Thread Gimmick
Pin the space around you with threads cast from your fingertips. Silver rings light up and threads shoot from your fingers; swing your arm and 24 threads are strung through the area around you while rose petals rain down. Cut them one at a time with a finger gun, or bring them all down at once with a shockwave. A gimmick for VRChat avatars.
The rings light up, threads extend from your fingertips, and a swing of the arm fixes the threads in space. Finish by bringing them all down with a shockwave. Touching a thread does not cut it; only the finger gun and the shockwave do.
Silver, band-shaped rings on all 10 fingers. They stay metal until you fire; then a magenta (deep pink) glow overlays the whole ring within 0.5 seconds, and swinging your arm returns it to metal in 0.15 seconds. They never go black, even in dark worlds.
Fire with both hands open (gesture 2) and 7 threads per hand, 14 in total, extend in a bundle of about 15 degrees in the direction of your fingertips. The tips stay fixed where you fired, and only the roots follow the rings, so the threads stay straight even as you walk or bend your fingers.
Swing your arm and the finger threads disappear, replaced by 24 threads (20 m long) that pierce the floor at scattered points 1 to 6 m around you and rise at a slant. They are fixed in the world and stay even if you walk away, and everyone sees the same arrangement.
Petals keep falling from 6 m above and pile up on the world's floor (Colliders). After landing they lie flat and come to rest. Up to about 990 petals accumulate, and the oldest ones disappear first.
From 0.65 seconds after the space threads appear, make a finger gun (6) with one hand and swing the same arm to turn exactly one thread white and drop it. The order is fixed and synced, so other players see the same order.
From 1.0 second after the space threads appear, put one hand in front of your chest as a fist (1), pull it away, and within 0.4 seconds sweep the same hand sideways open (2). A shockwave that distorts the background spreads out from you, and all remaining threads turn white and fall.
The moment you fire, a purple glowing spider crest appears between your shoulder blades. It stays visible even where it would be buried in opaque hair or clothing, and disappears 0.15 seconds after the shockwave.
Modular Avatar support. Place the prefab directly under your avatar and the menu (a single SpiderWeb → Mode toggle) and the FX are merged automatically. A menu item is included to fit the back mark to your body.
Place the prefab, align the rings, and run three menu items in order. That's it.
Import the purchased unitypackage into your project. It installs to Assets/Nunifuchisaka/SpiderWeb/.
Drag Assets/Nunifuchisaka/SpiderWeb/SpiderWeb.prefab into the Hierarchy directly under your avatar (the object with the VRC Avatar Descriptor).
The rings are inside SpiderWeb, in the form Finger_<L/R>_<finger>/Ring_<L/R>_<finger> such as Finger_L_Thumb/Ring_L_Thumb (fingers: Thumb, Index, Ring, Little). The middle finger is the exception: Wrist_L/Ring_L and Wrist_R/Ring_R.
Each ring automatically follows its finger bone, so just adjust the Transform position and rotation until it sits near the base of that finger. Do not change Scale (the finger threads are children of the ring and would be scaled with it; behavior with a changed Scale has not been verified).
The rings are hidden while editing. Turn on the GameObject's Active check only when you want to see them, and turn it off again afterward. What is shown at runtime is decided by the animations, so forgetting to turn it off does not change behavior.
Select your avatar in the Hierarchy and run Tools/Nunifuchisaka/SpiderWeb/Refit Selected Avatar Threads. It re-fits the position and direction of the finger threads to the rings you adjusted. Run it every time you move a ring. Save the scene before running it the first time. A <scene name>_SpiderWeb folder is created next to the scene to store the thread meshes made for that avatar. Include this folder when you move the avatar to another project.
With the avatar selected, run Tools/Nunifuchisaka/SpiderWeb/Fit Back Mark To Selected Avatar. It sets the height, size, and depth of the back mark automatically from your body shape (chest-to-neck height, shoulder width, and the surface of your back).
Run Tools/Nunifuchisaka/SpiderWeb/Validate Avatar Contact Budget to confirm the avatar's total Contact count is within the limit (256). SpiderWeb uses 2 Receivers.
Save the scene and upload your avatar as usual.
Turn it on from the Expressions menu, then fire with gestures. Gesture numbers are VRChat's standard ones.
In the Expressions menu, go to SpiderWeb → Mode and turn it ON.
Make fists (1) with both hands to get ready, then open both hands (2) to fire. The rings light up, the finger threads extend, and the back mark appears.
If either hand holds a gesture other than 1 or 2 for 0.15 seconds or longer while you are getting ready, the preparation is canceled. Start over from both fists.
