cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21088597

7PM Pacific / 10PM East

Stickers

Stickers have been added to VRChat as an exclusive VRChat+ feature! Users with VRChat+ can now place stickers in any* world. You can upload stickers using the VRChat website, or by taking a picture and selecting it as a sticker in the VRChat client.

You place stickers by using the option in your Action Menu! As a note to those who were in the beta: you'll find on live, the Action Menu has a combined submenu for Stickers and Emoji, instead of one for each. You can have 9 stickers active at any given time (as in, stickers useable in your Action Menu). You can place one sticker in the world at a time. Stickers are only available in worlds that have them enabled -- although the feature is enabled by default. World creators who hate fun have a specific artistic vision they want to maintain can choose to disable them on the website. You can click on them to disable them, if you see one you don't like. You can also choose to report them if they're offensive or otherwise break our T

Spookality, our annual Halloween-themed jam, returns!

Every year, Spookality allows us to highlight some of the most talented creators in VRChat. From October 1st to October 14th, you can submit your avatars and worlds for consideration.

We will pick the winners on October 14! The best worlds will be featured in VRChat’s main menu, and the best avatars will be in the default VRChat home world.

The theme of our last jam, “Summer Music Fest,” was very broad. You gave us feedback that you wanted something a little more special: Only people who submit entries related to the theme can win prizes. We like this idea, so let’s try it this year!

We also heard that you’d like to be able to split the digital prizes with your collaborators. This is now also possible for up to four collaborators! So, if you have a team of three and you would like to split the one year of VRC+, you would get four months each. For the pins, however, we can only send to one person. I don’t think you want us to cho

Over the past couple of months, we've explored some of the most compelling, imaginative, and breathtaking worlds VRChat has to offer, and today we're highlighting the worlds that stood out and left a lasting impression on us.

These picks are our top choices as of the publish date, but we're always eager to hear about more extraordinary worlds and will plan to update this list in the future. If you're a world creator with major updates to an existing world, or you know of any amazing destinations that we should check out next, drop us a line at tips@uploadvr.com.

Of the worlds we've visited from our existing community recommendations, here's our list of the best worlds to explore, not ranked in any particular order.

Welcome back fellow travelers, this week we’re heading deeper into the immersive matrix of VRChat visiting three more community-recommended destinations that will leave you wanting to come back for more. This time, we'll lose ourselves in the hypnotic rhythms of Audio Orbs, take a stroll through Experience and see what it's like to walk inside the iconic Windows XP desktop wallpaper, and finally relax and find serenity listening to the tunes of Porter Robinson on a small island paradise in Hollowheart.

Welcome back, curious VR travelers... Our journey through the mesmerizing landscapes of VRChat continues as we dive into three more community recommended destinations that aim to capture the imagination and provide unforgettable experiences. We'll start by getting lost in the rhythm of MONDO GROSSO / FORGOTTEN, then bask in the peaceful ambiance of Café Summer Sky, and finally, plunge into the vibrant ecosystems of Aquarius.

Summer Music Jam Winners!

The Summer Music Festival Jam winners are here!

As a reminder, the Summer Music Festival Jam was open to world and avatar creators, encouraging both to create content that was season-appropriate, full of vibes, and accessible to our entire community.

You can find a list of all the world and avatar winners here 1. Alternatively, you can check out the default home world to see them, too! Speaking of Summer Music Jam…

What’s a bunch of party worlds without a party?

We’ll be hosting a music event in one of the winning worlds featuring DJs from the VRChat dev team! You can catch the event on August 26 from 5PM PDT/8PM EDT to 8:45PM PDT/11:45PM EDT! To get into the event, you’ll have to join the Ministry group 3. Big thanks to them for helping us host this event!

(You’ll also be able to find it on vrc.tl 7 – which, by the way, is an incredible resource for seeing what music events are going on in VRChat on any given day!) VRChat Creators Roadmap is Updated for

The Virtual Gauntlet is a VRChat game show featuring three custom-built game worlds. Join us for an exclusive first episode showing in VR on August 30th at 8:30 PM EST. Join the group to access the group instance on the day. Don't miss it!

