What is Furality?
Welcome to Furality Online Xperience, the premier virtual reality (VR) convention for the furry community! At Furality, we strive to create a unique and immersive experience for furries and VR enthusiasts alike.
Furality is an annual three-day event that takes place in VRChat, a social platform where users can create and customize their own virtual worlds. During the convention, attendees from all over the world can come together to explore and engage in a variety of activities, such as panel discussions, captivating performances, bustling dealer's den, lively meetups, and energetic club dancing.
In addition to being a fun and exciting event, Furality also supports a great cause. We raise money for SaveAFox Rescue, a non-profit organization that provides rehabilitation and sanctuary for foxes and other animals.
What is VRChat?
VRChat is a social platform that enables users to create and share virtual worlds, avatars, and fully-interactive experiences with other users around the world! It is completely free and available to download on PC through Steam, the Oculus Store, and VivePort.
Is a VR Headset Required?
Despite the name, a virtual reality headset is NOT required! As long as you have a Windows PC capable of running VRChat, you're good to go. At its core, VRChat is a platform that fosters a strong sense of community and social connections, with virtual reality serving as an added layer of immersion.
Getting Oriented
The first time you log in to VRChat, you will be presented with a short tutorial. We recommend that you go through this, as it teaches the basics of movement and interaction. The controls are pretty approachable:
- For desktop mode, movement is done via WASD while your mouse controls the camera.Here's a full list of Keyboard and Mouse controls..
- On VR headsets, movement is controlled by the left hand controller while turning is handled on the right hand.
The Quick Menu
After entering VRChat, the Quick Menu will be your primary method of interacting with the platform's systems, which includes managing your friends list, modifying your avatar, and adjusting user settings. It serves as your gateway to all of the menus and functions available in VRChat. On Desktop, you can quickly access this menu by pressing the ESC key, and in VR you'll want to tap the corresponding "menu" button on your controller of choice.
You may often need to interact with other users in VRChat, whether it's to send a friend request, inspect their avatar, or block them if necessary. To do so, bring up the Quick Menu then simply point your cursor or controller at the user you wish to interact with. Once you click on them, a transparent blue capsule will appear around them, and their name will show up in the top left of the menu. Click on their name to access a range of sub-options that are specific to that user. The Quick Menu is your go-to tool for interacting with others and navigating VRChat's menus and functions.
Controlling Your Experience
At Furality, we strive to create a safe and enjoyable environment for all our attendees. However, we understand that unexpected situations can arise, and it's essential to be prepared. In VRChat, you have various options available to you if you find yourself in an uncomfortable situation.
One of the most useful tools at your disposal is the player-specific menu, which you can access by using the quick menu to select another player.
This menu provides you with options such as sending a friend request, examining their avatar, and muting or blocking them if necessary. By familiarizing yourself with these features, you can better navigate VRChat and ensure a more enjoyable experience.
Additionally, there are four major options available to you inside VRChat to help you navigate tough situations:
Avatar Display (Hide Avatar)
If someone is using an avatar that is causing serious performance issues for you, has loud and/or obnoxious sound effects, or is just generally a visual nuisance, this option will completely hide their avatar and replace them with a default VRChat mannequin. The other player will not be informed you did this.
Voice Off
On the other hand, if you have issues with the other player's language, you can use this option to mute them. Please note that the other player will be notified that they have been muted by you.
Blocked
In case the previous options do not resolve the issue, blocking is the last resort in moderation that you can take. Blocking a player will completely remove them from your game, so you won't see or hear them, and you won't receive any friend or world invites from them. If you change your mind later, you can remove the block on that person through the VRChat web portal. Keep in mind that when you block someone, you will also disappear from their game.
Report User
If you ever run into someone who is violating the terms of service for VRChat, you can use this button to report them to the VRChat moderation staff (which is separate from the Furality moderation staff).
Accepting Invites
When you receive an invite from another player, either to become their friend or to join them in a world, a notification symbol will appear on the bottom left of your HUD next to the microphone icon:
If you open your quick menu, the invites you've received will appear in the top left. You can then click on each of these invites to either accept or decline.
The Settings Menu
When you open the quick menu, in the middle row on the far right you'll find the settings menu. This is where you can control your audio settings, comfort options for VR users, and other functions of VRChat.
Take an opportunity to make sure that the correct microphone for your computer is selected in the bottom right.
While you should adjust your settings to what you are most comfortable with, there are a few that we'd like to specifically make mention of:
Comfort and Safety
Holoport (3P Locomotion): If you're a VR user and not prone to motion sickness, we'd recommend turning this feature off. When off, you'll directly move around the world when you move your analog stick/tough pad on your VR controller.
Tunneling: For both VR and Desktop users, you can enable visual tunneling. This helps with motion sickness by vignetting your vision as you move around. This is also located under Accessibility in the quick and full menu of settings.
Comfort Turning: If you're a VR user, this feature will control whether turning with your controller is done in large increments or in a 1:1 manner. Set this feature on or off to your preference.
Personal Space: This is a safety feature that will prevent other players from getting too close to you. When this feature is on, anyone that gets within roughly 1 ft of your avatar will cease to render. This is handy as it can prevent unwanted interactions and also prevents you from clipping into other players. However, if you find yourself wanting to give someone a friendly hug in greeting, you'll want to turn this off.
Performance
If you're experiencing low performance on your PC or anticipating a crowded space, you may benefit from using Avatar Hiding.