From 0.5 seconds after firing, swing an arm. The finger threads disappear and the 24 space threads and the petals appear. The space threads stay fixed in place even when you walk away.
From 0.65 seconds after the space threads appear, make a finger gun (6) with one hand and swing the same arm to drop exactly one thread. To drop the next, either bring your arm back or release the gun, then swing again.
From 1.0 second after the space threads appear, put one hand in front of your chest as a fist (1). Pull that hand away, and within 0.4 seconds sweep the same hand sideways open (2). The shockwave brings all remaining threads down.
If you don't swing, the threads stay as they are and you can get into the stance again.
Make fists (1) with both hands to clear the threads and petals and return to the ready state (except while you are in the shockwave stance). Open both hands (2) from there to fire again. Turning Mode OFF clears everything immediately.
| Method | Available from | Action | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finger gun | 0.65 s after the space threads appear | Make a finger gun (6) with one hand and swing the same arm | One thread turns white and falls per swing, in a fixed order that other players see in the same order |
| Shockwave | 1.0 s after the space threads appear | Fist (1) in front of the chest, pull that hand away, then within 0.4 s sweep the same hand sideways open (2) | A background-distorting shockwave spreads out from you, and all remaining threads turn white and fall |
The color and brightness of the threads and rings are fixed (there are no menus or dials for them). To change the look, open a group below and adjust the relevant material or Transform.
First run Fit Back Mark To Selected Avatar. To adjust by hand, edit the Transform of SpiderWeb/BackMarkAnchor/BackMark under your avatar.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Position Y | Height |
| Position Z | Front-to-back. Negative values are toward the back |
| Scale | Size. The default is 0.4 m wide by 0.2 m tall |
BackMarkAnchor only snaps to the chest, so do not move it. To check the position, temporarily turn on the Active check of BackMark, and turn it off again afterward (forgetting to do so does not change behavior).
Adjust the properties of Material/SpiderWebBackMark.mat.
| Property | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| _DepthPull | 0.3 | How far (in meters) the mark is pulled toward the camera. Set it to the thickness of the hair plus some margin. Its position and size on screen do not change |
| _GrazingFade | 0.3 | How much the mark is suppressed when viewed at a steep angle. 0 disables it |
If _DepthPull is too high, the mark may be drawn over arms and the like when seen from the side. _GrazingFade can reduce that.
Adjust the properties of Material/SpiderWebShockwave.mat.
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| _Distortion | Strength of the distortion. Lower it if the distortion from your own view bothers you |
| _RimPower | How strongly the distortion is concentrated toward the edge |
Adjust the properties of Material/SpiderWebPetal.mat.
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| _Color | Color at the base of the petal |
| _TipColor | Color at the tip of the petal |
| _EdgeColor | Color of the glowing edge |
| _BackfaceTint | Tint of the back face |
| _EdgeGlow | Strength of the edge glow |
| _Sheen | Soft sheen |
| _Iridescence | Subtle color shift depending on the viewing angle |
The threads use Render Queue 3100 and the shockwave 3110, so they are drawn after ordinary transparent objects (3000).
If threads are hidden in a world whose water is drawn at 3100 or later, set the Render Queue of the thread materials (SpiderWebThread.mat and SpiderWebCurve.mat) higher than the water, and the shockwave later still.
Tools/Nunifuchisaka/SpiderWeb/ are for regenerating the product. They reset the materials and settings you have adjusted to their defaults, so do not use them for normal setup or adjustment.Please check these before buying or setting up.
Quest (Android) is not supported, because the product uses custom shaders and background distortion (GrabPass).
Because the petals use particle collision, the avatar's performance rank will be Medium or lower. The petals number up to 1000 (32 triangles each), and 14 VRC Position Constraints are used to pin the tips.
Check the overall rank of your avatar on Unity's upload screen.
The synced parameters total 11 bits (the Mode Bool, the arm-swing and shockwave Bools, and an Int for the number of threads dropped). There are 2 Contact Receivers (the left and right sensors in front of the chest).
The space threads are laid out using the height of your feet at the moment of triggering as the floor. They do not follow the actual shape of the floor, such as stairs or slopes.
Petals land on the world's floors, walls, and furniture Colliders and pile up. They fall through floors that have no Collider and disappear after 66 seconds. They do not collide with players.
After a shockwave, the petals already piled on the floor remain for up to 66 seconds (new petals stop).
Depending on your body shape, the sensors in front of the chest may not line up (for example, false triggers when you fold your arms or clap, or no response when you take the stance). If this bothers you, please get in touch.
Other players see the same effect through the synced gestures. However, network delay can make the timing slightly off.