5-Minute Quick Start

This guide follows the shortest safe path from an imported package to a working Play Mode test. To update an existing 1.x installation, read Updating from 1.x at the end of this page instead.

About “5 minutes”

The five-minute estimate starts after Unity has finished importing the package and compiling shaders. The first import can take longer depending on the project and PC.

1. Check the project

• Open the Unity project that contains your VRChat avatar.
• Back up the avatar Prefab or project.
• Confirm that the Console has no existing compile errors.
• Confirm that Modular Avatar is installed (via VCC).
• Use the Unity editor on Windows. Purchase activation works only on Windows.
• If you are updating from 1.x, follow Updating from 1.x. Do not uninstall the old version first, and do not delete the existing RealSweat object or Assets/CookiTools/Generated.

2. Import the package

Import the UnityPackage for the product you purchased:

• Base Module for skin sweat
• Effects Module for falling drops, floor stains, breath, and body steam
• Both packages for Full Pack (Base + Effects), the complete configuration

When using both modules, keep Base and Effects on the same version. If the versions are mixed, the Setup window asks you to re-import them at the same version and does not install.

3. Activate your purchase

A new install needs a one-time purchase activation on each PC.

1. Open CookiTools → RealSweatSystem → Purchase Activation.
2. Enter your BOOTH order number, or your Gumroad license key if you bought on Gumroad, and press Activate.
3. When "Activation complete." appears, the status box lists the included modules (Base Module, Effects Module).

• Activation is per module. If you bought the modules in separate orders, enter the second one under Add another order.
• Pressing [Install / Update] without activation opens a notice with Open activation window, and nothing is changed.
• An upload from a PC without a module's activation leaves that module's effects out. Purchase activation works only on Windows.

See Purchase Activation for what it covers, PCs, and gifts.

4. Open Setup

From the Unity top menu, open:

CookiTools → RealSweatSystem → Setup／Uninstall

The Unity menu items are in English whatever the tool language is. Clothing Fix and Rest Vertex Data Baker (Advanced) are in the same CookiTools → RealSweatSystem menu.

The tabs are Install / Troubleshooting / Uninstall. The tool UI language (English / 한국어 / 日本語) can be switched with the bar at the top of the window. In-game menu names are made in the window language when you press [Install / Update].

5. Select the avatar

1. Keep the Install tab selected.
2. Select your avatar in the Hierarchy or drag it into the Avatar field. The body mesh is found automatically and put in the Sweat on field, with its material shown under it. If the mesh found is wrong, drag the right mesh from the Hierarchy onto the field.
3. If the body has several materials, press [Change] next to Sweat on and check only the skin materials under Advanced Settings > Sweat Target.

• The avatar is the root object with the VRC Avatar Descriptor.
• Additional SkinnedMeshRenderer targets such as a separate face are an experimental option in Advanced Settings > Sweat on Other Meshes (Experimental). Leave them empty for the first test.
• With only the Effects Module, the field is Drops from instead of Sweat on, and Advanced Settings > Falling Drops Material (opened with [Change]) picks the material the drops come from.
• An Effects-only installation still uses the Body Mesh as the particle emission surface, but it does not modify the Body mesh or material.

6. Choose the effects, style, look, and load

The Setup window's first screen. The detailed options are folded under Advanced Settings. Click an image in this guide to enlarge it.

The first screen shows Status, Sweat on (the body mesh and its material), the Effects to Install and Skin Sweat check boxes, the two Sweat Style pictures, the two Look pictures, the Load buttons, Auto Mode Sensitivity, and the [Install / Update] button. The pictures keep one size in any window, and a short window scrolls.

Item	How to choose	Default for a new install
Effects to Install	Check boxes: Falling Drops, Floor Stains, Breath, Body Steam	On when Effects is installed
Skin Sweat	Check box: Wet Skin Gloss	On
Sweat Style	Click one of two pictures: Anime or Realistic (default)	Realistic (default)
Look	Click one of two pictures: Flat or Depth (High Load)	Flat
Load	Buttons: Low Load (Recommended) or Standard	Low Load (Recommended)
Auto Mode Sensitivity	Dropdown: Balanced: recommended motion-proportional response or Sensitive: faster build-up from small movements	Balanced

• Effects to Install appears when the Effects Module is installed; Floor Stains need Falling Drops. Wet Skin Gloss under Skin Sweat appears when the Base Module is installed and makes the skin glossier as sweat increases.
• Realistic (default) draws clear droplets without outlines: the skin seen through them bends a little, like a lens, and from afar it reads as a wet gloss rather than dots. Anime draws bigger droplets with crisp outlines and highlights that read well from afar. The style is one per avatar, and you can change it after installing in Tuning (Basic Settings > Sweat Style). The Sweat Style pictures appear only when the Base Module is installed.
• Depth (High Load) turns on Droplet Depth, 3D Particles, and Drop Splash together and shows On from the Start under it. The caption under its picture says the droplets rise when seen up close and from the side, and that Droplet Depth starts off and is turned on in the in-game menu unless On from the Start is ticked. While it is off, an info box shows that menu (Sweat > Reduce Load). Flat turns Droplet Depth and 3D Particles off. If you set the two differently in Advanced Settings, neither picture is selected and a note says so.
• Low Load (Recommended) leaves out only the small pore droplets; at conversation distance and at 1.5-3 m it is hard to tell from Standard. Lightweight is picked in Advanced Settings > Quality & Load, where the Sweat Quality dropdown has all three tiers.

