here:
https://www.patreon.com/AlphaBlendInteractive


We are more than thankful for your support!



Use the link above to join our discord server and get in touch with our wonderful community, get help with creation-related topics, and find people to play with.

We have just released a new update for ChilloutVR on the stable branch.



This update contains the long awaited IK Rework and many other exciting changes.


IK

• Added support for 11-point tracking
  
• Added the possibility to use more than one tracker per bone (for example two hip trackers)
  
• Added universal calibration
  
• Added per avatar calibration saving
  
• Added the option to smooth the tracking data for body points
  
• Added the option to spawn a mirror when calibrating
  
• Added the option to lock the avatar to the ground while calibrating
  
• Added the option to freeze the avatar follow during calibration by pressing one trigger
  
• Added the option for more customizability of the IK System (min/max angles, calculation iterations, and priorities)
  
• Added the option for head follow calibration mode for full body tracking
  
• Added a button to reset IK settings
  

World Transition System

• Added a new System for world transitions. This allows the implementation of custom transitions
  
• Added a button to test the world transition
  
• Added the option to set up to 3 colors to customize the transition effect
  
• Added new transition: fade to black
  
• Added new transition: digitize
  

UI

• Added HUD option to hide skeletal input message
  
• Added a notification when you try to speak while muted
  
• Added an option to disable to above-mentioned message
  
• Added a remove all props button to the main menu
  
• Moved IK settings to their own menu category
  
• Chnage the way the menu is rendering, so it is less effected by other effects
  
• Fixed the prop details button in search results now works as intended in preparation for public props
  
• Fixed a bug where loading, distance, and block avatar could overlap
  

Voice Chat

• Added a System to manage Audio source priorities in order to reduce voicechat-related issues
  
• Implemented distance based Player Voice Priority
  
• Implemented AudioSource Priority Enforcement
  
• Increase the size of the voice chat buffer to further combat voice chat-related issues
  
• Fixed errors in the voice chat system to reduce the issue of players not being able to hear each other
  

RCC

• Fixed a Bug connected to RCC Exhausts
  
• Fixed a Bug where vehicles became unsynced physics objects after exiting locally
  

Attachment

• Implemented attachment options for hand Controllers
  
• Implemented attachment options for additional trackers
  

Downloading changes

• Implemented multithreading for downloading content
  
• Implemented download speed limiting
  
• Implemented an automated network check to find the best settings
  
• Implemented an option to disable the mentionen check
  

Content Loading

• Reworked the Content Filter System
  
• Fixed a bug connected to the download size setting not working properly
  
• Added a text to the block avatar to show the reason why it was blocked
  
• Improved avatar loading time
  
• Reduced hitching during avatar loading
  
• Changed that blocked content will no longer be downloaded
  
• Changed the block avatar to robot kyle instead of the replacement 2D avatar
  
• Reduced stutter from users joining and leaving
  

Nameplates

• Added static height adjustment
  
• Added head follow height adjustment
  
• Moved nameplate options to the graphic settings
  
• Adjusted nameplate positioning to better match the avatars head positioning
  

General changes

• Added an audio source cap for props
  
• Added a function that long-range audio can be filtered even when not tagged correctly
  
• Added RectMask2D to the prop whitelist with a limit of one per props and a maximum of 250 sub renderers
  
• Enable finger tracking by default when using index controllers
  
• Changed loading and distance avatar scale
  
• Changed the player collider, so it will resize when crouching or rescaling
  
• Changed the loading avatar style to a hexagon
  
• Changed Player collider height to reflect the avatar size in all situations
  
• Adjusted grip pressure for index controllers to reduce accidental grips (you need to adjust your custom SteamVR bindings if applicable)
  
  • A setting was addet to the input section to adjust the needed pressure
    
• Removed alternative rescale and made the general scaling function more robust
  
• Severely improved the performance of the TexturePropertyParser component
  

General Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug where the mouth and grab pointer would not interact properly
  
• Fixed a bug that would load you into the wrong world
  
• Fixed a bug connected to some user blocks not being applied properly
  
• Fixed a bug that lead to bugs regarding your own voice connection
  
• Fixed a bug where avatar reloading would not reload your own avatar
  
• Fixed a bug where the camera data would network the tablet instead of the lens
  
• Fixed a bug where some meshes would lead to crashes when highlighting is enabled
  
• Fixed a bug where prop filters where not applied properly
  
• Fixed a bug where nameplates would be positioned incorrectly
  
• Fixed a bug where the voice position would be positioned incorrectly
  
• Fixed a bug where the blinking would get stuck when being disabled mid-blink
  
• Fixed a bug where advanced avatar triggers could trigger for non-local avatars
  
• Fixed a bug connected to prop audio not working
  
• Fixed a bug connected to dynamic bone interactions not working properly
  
• Fixed a bug that lead to camera gesture settings not working properly
  
• Fixed a bug that lead to smaller avatars not being able to move properly
  
• Fixed an exception when deleting props
  
• Fixed some issues with avatars using old cck animations
  
• Fixed multiple issues where objects could collide with the menus
  
• Fixed multiple issues where some Parameter stream configuration lead to unexpected behavior
  

Known Issues

• Some avatars are experiencing strange ik behavior when Knee/Elbow Trackers are used
  
• The Avatar could be offset when exiting a chair in an extreme angle