SplitScream
Imagine if you wanted to spawn a prop or tent for a world you always visit. You spawn it in a world in a designated spot and your friends can interact with it. With the ease of uploading an avatar, you can spawn a small house or a campsite so everyone in the world can interact with it.
Introducing the SubScene feature for VRChat, a system designed to improve world interactions, performance, and updates. The main world is the foundation, while SubScenes act as plug-ins that can be updated and loaded separately. This system will allow faster world loading, efficient updates, and increased performance, taking advantage of Unity's advancements since Unity 2017.
Example:
Japan Street is an excellent example of a world that could benefit from the SubScene system. Rooms, booths, and stores can be SubScenes, allowing for updates without reloading the entire world. This makes it easier for players to download and interact with an updated map version.
Technological Improvements:
Unity has made significant progress in terms of asset streaming since Unity 2017. Features such as Addressables, a powerful Unity package for asset management, and Unity's Asset Bundle system can be leveraged to create and manage SubScenes effectively.
Proposal:
  1. Implement the SubScene system using Unity's Addressables and Asset Bundle system for efficient asset streaming and management.
  2. Enable rapid deployment and experimentation for events and updates without leaving the world by reloading SubScenes.
  3. Increase performance by toggling SubScenes similar to avatar safety settings.
  4. Streamline updates by updating only the desired SubScene without re-uploading the world.
  5. Accelerate world loading by streaming SubScenes after entering the world and reduce redundancy by sharing SubScenes across worlds.
  6. Facilitate scene sharing by allowing users to share SubScenes as prefabs and save them to their prefab favorites. (VRC+)
  7. Provide optional scenes for performance improvement or download HD assets as SubScenes.
  8. Enhance replayability and customization by allowing users to load the latest versions of booths or rooms as SubScenes.
Is there an Audience for this?:
Yes, Players have been doing stuff like this with their avatar since 2018, over half a decade ago. Players would change into avatars with couches or "living rooms" where players can brighten up an empty lobby. Euan, a developer for example, has an avatar that spawns in a living room and players can use the station and interact with AV3 if added. Avatars already spawn Jetpacks for other players to fly with controls from AV3.
Future:
This will allow further integration with prop systems in the future; imagine loading in a garage and being able to use props from said garage. A car, plane, or Mech, want to spawn a chess table? Go ahead.
Want to add curated subscenes to your world that players can load without owning it? Go Ahead
Is the video player broken and don't want to re-upload the world every time? If it's on a subscene, you can update the subscene and everyone can use it.
Are you subscribed to a creator? You can use their subscenes in your world, and all they have to do is update it for you like public avatars do. Versioning? yes please.
But what about:
Player safety?
Players can self-moderate and hide it like the avatar rating system already does.
Breaking a map?
its opt-in, no damage to existing worlds that can't already be done with avatars
Performance?
We already came up with a viable solution with avatar performance, we can expand it.
Networking?
Now you're just digging around for excuses. players can create their optimal way to network it as they have already shown great success before with avatars
We don't want the extra work
The community will make it all worth it, much like the incredible creations with shaders, Avatar stations, and AV3 do
today
We're still on the fence about it
Make Subscenes cloneable like avatars and add Subscene slots as a vrc+ feature, add file size limits for non-vrc+, make it a VRC+ pusher, the features alone are far greater than avatars and being partially behind a paywall won't hurt existing players
Summary:
In short, Imagine if you can just drop a living room into a world like it was a prop with the ease of loading an avatar. Thats what subscenes are
TLDR: The SubScene feature for VRChat aims to improve world interactions, performance, and updates by leveraging Unity's advancements in asset streaming and management. Users can enjoy faster world loading, efficient updates, and increased performance by implementing the SubScene system, resulting in a more seamless and immersive experience in VRChat environments.