Recommended first installation

Keep Flat and Low Load (Recommended) for the first test. Droplet Depth costs more GPU up close, and 3D Particles are a high-load option.

7. Review the other defaults

Where the body steam rises, the intensity menu, quality, compatibility, and other meshes are in Advanced Settings; you usually don't need to change them. For a new installation, the defaults are:

Setting	Where	Default
Body steam Locations	Advanced Settings > Effects > Body Steam	Chest Hollow, Shoulders, Armpits, Thighs on; Crotch, Feet off
Add Body Steam & Breath Intensity Menu (+8 bits)	Advanced Settings > Effects	Off
Droplet Depth (Tessellation, High Load) and On from the Start	Advanced Settings > Quality & Load	Off
3D Particles (High Load)	Advanced Settings > Quality & Load	Off; lightweight 2D particles are used
Drop Splash	Advanced Settings > Quality & Load	Off with the Flat look; on when you choose Depth (High Load)
High-Quality Sweat in Mirrors (High Load)	Advanced Settings > Quality & Load	Off
Automatic Render Order (Recommended)	Advanced Settings > Compatibility (only if needed)	On; the skin sweat renders at queue 2350
Write Defaults	Advanced Settings > Compatibility (only if needed)	Auto (Recommended)
Follow Body Shadow Strength	Tuning > Surface Sweat Settings	On
3D Detail Precision	Tuning > Surface Sweat Settings > Droplet Depth	Simplified — General Play; used only when Droplet Depth is installed
Body Steam in Mirrors	Tuning > Effect Details > Body Steam	Low (2D Reduced Opacity) for a new installation
Show My Breath in First Person	Tuning > Effect Details > Breath	Off
Auto Mode	In-game menu	On

Follow Body Shadow Strength, droplet-depth precision, Body Steam in mirrors, Show My Breath in First Person, and Custom Steam Points are set after install in Tuning on the RealSweat object. Droplet Depth's On from the Start can be set both in the Setup window and in Tuning.

8. Install

Press [Install / Update]. The result appears in the box right under the button, and the longer steps show a progress bar. Wait for Unity to finish before interacting with the project.

• If the body renderer has an opaque or cutout material drawn at render queue 2350 or later, [Install / Update] asks once. Lower to 2349 (Recommended) lowers it to 2349, and [Uninstall] puts the original queue back. See Compatibility.
• Turning Droplet Depth on from the start shows a one-time warning about continuous GPU load.
• If the body mesh lacks tangents (data needed for sweat), a dialog asks first. Choose Make Safe Copy (Recommended): it keeps the original model, and Uninstall restores it. Edit Original affects other avatars using the same model and is hard to undo.

Setup is complete when the result box reports a successful installation and Unity has finished importing the generated assets. Normal-operation lines go to the Console only when Write detailed logs to the Console is on in the Troubleshooting tab, so check the Console for new errors before entering Play Mode. Gesture Manager and ordinary Scene/Play Mode are preliminary checks; complete a VRChat Build & Test before the final upload.

9. Test in Play Mode

Use Gesture Manager or another preview method:

1. Open the avatar menu and turn Sweat Display on.
2. Auto Mode is on by default. Turn it off temporarily for the manual test.
3. Move Sweat % through 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%.
4. Turn Auto Mode back on and compare tracked body movement with standing still.
5. Open Effects and check the installed particle controls.
6. Open Reduce Load and check Hide Skin Sweat, Remote Low Load, Only Visible to Me, and the optional Droplet Depth control.
7. Confirm that facial expressions and existing avatar controls still work.

Expected behavior

• Sweat Display on + Sweat 0% keeps the system ready. This is different from turning Sweat Display off.
• Manual Mode and Auto Mode use the same Sweat % value. Switching modes preserves the current value.
• Auto Mode intentionally ignores WASD locomotion and jumping. Use tracked body movement such as dancing or torso motion when testing it.
• Breath normally starts above 25% Sweat while the mouth is open. It is hidden from the wearer's first-person view by default.
• Body steam normally begins fading in at about 30% Sweat.

Do not remove it manually

To remove Real Sweat System, do not delete the RealSweat object or Assets/CookiTools/Generated directly. Use the official Uninstall procedure.

Updating from 1.x

v2.0.0 applies to Core, which is shared by the Base Module, Effects Module, and Full Pack. Installations from v1.0.0–v1.0.2 can also update directly to v2.0.0; no intermediate version is required.