The first Episode of VirtualFocus is out NOW! 🥽

I had the Honor to interview @dtupper, discuss The Future of VRChat and talk about different topics that are related to the known social platform

As we continue our journey through some of the most amazing worlds VRChat offers, this week we'll immerse ourselves in three more community recommended worlds starting with the nostalgia-filled 77077 Arcade & Bar, then entering the expansive and educational world of Niko's Solar System, and finally dropping in on the groundbreaking musical experience of Oxymore from Jean-Michel Jarre.

SteamVR Input 2.0 and PCVR Hand Tracking Support! ⚠️ If you prevously had custom SteamVR bindings, you must reset to the new default bindings and re-customize. ⚠️ SteamVR Skeletal System - We now have PCVR support for SteamVR skeletal hand tracking and finger-based input similar to our native Quest release! Finger tracking for Index controllers has also been improved, as it directly uses the skeletal data from SteamVR. A new button has been added to the Main Menu Controls page to open the SteamVR bindings UI for VRChat. Full controller remapping via the SteamVR bindings UI - Remap any action to any button you want on any controller. The customization possibilities are nearly endless! New gesture methods - Including new mappable "Gesture Direct" buttons that let you explicitly map gestures to any button. This is helpful for triggering avatar effects via explicit button presses! Gesture Wheel - You can now map the Vive wand style touchpad gesture selector on any controller type! Bonus M

Longtime reader Martin K just shared this stunning Google Trends results, showing that interest in VRChat in Japan has hit an all-time high. SimilarWeb tells a parallel story, with Japan-based traffic to VRChat's website second only to the US, and nearly 20% of the total. (Compared to 40% of traffic from the US.)

As we continue our journey across the vast landscape of VRChat, we're back to bring you another set of amazing worlds as recommended by the community. This week we’re diving into Novo Amor, Maranga, and Frame of Reference.

iOS Closed Beta Launch is Imminent! Very soon™, we’ll be inviting a small group of users to test iOS in a closed beta.

Thank you to everyone that signed up to test, the interest was overwhelming! If you have signed up, keep an eye on your email for an invitation to the Closed Beta via Testflight. We’ll be starting with a small group initially and plan to increase the number of testers over time.

This is a Technical Beta focused on Stability and Bugfixing. Compared to the current Android version, some features may be missing or broken! Also, client updates to the iOS builds may lag behind other platforms for a bit.

Since testing spots are limited, we may consider rotating users out that aren’t actively using the app and/or providing feedback. We’re counting on testers to provide feedback actively via our iOS Closed Beta Canny. We’ll publicize the link when ready!

A Security Update… Update In order to continue making ripping more difficult, we will soon be enforcing stricter rules in

About That “Security Update” Last Week…

Last week, we released a very small patch that only had two lines in the notes:

Safety and security improvements. The camera had a bug where the menu buttons zigged when they should’ve zagged. We’ve rectified the situation. So… what was that first one about?

This was a change that we rolled out specifically to combat avatar ripping.

We now validate much more strongly that only a verified VRChat client can download avatar bundles, and only when it is in an instance with somebody wearing that avatar. This allows us to determine when a download is coming from an unauthorized source and block it. This has been highly successful, and many ripping methods now fail entirely.

That’s right – we’re hosting our first-ever Summer Music Fest Jam! Think of it as a VRChat beach episode, but with more bangers. This Jam will have a few parts. We’ll go into more detail below, but here’s the general idea:

A World & Avatar Jam!

A bunch of events (hosted by you!) utilizing the new worlds

Promotion (from us!) for as many of the events using said worlds as possible.

In addition, there’s a chance we might throw our own event on your map!

So, with that out of the way, what are the details?

First: let’s talk about some important dates.

Jam submissions open July 8, and will remain open until August 2. The submissions will be judged, and the winners will be featured starting August 12 until September 6. During this period, we’ll be looking for events to promote that utilize the maps in question.

What sort of worlds are we looking for?

In short, we are looking for mobile-friendly worlds that have a beach or summer theme. They must support a music player/video streams a