Skip to main content

Effects Guide

The Effects Module adds particle effects driven by the same Sweat % used by the rest of the system. Effects-only installation still needs a Body Mesh as its emission surface, but it does not modify the Body material or mesh.

For a non-humanoid avatar, or when the Modular Avatar motion pendulum cannot be created, Manual Mode, Falling Drops, and Floor Stains remain available. Auto Mode, Breath Puffs, and Steam are not created.

If the motion pendulum is created but the required Head/Chest anchors are unavailable, Auto Mode remains available. Breath Puffs and Steam are not created.

In-game controls​

Open:

Sweat → Effects

From there you can control:

  • All Effects
  • Falling Drops
  • Floor Stains
  • Breath Puffs
  • Steam
  • Steam & Breath Intensity, only if the optional radial was installed

2D and 3D particle quality​

The existing lightweight 2D particles are the default. Setup can instead install 3D Particle Quality (Breath + Falling Drops + Body Steam) (High Load), which changes those effects to mesh-particle rendering. The motion, gravity, collision behavior, Floor Stains, and in-game effect toggles remain available in either mode.

Changing between 2D and 3D changes the generated structure, so return to Setup and run the full Setup — Install / Update. Apply to FX is not enough. While 3D quality is selected, Water Drop Impact Splash is on by default and can be disabled before Setup.

Falling Drops​

Sweat droplets fall naturally from locations across the body. Their visibility follows the current Sweat %.

With Base and experimental additional targets installed, an additional target can optionally emit its own Falling Drops. Separate surface-area and rate controls are available for those targets.

Default: On

Floor Stains​

Floor Stains are collision sub-effects emitted by Falling Drops. They are available only while Falling Drops is installed and enabled. Collision is limited to the world's Default and Environment layers; avatar/player layers are excluded. Some worlds may produce no stain when their floor collider or layer is incompatible.

v1.1 uses a 3×3 stain variation, keeps marks close to the floor during a short impact spread, softens rapid darkening where marks overlap, and dries the rim before the center.

Default: On

Breath Puffs​

Breath appears near the mouth when both conditions are met:

  • Sweat % is above the default 25% start threshold; and

  • the mouth is open according to the selected or automatically detected facial input.

  • Viseme input is supported.

  • VRCFT input is supported.

  • For Face Tracking avatars, use Real Sweat System v1.0.1 or later.

With Mouth Open Gate: Auto, the system detects v2/JawOpen and prefixed names such as FT/v2/JawOpen. It gives active VRCFT JawOpen priority after detecting a real open/close change. If JawOpen does not change for 8 seconds, it falls back to Viseme so Breath Puffs continue to work after Face Tracking stops or the avatar returns to desktop input. Active JawOpen takes priority again when it starts changing.

Breath is hidden from the wearer's own first-person camera by default. In Setup Features, enable Show My Breath in First Person to add MA Visible Head Accessory to the generated Exhale object. This does not add a synchronized parameter or runtime Animator layer. It is off by default because the particles can overlap the camera at some avatar scales.

Default: On

Steam​

Steam begins fading in at about 30% Sweat by default and grows with the shared Sweat % value. It rises from selected body regions. The default setup enables:

  • Cleavage / chest
  • Left and right shoulders
  • Armpits
  • Thighs

The crotch and feet positions are off by default.

Default: On

Custom Steam Points​

Setup can add Custom Steam Points to avatar Transforms. Each point supports size, rate, spread, direction, and an optional mirrored pair. They require a valid Animator and MA Bone Proxy. Up to four custom emitter slots can be active; a mirrored pair uses two slots. More than ten combined built-in/custom emitters produces a mirror-load warning, and twelve total emitters is the hard limit. A combined rate weight above 4.0 is normalized proportionally.

Mirror mode and shared intensity​

Body Steam in Mirrors offers:

  • Full: the complete presentation.
  • Low: for 2D Steam, skips texture blur and weakens the mirror presentation without reducing particle count. In 3D mode, Low currently has the same appearance and cost as Full.
  • Hidden: lowest mirror cost.

New installations default to Low. Updating an older installation preserves its existing appearance as Full.

Setup can optionally install a saved, synchronized Steam & Breath Intensity radial. The Setup checkbox is off by default, and the radial starts at 50% when installed. The range is 0.1× opacity at 0%, the existing appearance at 1.0× at 50%, and 1.5× opacity at 100%; 0% does not turn the effects off. It affects Body Steam, Custom Steam, and Breath together without changing count, speed, size, lifetime, or performance cost. An older generated two-point intensity curve requires the full Setup once; Apply to FX alone does not migrate its range.

Reduce particle load

If you do not need a particular effect, disable it from the Effects submenu. Steam is usually the first optional effect to reduce when many avatars are visible.

  • Change thresholds, steam locations, and particle limits in Tuning Guide.
  • If an Effect is missing or the Console mentions Exhale, use Troubleshooting.