I’m still painfully waiting for VTS to support 5.3, sob 😭
【📢 Notice regarding Live2D Cubism 5.3 】
VTube Studio may support Live2D Cubism 5.3 later this year, but the required Unity SDK from Live2D Inc. has not been released yet.
Full transparency below: 👇🧵
1⃣ 【 Background: Status of the SDK 】
• While the Cubism 5.3 Editor has been released, the Live2D Unity SDK for 5.3 currently only exists as an early beta. It is not feature-complete, tested, or suitable for production use.
• At this point, I have not been provided with a timeline for when the Live2D 5.3 Unity SDK will be finished. As long as that remains unclear, I cannot give an estimate for 5.3 support in VTube Studio.
• Until Live2D Inc. release a stable, fully functional SDK, I cannot integrate it into VTube Studio.
• The new 5.3 Unity SDK uses an entirely new rendering system and switches from Unity's built-in render pipeline to Unity URP (Universal Render Pipeline). This makes it fundamentally incompatible with how the old SDK works.
2⃣ 【 Next Steps 】
• I have made it clear to Live2D Inc. that complete and correct 5.3 support is of the highest importance to VTube Studio's users. They have acknowledged this and agreed to prioritize it accordingly.
• Once the new SDK is finalized, large parts of VTube Studio will need to be re-implemented to restore full functionality. In addition, VTube Studio itself will have to be migrated to Unity's URP, which is a major project on its own. Many existing systems are not compatible with URP and must be rewritten from scratch, including the entire VFX system and other core components. This is currently in progress but will take significant time.
• After discussions with Live2D Inc., I was given assurances that all functionality VTube Studio depends on (including Live2D items and in-between-layer items) will be supported in the new system. However, these features will be implemented differently under the new system, which will require substantial rework on the VTS side.
• After the upcoming February release for VTube Studio and assuming the Live2D 5.3 Unity SDK is nearing completion, implementing 5.3 support will be my sole focus. Because of the scope of changes, I will rely heavily on community testing.
3⃣ 【 Additional Context 】
Since the first early beta versions of the 5.3 Unity SDK last year, I have been in continuous contact with Live2D Inc. and provided technical feedback.
After a while, it became clear that their initial implementation would not be able to correctly render models at full scale, broke existing functionality and could not realistically be fixed.
That implementation was ultimately scrapped in December, which led to Live2D's decision to switch to a new URP-based rendering approach in order to restore missing functionality. Careful coordination and validation are necessary to make sure 5.3 support can be implemented properly, even if that means it takes more time. I am working closely with Live2D Inc. to ensure that the final implementation will be able to support all features that users of VTube Studio rely on.
Again, as soon as I can realistically estimate a timeline for this, I will let you know on all VTube Studio social media. At the moment, the best ETA I can confidently give you is "sometime this year".
Thank you for your patience.
