The inspector at a glance

1. The header: the status of the avatar, the memory bar and Component settings.
2. The memory bar, inside the header.
3. The toolbar, which adds entries and opens the tools.
4. The search field, with the filter beside it.
5. The menu tree: the avatar's whole menu as it will be built.
6. The panel of the selected row, here a toggle.

The row at the very top holds the Simple and Advanced switch and the language.

When to use it

Read this page to find your way around the inspector. Each kind of item has its own page with every setting: a toggle, a radial, a submenu or a trigger. To make something step by step, start with a guide, such as Toggle clothing and accessories.

The inspector shows the same view for every AvatarDoc component. Select the object that holds the component in the Hierarchy to see it.

Parts of the inspector

The mode row

At the top of the inspector, Simple shows only what most avatars need, and Advanced shows every tool. Advanced is the default. The choice is yours, not the component's: it applies to every AvatarDoc component and every open view, and nothing you made is hidden by it. Simple or Advanced? compares the two.

The language list beside it chooses the language AvatarDoc is shown in. Languages describes it.

The header

1. The Simple and Advanced switch.
2. The language.
3. The status line, here 1 warning.
4. Show.
5. Summary.
6. The problem list, open.
7. The Component settings fold, open.
8. The settings in the fold.

The status line reads Ready to upload ✓ when nothing is wrong. Otherwise it counts the errors, such as 3 problems, or the warnings once every error is gone, such as 2 warnings.

• Show selects the row of the next problem, opens the tree to it and puts the focus on the field the message is about. Press it again to go to the next problem.
• The arrow at the start of the line opens the problem list: every error, then every warning. The same message for several rows shows once, with a count such as ×3. A line has its own Show when the message names a row. A saved change to a menu item that no longer exists has Remove instead, which clears the change. The list shows six lines, then a link to show the rest. It opens by itself the first time an error appears while you work.
• Summary opens a summary of the component that you can copy, for a store page or your own notes. Summary and lock describes it.

Notes under the header say when the component is switched off, when it sits outside an avatar, and when the scene preview is off. Reset preview shows while any scene preview is set, and clears every one of them.

The memory bar

The bar shows how much of VRChat's synced parameter memory the avatar uses: the avatar's own parameters, the share AvatarDoc adds, and what is still free. The line under it reads, for example, Avatar 2 bits, AvatarDoc 17 bits and 237 of 256 bits free.

Over the limit, the line says by how much, and an error stops the upload. When VRCFury is installed, it is a warning instead: VRCFury makes the parameters smaller at upload until they fit. Fit in VRChat's parameter memory shows how to save memory.

The toolbar

The toolbar adds entries and opens the tools:

• The adds, in this order: + Toggle, + Radial, + Submenu, + Trigger, + Override, + Preset, + Grabbable (see Grabbable), + Animator, + Menu asset, + Parameter, + Gesture faces (see Gesture faces window), + Outfit set and + Contact.
• + More: as many adds as the width allows show as buttons, and the rest are listed under + More, each with a one line description. At 360 pixels wide, the bar shows + Toggle, + Radial and + Submenu. + More goes away when every add fits.
• Capture icons: draws an icon for every toggle, radial, submenu or preset of this component that has something to show and no icon yet.
• Convert: opens the window that turns toggles made with VRCFury, Modular Avatar or a hand made layer into AvatarDoc entries.
• Wheel: shows the selected submenu the way VRChat's own menu draws it.

On a narrow inspector, Capture icons and Wheel show as icons. In Simple mode, the toolbar keeps + Toggle, + Radial, + Submenu and + Outfit set, and leaves out the other adds, Capture icons, Convert and Wheel.

A new entry lands inside the submenu that is selected in the tree, or in the same submenu as the selected entry. You can also drag objects from the Hierarchy onto the tree: each one becomes a toggle.

Search and filter

The search field keeps only the rows whose name contains what you type, without counting capital letters or style tags. A submenu stays, dimmed, while something inside it matches, and every row is open while you search.

