Floating Armillary Sphere - Brass Gear Rings & 12 Zodiac Constellations (Halo) | VRChat

A small armillary sphere floats above your head.

Its three brass rings (meridian, equator and zodiac band) are all gears, and each turns slowly on its own axis. At the bearings, little gears mesh and spin, a bit faster when you talk.

Inside, the navy glass globe lights up the constellation you pick from the menu. Choose from the 12 zodiac signs; the one you pick always turns to face the front.

Features

• Three rings turned by gears: the meridian ring (90 teeth), the equator ring (72) and the zodiac band (a 56-tooth crown gear) turn on nested, separate axes. At three bearings a gear and a pinion mesh at their tooth ratios
• 12 zodiac signs: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpius, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. Pick one and its lines and stars light up and come to the front of the globe. Its stone on the zodiac band glows gold too
• The stars twinkle (in the shader, no particles), and the lines stay visible from far away
• Talk and it spins a little faster while the constellation brightens (about 1.6x with a normal speaking voice)
• 3 places: above your head, right palm, left palm. On a palm a small three-footed stand appears
• No constellation names or clock dials: just lines, stars and fine unnumbered ticks on the equator ring
• Details: windowed rings, ticks every 5 degrees, the zodiac band's 12 divisions and stones, windowed bearing gears, an eight-pointed star finial, brass collars at the poles
• Everything moves in the shader: 0 particles, 0 PhysBones, 0 bones. A custom shader is included (no lilToon needed)
• Modular Avatar ready. All designs are original; the star positions come from a public star catalogue

How it works

• One value (the rotation phase) drives the whole nested rotation in the shader. Each pinion turns by "the child ring's angle x the tooth ratio", so the gears always mesh, and changing the speed never makes them jump.
• Your voice (VRChat's Voice value) is smoothed and drives the speed and the constellation's brightness. No extra sync is used.
• Switching signs does not spin the globe itself: the constellation and the globe pattern are redrawn turned so the chosen sign faces the front.

What to know before getting it

• The rotation advances from time on each viewer's device, so the ring angles may differ slightly between viewers. It looks the same.
• Only the wearer's own voice speeds it up.
• Holding it on a palm needs a palm-up hand pose (hand poses are not included).
• We checked the movement with the Unity test and with a video played with the same values. We have not checked it in VR headsets.

Menu (English menu prefab)

• Armillary Sphere > Show: armillary sphere on/off
• Armillary Sphere > Size: a dial, 0.6x to 2.2x (1.0x at first)
• Armillary Sphere > Constellation: pick one from 2 pages (Aries - Virgo / Libra - Pisces). Its lines and stars light up and always face the front
• Armillary Sphere > Attach To: Above Head, Right Palm or Left Palm (on a palm, a small stand appears and it gets smaller)

What's included

• 1 prefab and an English-menu prefab (_EN). Use one of them on an avatar
• FBX, textures (color atlas and a star map), materials, 1 custom shader, animations
• Instruction manual and Terms of Use in English and Japanese

Specs

• Added to your avatar (counted in Unity): 10,358 triangles (including the hidden palm stand; 9,802 visible above the head), 4 meshes, 4 material slots
• Synced parameters: 25 bits (Show, Size, Constellation, Attach To). The rotation and voice-driven parts use no extra sync
• No Particle Systems, PhysBones, AudioSources, Contacts or lights
• Size above the head: about 17 cm wide and 20 cm tall at 1.0x

Requirements

• Unity 2022.3.22f1 (an avatar project made with VRChat Creator Companion)
• VRChat SDK (Avatars) 3.10 or later
• Modular Avatar 1.18 or later
• lilToon is not needed (a custom shader is included)

About the star data

Star positions and brightness come from the public star catalogue "The Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised Ed." (Hoffleit & Warren 1991, Yale University Observatory; public file V/50 at CDS). The constellation lines (which stars are joined) were drawn by us from common astronomy knowledge.

Please note

• PC only. Not supported on Quest / Android.
• The rotation, twinkling and sign switching move inside VRChat. In the Unity editor it stays still.
• If a viewer's Safety settings hide shaders, it is shown with a standard look and the constellations are hidden.

Terms of use

• You may upload it to VRChat and similar services on your own avatars, edit it, and use it in streams, videos and photos (commercial or not).
• You may not redistribute, resell or share the data (edited or not), or use it to train AI.
• Full text: TermsOfUse_EN.txt in the download.

How this was made (AI-Assisted)

The 3D shapes, materials, shaders and texts of this item were made with scripts written with AI assistance. A person checked how it looks and moves in Unity before release.

Version history

v1.0 (2026-10-30): initial release.