1. Back up the avatar and the project outside the project. Copies inside the project change in step 3 as well.
2. Import every Base／Effects module you own, all at the same v2.0.0 version, over the old files. Do not uninstall the old version first, and do not delete the RealSweat object. If the versions are mixed, the Setup window asks you to re-import them at the same version and does not install. The import order does not matter. Some .cs files in v2.0.0 hold only a two-line comment: the editor code is now in DLLs, and these files replace the old scripts of the same name. Do not delete them.
3. When Unity first loads the scripts, the look values of the project's sweat materials from earlier versions are set to the new defaults (table below). This happens once per material: moving or copying the project, opening it on another PC, or importing the packages again does not do it again. A sweat material from an earlier version that you bring into the project later is updated once when it is imported.
4. Open CookiTools → RealSweatSystem → Setup／Uninstall. A yellow box says "Installed with an older version." Press [Install / Update] once for each avatar. This stores the avatar's pattern number, the Rest up direction, and the droplet size for the avatar's body size, and applies the new body steam and menu names. It also updates the sweat materials of avatars imported after step 3. Apply to FX alone does not do this update. In a big project the first press can take a while; a progress bar shows it, and its Cancel button stops before anything is changed.
5. Save the scene and check in Play Mode or in an avatar build.
6. Activate your purchase on this PC (Purchase Activation) before you upload. Updating does not ask for activation, but an upload from a PC that is not activated leaves the effects out. Then upload the avatar again.

Look values set to the new defaults

Kept

Droplet Size 1.6, Glint Size 1.5, Glint Strength 1.5, Sweat Flow 1, Wet Skin Film 1 (stays 0 if Setup's Wet Skin Gloss turned it off), Wet Skin Darkening 0.08, Refraction Max Screen Reach 0.02, Skin Adhesion 0.747, Shell Offset 0.00045, Light Intensity Limit 1, Light Intensity Minimum 0, Flow Follows Real Gravity 1, Droplet Height 0.00135, Rise Distance Limit 3.5 m

Sweat Quality, Auto Mode sensitivity, effects and menus, Rest data, spawn and display masks (textures and settings), clothing stencil, cast shadow strength (Follow Body Shadow Strength), High-Quality Sweat in Mirrors, Droplet Depth on/off and precision, the RealWet wetness link, a pattern number already set, other meshes' droplet size multipliers, and the other 1.1.x values that 2.0.0 does not read

Tune the look after the update

Look values you change in 2.0.0 before pressing [Install / Update] go back to the new defaults when you press it. Values you tune after the update stay: pressing [Install / Update] again, turning Droplet Depth off and on, moving or copying the project, and opening it on another PC do not change them.

What else changes with the update:

• Style: updated avatars start with the Realistic style: a 1.x avatar has no stored style, so it takes the new default. To use Anime, pick its picture and press [Install / Update].
• Droplets: the droplets move once because of the new pattern number. Their amount and look stay the same. Other meshes keep their droplet size multiplier; it now multiplies the Body's new droplet size (1.6).
• Hidden values: the other 1.1.x look settings (most of what the material inspector used to tune) are not read by the new look. They are hidden in the inspector but kept in the material.
• Render queue: the automatic sweat render queue moves from 2455 to 2350. With a body material at 2350 or later, [Install / Update] asks whether to lower it to 2349. A manual render queue you set is kept.
• Menu names: Breath Puffs → Breath, Steam → Body Steam, Hide Surface Sweat → Hide Skin Sweat, Steam & Breath Intensity → Body Steam & Breath Intensity. Parameters are unchanged, so saved values stay.
• VRC Light Volumes: support was removed. [Install / Update] or Apply to FX removes the old "VRC Light Volumes" menu toggle and its synchronized parameter (1 bit) from an existing installation.
• 2D splash: updating a 1.1.x 2D particle install keeps it without a splash, so no particle system or material slot is added. To use the splash, turn on Drop Splash in Advanced Settings > Quality & Load, or choose Depth (High Load) under Look on the first screen, and press [Install / Update]. The splash adds 2 particle systems and 2 material slots, so the VRChat performance rank can drop one step (for example 15 → 17 material slots: Medium → Poor).
• Drop Particle Limit (Per System): the default goes from 64 to 12. Only installs still at the default get 12; a value you set stays.
• 3D particles: the 3D body steam and breath look the same, and their Mesh Particle Active Polys are far lower. Existing installs change when you press [Install / Update] or Apply to FX once.
• Shader names: unchanged (RealSweatSystem No Tessellation, RealSweatSystem). Sweat at a render queue other than 2350 uses the shaders with (Late Queue) added to the name.

Going back

2.0.0 does not include the old look. If you need the old look, do not update and keep using v1.1.3. To go back after updating, restore the backup you made before updating.

For an update from v1.0.0–v1.0.2, the v1.1.0 migration notes in Update & Changelog also apply.