The filter button beside it, in Advanced mode, lists the tags the tree has right now, grouped as Kind, From, State and Platform. Two tags of one group show rows with either of them. Tags of different groups show only rows that have both. From tells where a row comes from: AvatarDoc for entries of this component and Avatar menu for items the avatar's own menu already had. State has has problems, which keeps the rows that carry a warning or an error. The ticked tags show as chips under the toolbar, and Clear removes them all.

While a search or a filter is active, rows cannot be dragged, and a note says what to clear.

The menu tree

The tree shows the avatar's whole menu as it will be built: the entries of this component, the entries of other AvatarDoc components, the items the avatar's own menu already has, and the items VRCFury or Modular Avatar add. Triggers and overrides sit in their own groups at the end, since they have no button in the menu. The title line says how many other components install into this menu.

Each row shows the kind of the item, its name with its style, and chips:

• a dot for a toggle that is on by default
• the group and its number, such as Outfits 1, for a toggle in an exclusive group
• a short form of its condition, for a trigger
• PC only or Quest only, for an entry built on one platform only. While it is not built for the current platform, the row is dimmed.
• the tool or component it comes from, such as VRCFury, or existing for an item of the avatar's own menu
• asset, for an item from an installed menu asset
• disabled, for an entry of a component that is switched off
• no menu, edited, hidden or removed
• a count such as 7 of 8, for a submenu that is nearly full
• problem, for a row with a message. Hold the pointer over it to read the messages.

When the tree is narrower than 360 pixels, as in a narrow inspector, rows leave out the group, condition, source, asset and existing chips, and show a platform chip only while the entry is not built. Rows of other tools and of the avatar's own menu are dimmed at every width.

Drag a row to move it. Its position left or right decides how deep it lands: move the pointer left to step out of a submenu, right to go one level in. Right click a row of this component for Rename, Duplicate, Move to and Delete. The Delete key deletes the selected row. Submenus start closed, and each component remembers which rows you left open.

Learn more

Every warning, error and note the inspector shows has a Learn more button at its right end. It opens that message's entry on the Messages page, with what it means and what to do.

The panel

The panel under the tree edits the selected row. Its title names the kind, with chips such as the platform. The first time you open a panel of a kind, a one line tip says what it is for. The settings follow, and messages about the row come last.

An entry of another AvatarDoc component shows a note and Select that component, since it is edited on its own component. An item of the avatar's own menu, or one another tool adds, shows the panel described in Change the avatar's existing menu.

Settings

The settings of the component itself sit in the Component settings fold of the header.

Component settings

Shown in: Advanced, and Simple once Install into, Install as, Parameter prefix or Platform is not at its default, or Pick by hand holds an object · Default: closed · Choices: open, closed

The fold is closed for a new component and remembers whether you left it open. While it is closed, a dot on it shows that one of its settings is not at its default. Its first line reads Matches your avatar: Write Defaults on, or off: the Write Defaults setting AvatarDoc's own layers use, matched to the avatar's own FX layers. When those layers mix on and off, AvatarDoc builds with Write Defaults on, and a warning names the layers. In Simple mode, the fold appears once any setting inside is not at its default, and then it shows every row.

Install into

Shown in: Advanced, and Simple once the fold shows · Default: empty, the avatar's root menu · Choices: a submenu path, such as Outfits/Summer

The submenu this component's entries land in. The arrow button at the right end lists Avatar root menu and every submenu of the merged menu, except this component's own. A path that does not exist yet is made, and a note says so.

Install as

Shown in: Advanced, and Simple once the fold shows · Default: Append items · Choices: Append items, As submenu

Append items puts the entries straight into the place Install into names. As submenu wraps them all in one new submenu there, and shows Submenu name and Submenu icon. Two components that install as a submenu of the same name in the same place share one submenu.

