Starbird Grimoire — Thumb to Open, Tear a Page into a Starbird, Raise It to Change | VRChat

▶ VRChat avatar prop · PC only · needs Modular Avatar (free, from VCC) · drag-and-drop prefab
Not made for one avatar: Modular Avatar hooks it to your avatar's own right hand and head bones at upload, so it works on humanoid avatars in general. Checked in Unity on the VRChat SDK sample avatar.

A spellbook that floats open over your palm. Give a thumbs up and the covers swing open, then the pages fan out. Grab the top page with your other hand, pull it and let go: it tears off, folds itself into a small origami starbird and flies up to circle your head. Tear up to 11 pages and your birds ring you like a halo; the page grows back each time.
Even while you stand still it moves: one page keeps turning over by itself, sparkles drift over the pages and the starbirds glide around your head.

BODY GESTURES (right hand)
• Thumbs up: the book opens (covers first, then the pages, a little overshoot) - 1.0 s
• Tear a page: pull the top page out with your other hand and let go - it tears off and becomes a starbird (1.4 s), a new page grows back (0.9 s)
• V sign: the whole flock flies out at once - all 11 starbirds circle your head
• Fist (held 0.3 s): the birds fly back into the book (2.2 s), then it snaps shut with a flash
• Raise the open book over your head (held 0.5 s): every page flips over, one after another, into the next form (1.4 s) - Galaxy → Fallen → Void → Galaxy

3 FORMS (each one a different shape, not only a colour)
• Galaxy: a stepped silver-edged cover, an even arc of blue glass pages, a diamond clasp with a blue jewel, blue origami starbirds
• Fallen: a cracked black cover with crimson light in the cracks, broken and leaning pages, glass spikes hanging under it, red shard birds
• Void: the pages curl into a spiral around a black hole at the center, near-black with a thin violet rim, violet crescent birds

MENU ("Starbird Grimoire")
• Open: open / closed without the gestures
• Birds: send out / call back all the starbirds without the gestures
• Form: Galaxy / Fallen / Void (remembered). Changing it from the menu flips the pages the same way.
• Size: 60% to 150% (remembered)
• Show: show / hide the book (on to start, remembered)
• Body gestures: the thumbs up, the V sign, the fist and the over-the-head change on / off (on to start, remembered)
• Effects: the sparkles and the snap-shut flash on / off (on to start, remembered). The book, its forms and the birds keep working.

ONE PREFAB, EXCELLENT RANK
VRChat PC performance rank of the book by itself (VRChat SDK check): Excellent. No particle systems: the birds, the sparkles and the page turns are drawn by the book's own shader.
In VRChat you see the rank of your avatar and the book together (on the SDK sample avatar, which is Medium by itself, it stays Medium).

EASY TO PUT ON
Drag one prefab onto your avatar and upload. Modular Avatar adds the "Starbird Grimoire" menu, the parameters and the animator layers for you, and keeps the book over your right hand and the birds around your head.

WHAT'S INCLUDED
• SG_1.0.0.unitypackage: 1 prefab, 1 shader, 1 material, 3 meshes, menu and animator
Folder: Assets/Caligo/StarGrimoire/ (the prefab on top; Animations, FX, Materials, Meshes, Shaders inside)
• README (English and Japanese)

SPECS
• Tris: 13,321 (all three forms, the tear page and the birds)
• Mesh renderers: 3 / Materials: 1 / Textures: none / Lights: none / Particle systems: none / Trail renderers: none
• PhysBones: 1 (the page you tear) / Contacts: 2
• Synced parameters: 28 bits

REQUIREMENTS
• Modular Avatar (available through VCC)

TESTED WITH
Unity 2022.3.22f1 / VRChat SDK 3.10.5 / Modular Avatar 1.18.7. The parts, the parameters, the menu and the animator steps are checked in Unity. The prefab imports into a clean project with no problems.
PC only (custom shaders, no Quest version).

GOOD TO KNOW
• Right-handed: the book floats over your right palm; your left hand tears the pages.
• At 100% the open book is 80 cm wide (the SDK sample avatar is 1.6 m tall). Use Size in the menu to change it.
• People who block custom shaders in their Safety settings won't see it.

SUPPORT
If a gesture, the tearing or the form change doesn't work as described in VRChat, message me on Jinxxy. I'll fix it and send you the update for free.

AI DISCLOSURE (AI-Assisted)
The shader, the code that builds this book and the text on this page were written with help from an AI assistant. An AI image generator made rough concept sketches I looked at while designing (the shape follows one of them); nothing it made is in the files or in the preview images, which are rendered in Unity from the actual book.

TERMS
• OK to use on your avatar in VRChat and other platforms
• OK to stream, record, and post on social media
• Editing is fine
• Please don't redistribute or resell the files, edited or not

UPDATES
• v1.0.0 (2026-11-14): first release