Chapter 08

Dreamwalkers

A Dreamwalker is a performer in your Dream. You record a real performance in VR, with body, voice and face, and the Dreamwalker plays it back in your world on any avatar you choose. Four tracks direct it over time, and visitors can even pose it with their hands.

Adding a Dreamwalker#

Open the Dreamwalkers section in the editor and press Add Dreamwalker.

The Dreamwalkers section at the bottom of the Video page, with Add Dreamwalker.
The Dreamwalkers section at the bottom of the Video page, with Add Dreamwalker.

Each Dreamwalker has:

  • Puppet. The avatar that performs. Drop a humanoid avatar here. When you drop one in, Dreamer Pro checks it and offers fixes: leftover components with no script and a Remove them button, Optimize Game Objects with a Turn it off button, materials whose shader is missing, and the PhysBone count with an option to let users grab them.
The Puppet slot, empty, with the note asking for an avatar.
The Puppet slot, empty, with the note asking for an avatar.
  • Quest avatar. A Dreamwalker can carry a different avatar for Quest. Turn on "This avatar has a Quest version" and a second slot appears. Parts you pick in a Toggles node on one avatar carry over to the other when the names match.
This avatar has a Quest version, one row above the Puppet slot.
This avatar has a Quest version, one row above the Puppet slot.
  • Disable puppet when user is in close proximity, with Hide within (meters). The performer disappears the moment a viewer comes closer than that distance. A performer you may pose does not hide.
Disable puppet when user is in close proximity, with Hide within (meters).
Disable puppet when user is in close proximity, with Hide within (meters).
  • Only show for one viewer, with Viewer Name. The performer's body shows for one named person only. Its voice is still heard by everyone.
Only show for one viewer, off. Viewer Name appears when it is on.
Only show for one viewer, off. Viewer Name appears when it is on.
  • Pause performance while not present. The recording pauses between Presence windows and resumes where it left off. With no Presence nodes it never pauses.
Pause performance while not present, off by default.
Pause performance while not present, off by default.
  • Anchor position to record origin and Anchor rotation to record origin. Off, the performance plays where the Dreamwalker stands in your scene, facing the way it faces there. On, it plays exactly where and how it was recorded.
Anchor position to record origin and Anchor rotation to record origin.
Anchor position to record origin and Anchor rotation to record origin.

Older Dreams may show three more buttons. "Move to its node" moves a Dreamwalker-wide recording onto its Presence node, the current way of working. "Stop hosting" clears a hosted clip link, which is no longer supported. "Convert to Pose nodes" turns the old Dreamwalker-wide posing switch into Mechanics nodes.

Recording a performance#

You record from a Presence node.

  1. Add a Presence node on the timeline and pick its Dreamwalker.
  2. Press Arm in the node's Recording section. The node is now waiting for the world.
  3. In VRChat, in a recording world with the Dreamer recording panel, press Record on the panel. The node grows on the timeline as you perform. Pause on the panel skips the wait out of the take, and Record again continues it.
  4. Press End on the panel. The recording is saved under Assets/Dream Recordings and put on the node.
The Recording field on a Presence node, before any take is recorded.
The Recording field on a Presence node, before any take is recorded.

End here in Dreamer Pro is the rescue for when the world's End never arrives. Disarm cancels. Open folder shows the saved files. Status and Frames show what has arrived so far.

Recording volume, Normalize on save, and the Arm button.
Recording volume, Normalize on save, and the Arm button.

Voice. The microphone on your computer records with the motion. Pick the Microphone, set the Recording volume, leave Normalize on save on, and turn on Monitor to hear yourself while armed. Monitoring needs an audio listener in the scene, which the Main Camera usually has. If the volume clips, the panel says so; what has clipped stays clipped, so lower it and record again. The voice lands on the Sound track as a row linked to the node. See the Sound and Voice chapter.

Face. Face tracking and lip sync are read from VRChat on the same computer and recorded with the motion. In VRChat, open the Action Menu, then Options, then OSC, and turn it on. If nothing arrives, the Face section offers "Read VRChat's port 9001 directly". Any avatar whose face has the standard face-tracking or lip-sync shapes plays them back.

Mouth from voice. A take with no face data can get a mouth made from its own voice. The Mouth section in the Recording panel does this with the Dreamwalker Studio tools.

The recording on the node#

Every Presence node carries its own recording, shown in its Recording field. The same Dreamwalker can play different takes on different nodes. Where two nodes for the same performer overlap, the later start plays.

  • A Presence node cannot be dragged longer than its recording.
  • In point. Where in the recording the node starts. Drag the node's left edge and the In point moves with it, so you can trim the start of a take.
  • Split at playhead, S, cuts a node in two. The second half starts where the first left off.
  • Smooth movement. Eases each joint toward the recording instead of snapping to it, hiding tracker shake. 0 plays exactly as recorded. Higher is smoother and a touch behind the beat.
Smooth movement on a Presence node, at 0: plays exactly as recorded.
Smooth movement on a Presence node, at 0: plays exactly as recorded.
  • Show before the dream starts. For a node that touches the very start. Off, the performer stays off stage until the Dream begins. On, they stand at the recording's first frame while the room waits.
Show before the dream starts, shown only on a node that touches the start.
Show before the dream starts, shown only on a node that touches the start.