The Avatar Hiding feature can help improve your PC's performance or increase frame rates when in crowded areas. The feature has two bars and two buttons. The top bar allows you to hide players beyond a certain radius from your player model, and the second bar counts the number of avatars closest to you, up to the limit you set, and then hides the rest. You can customize this feature by excluding friends, showing avatars of selected players in your quick menu, or using both distance and count hiding together for more strict performance management.
Audio/Voice Options
Toggle Voice: Enabling this setting allows you to use a push-to-talk button to turn on and off your microphone, rather than having to hold down a button the whole time you speak. Since VRChat is primarily a social platform, we suggest turning on this setting if you're in a relatively quiet environment to make communication with others more seamless.
Noise Suppression: Located on the right side of the Mic Output Volume bar, there is a button featuring digital sound waves. When pressed, this button activates a feature that attempts to filter out any background noise and only transmits your voice to other users. This can be particularly useful in noisy environments, allowing for clearer communication with others in VRChat.
Mic Defaults On: This setting controls whether or not your mic will default to on when you enter a new world. As long as you are playing in a relatively quiet space, we recommend changing this setting to on. You can access this, and further audio settings, by clicking the Expand button on the top right of the quick menu UI.
Earmuff Mode: If you find yourself struggling to hear other players due to a crowded environment or simply want to focus on conversations with players near you, you can use Earmuff Mode. This feature allows you to limit or completely block audio coming from outside a radius around your player model or a directional cone in front of you. You can turn on Earmuff Mode from the Audio options menu and adjust the distance and audio falloff settings, as well as decide if you want to hear players outside of the designated area.
Other Options
Skip Go On Load: The default behavior of VRChat is to prompt you for confirmation before loading into a new world. However, if you prefer to skip this confirmation step, you can change the setting to on. This will allow you to quickly and seamlessly transition between worlds without any interruptions.
The Safety Menu
The Safety menu in VRChat is a powerful tool that lets you control how you see other players. If you find that avatars with lots of particle effects and shaders are affecting your framerate or causing disruptions, you can limit who can display these effects to you or block avatars that have a large impact on your performance.
The menu has three default "shield" levels: Maximum, Normal, and None. You can also create your own custom settings. Each option determines what is visible or audible from other players based on their trust level, which is a measure of how long they have been playing VRChat.
We recommend using a custom setting with the following options:
- For the Friends category, set all categories to "on".
- For all other categories (Visitor, New User, User, etc.) turn Voice, Avatar and audio on, but disable lights, shaders, and custom animations.
These settings are often the best compromise when you're exploring worlds with strangers, but they may occasionally prevent certain avatars from appearing correctly unless you manually select the player and enable them using the "Show Avatar" button.
To access the complete player safety settings, you need to open the full Safety menu. You can do this by clicking the "Expand" button located at the top right of the Change Shields pop-up, which you can access from the quick menu UI.
The Avatar Menu
In the Avatar menu, you can access your favorite and uploaded avatars, as well as browse through some public avatars that are available for use. If you're looking for more avatars to choose from, you can explore "Avatar worlds" in the Worlds menu. Once you find an avatar that you like, you can use the Favorite button to add it to your list of favorited avatars. Keep in mind that you can only have a maximum of 16 favorited avatars at a time.
The Worlds Menu
Before we continue, there are two terms that are worth being familiar with:
Worlds
Worlds are the "levels" of VRChat, most of which have been created and uploaded by the community. The world defines the look, feel, and functionality of the place you are visiting.
Instance
Whenever players join a world, they join a specific "instance" of that world. This "instance" is a unique copy of the world with its own crowd of players.
The Here section on the quick menu displays the current instance you are in, along with a list of players in the same instance. From here, you can also create new instances in the same world or reconnect to the current instance in case of any issues.
Once you have found a world you want to visit, simply click on the thumbnail to load it up. Keep in mind that each world is unique and has different performance requirements, so you may want to adjust your settings accordingly. Once you're inside a world, take some time to explore and interact with the environment and other players. Some worlds have specific activities or games to play, while others are more focused on socializing and hanging out.
If you find a world that you particularly enjoy, you can save it to your favorites list for easy access later. You can also use the History tab in the worlds menu to revisit recently visited worlds.
Once you've found a world that is interesting in the list, you can select it to shift to another screen that will give you more information:
From here you have a few notable options:
Favorite
Similar to avatars, you can save this world to a list for access later.
Go
This option will take you immediately to the currently selected instance of the world (by default VRChat tends to select the most populated "public" version of an instance).
Drop Portal
This will drop a temporary portal roughly 5 feet in front of you that can serve as a doorway to the currently selected instance. At this point then you or anyone else in the instance you are currently in can walk through the portal to go to that instance - this is the main way that groups of players tend to explore worlds together.
Other Instances
This scrollbar at the bottom will let you select different accessible instances of the world, in the case that there's either a specific one you want to go to or you're looking for a less populated space.
New Instance
If you wish to create a new instance for reasons such as exploring a world alone or having a more private experience, the "Create" button in the Worlds menu allows you to customize and create a new instance with your desired settings.
After you select the permissions for the instance you want to create, that instance will be the new selected instance, and if you hit either "go" or "drop portal" it will connect you there.
The Social Menu
If you wish to create a new instance for reasons such as exploring a world alone or having a more private experience, the "Create" button in the Worlds menu allows you to customize and create a new instance with your desired settings.
Would you like to know more?
Looking for a little more help, to meet with other Furality attendees and staff, or get more information about the convention? We encourage you to visit our Discord server and attend our upcoming VRChat Newbie Nights!
Attend Our New Player NightsFurality Registration Opens Soon
Before the convention starts, join the Furality Discord server to share avatars, meet fellow attendees, and keep up to date with the latest news!
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