The Struggle of creating a Avatar from Scratch

Alright, be me, and realize just how unoptimized, and just utterly broken the Avatar base you have modified to fit you really is. You Vibe with all the key points, but some things just feel… off.

Credit where credit is due to the Pilot of Order base, but this thing was not made for VR FBT at all. The Proportions are off, it only has 4 fingers, and something just… feels off.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a reason why I somehow was formed like this but the more I used it and tinkered around with the FBX in Blender with the assistance of others, We all just found out how much of a trainwreck it was to actually get stuff done, at least. Also, We can do a whole lot more with a whole lot less.

So, I Drafted my own Design Document, digitally drafting what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to throw out.

Image Related: Figma Design Document, detailing what I wanted to keep and what I didn't want at all.

After I got all of this down, I tried making my Chassis. Everything was going fine, I had created my head, the Antenna’s were a bit of a pain to get down, and I still think they need work, the Upper Chest Details were going OK, I guess, but I had one big issue. As soon as I hit the Hips, I had completely hit a wall. At this point I had two things going for me.

Ash Tenrec, The User behind the Terrors64 Models and someone who is working on a world I have assisted in, had wanted to make a T64 of me, and I was Referencing their version of me to get stuff done, and we bounced off each other real well when we were working on this lower poly version of myself, even creating a new Leg design based off both the Pilot of Order design & my own Sketch of myself.

I also already had an Idea of which parts I was keeping, the Shoulder Pads, the General Upper Chest Design, most of it was figured out. But the only conflict I really had was how I was going to connect the Hips to the Legs.

The big issue was having this big a Ball Joint, and not knowing how to model that specific area of my chassis. Many people suggested I add a cape or Skirt, I objected because of 2 reasons:

• The Skirt didn’t feel like me
• (more importantly) My whole thing is that I’m supposed to be built to be Speedy, the taller height, The Areodynamics, and the lack of clothing (which isn’t really needed on robots anyways???) all add up to my core design philosophy.

Sure, I could actually wear a cape afterwards, but it’s not something I want to wear every time, and at the time, the Human was trying to come up with my own timeline and events centering around a Empty City, and some other stuff, and a cape didn’t fit into the theming of any of it. (Maybe I will share that concept at some point down the line, who knows.)

Either Way, The Remodel Fell off to the wayside as I failed to get to making the hips. Weeks Later, I take Direct Control over the T64 Low Poly Version, as Ash didn’t want to continue with it for now, and I got back to making changes and designing more things, and while I held off on certain parts, The Hips remained a mental blockade.

Finally, I just decided to do it.

BEFORE & After

Honestly, now that I’ve finally done it, it looks nice. I think I did a good job, though I guess I will need to wait to see how it looks when I finally finish this, and then finally finish the full avatar.