Submenu name

Shown in: Advanced, and Simple once the fold shows, with As submenu · Default: empty, the name of the object that holds the component · Choices: any text, with style tags

The name of the submenu As submenu makes.

Submenu icon

Shown in: Advanced, and Simple once the fold shows, with As submenu · Default: none · Choices: any texture

The icon on that submenu's button. VRChat's upload check applies, as for a toggle's icon.

Parameter prefix

Shown in: Advanced, and Simple once the fold shows · Default: AD on the avatar's root; on any other object, that object's name when you added the component · Choices: any text

The start of every automatic parameter name of this component: a toggle named Hat gets AD/Hat. Changing the prefix renames every automatic parameter of the component at once, and players lose the values those parameters had saved.

A component added to the object that holds the VRChat Avatar Descriptor starts with AD. A component added to any other object, such as a prefab's own object or an outfit, starts with that object's name, keeping only the letters A to Z, the digits and the underscore, at most 16 of them: on an object called Cat Ears it starts with CatEars. When nothing of the name is left, as with a name in Japanese, it starts with AD_ and four random characters, such as AD_3fa9. The prefix is chosen once, when you add the component: renaming or moving the object later does not change it, and a component made with an earlier version keeps its prefix.

When two components on the avatar would make the same automatic names, such as two copies of one prefab, or a prefab on AD beside the avatar's own AD, a warning before upload names both components and the names. The build still tells the parameters apart by adding a number, but then adding or removing a component can move a saved value to another toggle. The inspector of the component that is not on the avatar's root, or of the later one, shows the button Give this component its own prefix under the warning. It sets the prefix from the object's name, with a number after it when another component already has that prefix, such as CatEars2, in one Undo step, so that component's toggles start from their defaults once. It works on a locked component too, as the field does. Every other inspector of the avatar shows Select that component under the same warning, which selects the component to change.

1. The warning, which names both components and the names.
2. Give this component its own prefix.

Platform

Shown in: Advanced, and Simple once the fold shows · Default: Both · Choices: Both, PC only, Quest only

Which builds make this component's entries, for every entry whose own Platform is Inherit. The parameters are planned on both platforms either way, so both keep the same parameters. The line under it says which platform the editor builds for now. Different setups for PC and Quest explains it.

First-use tips

Shown in: Advanced, and Simple once the fold shows

Show again turns every tip you closed back on.

Copy

Shown in: Advanced, and Simple once the fold shows

To another avatar... opens the Copy to another avatar window, which copies this component to another version of the avatar. It is greyed out while the component is not part of an avatar in the scene, such as a component of a prefab asset: copy from its instance in the scene. The component's own menu, the three dots at the right end of its header, has the same item: Copy to another avatar....

Pick by hand

Shown in: Advanced and Simple, while the list holds an object · Default: empty

The objects marked Pick by hand when copying: a copy to another avatar never looks for these by their place, and its window has you pick the object to use on the other version. Each row names the object, with its place under the avatar in its tooltip, and has an × that takes the mark off in one Undo step. An object deleted since shows as Missing object, so you can still take it off. A locked component shows the list without the ×.

What AvatarDoc builds

The inspector itself builds nothing. At upload, NDMF runs AvatarDoc on a copy of the avatar, and AvatarDoc adds the menu, the parameters and the layers the tree shows. Your scene and your assets stay as they are. What happens when you upload explains the steps.

Messages

• Synced parameters need more bits than VRChat allows: the upload stops.
• Over the limit, with VRCFury installed.
• The avatar's own layers mix Write Defaults on and off.
• The avatar has no FX layer.
• AvatarDoc made a submenu for the install path.
• An entry's submenu no longer exists: it moved to the top of its component.
• Two entries share an internal id.
• A saved change to a menu item cannot apply.
• Two components would make the same automatic parameter names.

Related

• Simple or Advanced?
• Organise the menu
• Fit in VRChat's parameter memory
• Different setups for PC and Quest
• Ship a prefab with an AvatarDoc menu