MisutaaAsriel
Alongside previous feedback on the items system itself, I figured it'd be nice to put in feedback for some suggested VRChat "official" items. The following is for one of these items:
It would be really nice to have a good user flashlight, similar to the style pictured (Simple, cylindrical, with an egg-like dome on the end), with the option to toggle it on and off. This would greatly benefit players in worlds that are too dark, hard of vision, or just want to split up and search for clues.
Not only that, but it would provide a great testbed for the following possibilities with items:
  1. Light Impact on Performance:
    By having an item with a real-time light, VRChat developers can test the waters with players being able to spawn items that generate lights, determine their limitations, monitor performance impacts, and study alternative implementations.¹
  2. Light Impact on Worlds:
    By letting players spawn their own source of light, world developers could use these to experiment with the impact lights have on their worlds, determine whether or not to disable items, or even find unique and interesting ways to incorporate them. Likewise, VRChat could investigate options to give world creators control over item generated light sources, such as disabling them, limiting their brightness and range, etc.
I personally built a flashlight into my avatar on PC
specifically because many worlds are just too dark,
due to either being poorly lit, over relying on post-processing, or using displays with deeper blacks or HDR which allows for greater visibility in dark scenes.
It's actually quite the accessibility issue for me. So it's honestly, in my opinion, a win win during this testing period: VRChat gets to test a new system's stability, functionality, and safety with a real use case scenario, and users get a new tool which is both immersive and accessible.
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  1. On Standalone & Mobile, an approach similar to my own would be to use a conical additive particle-mesh with a gradient that simulates light coming from the flashlight. Whilst this, for avatar creators, does not quite simulate actual light, it does at least give users on Quest the immersive indication the light is there.
    As VRChat controls the platform, research into alternative, shader based lighting methods could be done to build upon this for a performant light approximation with greater utility than current VRChat particle shaders.