A take that starts lying down, leaning or crouched plays that way.

The four tracks#

Every node on these tracks picks which Dreamwalker it directs from a dropdown. All four draw in the same color because they act on the same thing.

Presence. When the performer is on stage, and which recording plays. No Presence nodes at all means the performer is there from the start.

Toggles. Turn parts of the performer off and on for a stretch. The node lists the avatar's whole hierarchy. Open the arrows as deep as you need. Off or On holds a part there while the node plays. Leave both unlit to leave the part alone. Clothes, hair, accessories and props can be toggled wherever they sit. The whole puppet, its armature and its bones have no toggle; use Presence for the whole performer. Everything returns to how the scene had it when the node ends.

The Toggles section. With no puppet on the Dreamwalker, no parts are listed.
The Toggles section. With no puppet on the Dreamwalker, no parts are listed.

Mechanics. The performer reacts to each viewer.

  • Point Eyes At User and Point Head At User. Natural, limited tracking. The head turns toward you but never spins around.
Point Eyes At User and Point Head At User on a Mechanics node.
Point Eyes At User and Point Head At User on a Mechanics node.
  • Body Follow User. The whole performer turns, flat and never tilting, to face you. It is off while that Dreamwalker's "Anchor rotation to record origin" is on, since both steer the body's facing.
Body Follow User, the row under the two tracking switches.
Body Follow User, the row under the two tracking switches.
  • Pose. See Posing below.

Everything eases in and out. Each viewer's game applies these locally, so with eye or head tracking on, each viewer sees the performer looking at them. There is no single shared gaze.

Motion. Move the performer from one place to another.

Motion Type on a Motion node, set to Walk.
Motion Type on a Motion node, set to Walk.
  • Walk To is a range node. The performer walks to the destination with real footwork, arriving by the node's end. Walk To works on level ground: a destination above or below the start is an error, and the world flattens it.
  • Destination. Where it walks to, as a World Position. "Turn Preview On, Edit In Scene" lets you drag the destination disc in the Scene view.
The Destination: a World Position, and Turn Preview On, Edit In Scene.
The Destination: a World Position, and Turn Preview On, Edit In Scene.
  • Arrival Facing. The angle in degrees the performer faces when it arrives.
Arrival Facing, the angle in degrees the performer faces on arrival.
Arrival Facing, the angle in degrees the performer faces on arrival.
  • The walking path. With Preview on, click the path line in the Scene view and drag to bend it. Ctrl-click a bend to remove it. Straighten Path clears them all, and Bend Points shows how many there are.
  • Walking Style and Arm Motion. "Force normal walk" and the Arm Motion choice shape the walk.
Arm Motion under Upper Body, set to Adaptive.
Arm Motion under Upper Body, set to Adaptive.
  • Walking Speed. How fast the performer will move, worked out from the path and the node's length.
Walking Speed, derived from the path and the node's length.
Walking Speed, derived from the path and the node's length.
  • Teleport is a point node. At its start the performer snaps to the destination.
  • Where the performer lands stays until another Motion node moves it.

Presence is an extra gate on top of a Cue. If a Cue also shows and hides the same avatar, the performer is visible only where both windows overlap. Most shows want one or the other.

Posing#

Turn on "Watchers can pose this performer" on a Mechanics node. While that node plays, a visitor in VR can bring a hand near the performer's head, a hand, a foot, a knee or the hips, see a small bubble inside the part, and squeeze the grip to take it. Only the part they hold is theirs. A performer waving carries on waving. Joints bend the way a body bends, never past straight. A hips grab moves the hips while the feet stay planted.

The Pose section, with What they can move listing the parts.
The Pose section, with What they can move listing the parts.
  • "A pose stays where they put it". Off, the performer eases back into the recording about a second after the visitor lets go. On, the pose stays until someone moves it again.
  • "What they can move" picks the parts.
  • When the node ends, the pose clears.

Posing needs VR hands. Desktop cannot pose. What a visitor poses is theirs alone; nobody else sees it. A performer you may pose does not hide when you stand close.

Quest#

Every recording loads and plays on Quest. At most three performers animate at once. Any others are still on stage, left exactly as the scene had them, until one of the three leaves. A performer that has not moved yet stands in its rest pose. A Dream that shows one performer per slide never notices.

Dreamwalker Studio#

Dreamwalker Studio is the older way to make a performer: from a screen recording of a VRChat performance made with OBS, with the codec strip showing, rather than from a Presence node. You do not need it to make Dreamwalkers. Open it with Dreamer Pro > Dreamwalker Studio. Browse to the video file, and Studio turns it into a recording file you can put on a node.

Studio needs two tools the first time it runs. The "Dreamer Pro with Dreamwalker Studio" edition includes them, and a button at the top of the window installs them once per computer. The plain edition says so when you press the setup button. Recording from a node does not need them, except for Mouth from voice.