Forum Discussion
Meta Avatars SDK (Feedback/Issues)
Do you have any feedback and/or issues in regards to the Meta Avatars SDK? Use this place to discuss, as we'll have members of the engineering team reviewing this thread!
Read the blog on the M...
Genuine Feedback. Please don't take this as a joke or an insult. But honestly? I would scrap it and start again. It's woefully over complicated, looks like someone basically took an internal tech demo as samples and said "yep, ship it" like it's a ready product. It's structurally a complete mess, is a nightmare to work with in anything that's not just a clone of the sample project... in fact, you literally have to use a bunch of files that are IN the samples just to get it running. There isn't a redeeming factor. Which is a shame, we really really want to use Meta avatars in our game. But right now? just having it in the project is proving a complete liability. Scrap it. Plan it properly in a USER CENTRIC WAY. And do NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES do any kind of forced asset copies to an assumed structure of a project. It's absolutely wild that this code exists in a publicly released SDK.
[InitializeOnLoad]
public class SampleAssetsStartupTrigger
{
static SampleAssetsStartupTrigger()
{
// defer until the scene has loaded
EditorApplication.update += RunOnce;
}
static void RunOnce()
{
EditorApplication.update -= RunOnce;
if (!SampleAssetsUPMMover.DoesFileVersionMatch())
{
SampleAssetsUPMMover.CopyFilesOver();
}
}
}
So start again, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO JUST MODIFY WHAT'S THERE! It will just be enforcing the same bad structure that it already has. It really, really needs a redo from scratch. This will take LESS time than continuing to use what you have now, which I'd wager if VERY slow to develop for.
I have been paid by unity's documentation people multiple times to comment on their documentation. I have said the same thing to them each time. And each time they say "thank you, here is your money for helping us improve meta documentation". The layout of the docs has improved, the content is lacking big time.
I think they need to tell the developers and documentation people that they are not done until a non-insiders can use what they create. Then hold them accountable.
There were actually several people who were paid to review the documentation plus things like the the Meta Avatars 1.0, and what I hear consistently is that none of that feedback was incorporated year 2 years on, AND that the overall documentation has actually gone backwards in the years since, but not as much as the SDK themselves which as I am sure you are aware, are not as polished and relatively bug fee like they used to be.
I just tried v74 of the All in One SDK with v35 of the Meta Avatars 2.0 and it said we are to now use OpenXR versus Oculus XR as it will be deprecated, BUT the avatars that worked just fine in Oculus XR, do not track in Open XR at all and I cannot figure out why!!! Wasted 2 days trying to make it work, and I have concluded that the SDK is broken. We can just add that to the 6 weeks I wasted trying to get the 2.0 Avatars working in December/January as the SDK had/has a lot of issues and no one could get them working till v35 came out. Even then, v35 only seems to work with OVRCameraRig which is odd as Meta keeps telling us we can use the avatars on other headsets, but they REQUIRE XR Origin, not OVRCameraRig.
What the heck is going on a Meta? Seems like they are very checked out at the moment. I would love to be wrong and all is fixed in the coming weeks, but I am not holding my breath as we all know Meta is in a do or die situation with Horizon World and from what I hear, it is an all hands on deck sort of final effort to push that platform. Shame as the real Metaverse is being made by indies but we are wasting our time on broken documentation and SDKs.
I appreciate your response as it makes me feel a little better about my recent struggles. I've wasted so much time in the past week or two just trying to get my custom avatar working again. It's very frustrating because this is something I had easily done months ago.
The crazy thing is Meta has no problem rolling out updates. Every time I turn off my headset, another update is installing. It seems like every few weeks, the SDKs are being updated. The problem is, things change with every update so a workflow that you might've used (or followed on youtube) could be completely obsolete 2 months later.
I agree with you 100% on the Meta Horizon World thing. It's like they are throwing every resource they have at that, and not caring about anything else.
When is the last time you've seen a Meta moderator on here replying to ANYTHING? Not on any posts I've been reading, however I do see MetaStoreHelp does reply seemingly everyday (2 hours ago). Maybe they can give us some clarification on exactly what we would need to do in order to get custom Avatars 2.0 working (especially with Unity 6) as I'm not sure *anyone* has got it working yet. Even when following updated documentation step by step (and using all recommended versions), things just aren't working. It's really frustrating like you said because the best VR experiences on the Quest are not coming from Horizon Worlds. 😆😅😅
And not only did I file it as a bug when it crashes, they said they can not reproduce it.
