I was sick with covid this last week (I'm mostly better now), so I ended up making some models of my OC (do not steal). The first picture is her default outfit, and the second picture is outfit for more formal occasions. She also has a power suit, but I haven't actually been able to come up with a complete design for it that doesn't feel hopelessly derivative (or just plain dumb-looking). C'est la vie.
Last time I was sick for more than a day (in January, not with covid), I ended up making a homepage for this character with maximally ambiguous usage of first-person pronouns, ill-conceived lore, and a bunch of personal stuff. Conceptually, she's a very dumb, kitschy idea (which mean's she's just like me fr). Supposedly she's going to be the star of a full-length ZZT game, but we'll see if I ever get around to breaking the Demo Curse. For now, I guess I at least now have models I could use to vtube or vrchat as her (I have never used vrchat and my computer does not have a webcam).
Anyhow, VRoid Studio. It's a program. Let's run down some ➕s and ❓s and ➖s of it:
➕ Very easy to create a reasonably appealing humanoid character with no prior modelling or texturing experience.
➕ Multiple clothing templates can be combined to form complex, multilayered articles of clothing (e.g. the dress up there is a combination of the "dress" and "pencil skirt" templates).
➕ The hairstyle editor is very robust and powerful. I'm not familiar with 3D modelling, but, like, it's astonishingly capable.
➕ The limits of all the sliders can be overridden by manually typing in the numbers.
❓ While its support for custom textures allows you to break away from the generic anime style it pushes you towards by default, I could not make a nose to my liking.
❓ There's a whole "accessories" tab, but the only accessories available are glasses and animal ears (they're nice, but I was expecting more options there).
❓ The "do you want to save?" dialog boxes that appear when switching between different contexts are pretty bewildering from a UX perspective.
❓ There are four breast-related sliders.
➖ There are no sliders to increase muscle mass or otherwise give your character a non-waifish physique (there might be a workaround by using the bodysuit clothing template, but I'm not sure if it would give acceptable results).
➖ The hairstyle editor is the only means of making (relatively) freeform geometry. For example, those shoulder-pieces on the second outfit are actually made of hair. That's not too bad, except for it being a very unwieldly interface to make a looks-like-a-sphere-if-you-squint that I can't even attach to the proper bone. (People literally use this interface to make things like earrings and headphones.)
➖ The texture editor is jank in several ways, especially with how it handles areas that are at the seams on the UV map.
➖ No, I am not interested in making a pixiv account.
All in all, it's a nice program, but its limitations are already making me consider Learning Blender (I'll be sure to share my yummy tutorial donuts with the class).

