What are the "must have" plugins/assets for VAM and how to strart creating proper renders with it (step-by-step)?

[Handyff]

Hi, (an Absolute Virt-a-Mate Beginner Here, I want to make a comprehensive guide for myself and others who will in future try VAM and they should have a good guide because I think VAM is awesome but there's really no proper/total guide for becoming a VAM creator)

So, After launching Daz and realizing my pc isn't built for this, I went for best alternative VAM. I downloaded some looks and clothes and I thought okay now I need to create a scene, load assets, pose, light etc. like Daz and I will be making renders in no time haha!

Safe to say I had no idea what I was doing. I loaded a character and then a scene and had no clue what to do. I realized it's not that simple and I have to ask for help, so here I am asking you:

General question to creators: What do you do (in sequence) when you open VAM and want to make renders normally?

(1) What are the must have plugins for a creator? I mean for saving/loading scenes, Posing, Rendering (and how to use them)?

(2) Do I need to pose the characters myself (How?) or are there gender specific pose packs like Daz which can be used for every character?

(3) Clothing and Accessories? Can I change clothing on a character (How?) or is it fixed and I need both the nude and clothed version?

(4) How to create sex scenes properly, I mean posing characters and controlling genitalia (which plugins and how?) at the same time.

(5) Lighting? Of couse I need to ask this.

(6) Performance and FPS plugins and Tips/Tricks for an optimized experience?

(7) Something useful you want to tell me which I forgot to ask?


And finally asking again (with a bit of embezzlement):

IF you are a VAM Creator and you meet your past self bashing their head on the wall trying to figure VAM out, How would you guide them STEP-by-STEP from Opening VAM to creating renders?

 

[murn]

1 saving and loading plugins, none. Don't even know if there is any might be a waste of time. any scene saved goes in your saves folder. (I think that's the name.
posing I use ruvik's "posing helper" and manually moving joints which can be helped by hitting "T" to show the joint controllers.
rendering. users don't really do that but if you want to save frames you can use Eosin's "VRvideo renderer" I think there is another can't remember the name.
there are a few posing and image renderers( screen shot) plugins.
2 You can pose the characters or download a pose collection. There are a lot and you can use them on either sex.
3 to change the clothing open the clothing tab.
4 you can use auto motion plugin( auto thruster, diving rod, etc. There are a few), mocap or the timeline plugin to animate the characters.
5 lighting no need to ask you can download lighting packs or set up your own.
6 Best I can say there is a plugin called give me fps by redeyes there are a lot of ways to improve fps but dam, dam, dam.
7 Yes there is a wiki that helps in learning a lot especially in how to get started...

Bonus. There are no speed runs in learing VAM. A lot of things also can be learned from disecting a scene to see how users do stuff as there are many ways to create/use VAM. Almost everything has instructions on how to use them.


NOTE: Don't think I'm trying to be an arsehole or something. It can be a lot if one tried to sit down and show you everything. That's what the wiki is for and there are demo scenes to help with some stuff also there is a search function on the site here... Make use of it.

 

[atani]

Whether a newbie or experienced, it all comes down to the essential: reading stuff and playing around with things

 

[Handyff]

1 saving and loading plugins, none. Don't even know if there is any might be a waste of time. any scene saved goes in your saves folder. (I think that's the name.
posing I use ruvik's "posing helper" and manually moving joints which can be helped by hitting "T" to show the joint controllers.
rendering. users don't really do that but if you want to save frames you can use Eosin's "VRvideo renderer" I think there is another can't remember the name.
there are a few posing and image renderers( screen shot) plugins.
2 You can pose the characters or download a pose collection. There are a lot and you can use them on either sex.
3 to change the clothing open the clothing tab.
4 you can use auto motion plugin( auto thruster, diving rod, etc. There are a few), mocap or the timeline plugin to animate the characters.
5 lighting no need to ask you can download lighting packs or set up your own.
6 Best I can say there is a plugin called give me fps by redeyes there are a lot of ways to improve fps but dam, dam, dam.
7 Yes there is a wiki that helps in learning a lot especially in how to get started... View attachment 503635


Bonus. There are no speed runs in learing VAM. A lot of things also can be learned from disecting a scene to see how users do stuff as there are many ways to create/use VAM. Almost everything has instructions on how to use them.


NOTE: Don't think I'm trying to be an arsehole or something. It can be a lot if one tried to sit down and show you everything. That's what the wiki is for and there are demo scenes to help with some stuff also there is a search function on the site here... Make use of it.

I have posted this on 2 sites and this is the first actually helpful reply I got. Thanks. I will go throught the Wiki first.

 

[Handyff]

Whether a newbie or experienced, it all comes down to the essential: reading stuff and playing around with things

So play porn games and read Harry Potter gotcha (jk)

I know what you mean though so I will go throgh the wiki and do some tinkering myself. Thanks

 

[atani]

So play porn games and read Harry Potter gotcha (jk)

I know what you mean though so I will go throgh the wiki and do some tinkering myself. Thanks

You'll then can use that to make a porn game based on HP books

 

[DJ]

Vam may not be the program you're looking for. Vam operates in real time. You don't set up a scene, then render it. There is no "rendering" step. It doesn't do high quality rendering of single images. If that's what you're looking for, you should stick to Daz.

 

[SlimerJSpud]

The beauty of Vam is that it is a 3D animated sandbox with real time soft body physics that enables adult content. For lengthy, detailed animation, Vam is tops, Daz sucks. Because Vam operates in real time, some shortcuts have to be made. Daz has the Iray rendering engine, real HDRI lighting and other things that make it great for artistic static renders. It's the rendering time for each frame that makes it horrible for animation. Daz has no soft body physics. You also have to pay extra (a lot!) to get the genital geografts. Vam, right out of the box comes with characters ready to use the naughty bits, and a ton of free content.

Another bit of guidance I'd give: Don't start writing how-to guides until you're really an expert in some area. It could get embarrassing pretty quickly.

 

[atani]

Another bit of guidance I'd give: Don't start writing how-to guides until you're really an expert in some area. It could get embarrassing pretty quickly.

I disagree here. What's an expert?
I wrote some guides without being that experienced with the topic because there wasn't one that addressed the topic directly. Even some knowledge is worth writing about if it's missing. If someone more experienced comes along and points out things to add or correct, it's not a moment to be embarrassed, it's an opportunity to make the guide better.

 

[SlimerJSpud]

I disagree here. What's an expert?
I wrote some guides without being that experienced with the topic because there wasn't one that addressed the topic directly. Even some knowledge is worth writing about if it's missing. If someone more experienced comes along and points out things to add or correct, it's not a moment to be embarrassed, it's an opportunity to make the guide better.

Good point, fair enough. I know that if I started writing a tut on TimeLine, I'd get in over my head real fast. OTOH, I could write one about using automated motion generators and physics links. I do a lot of that. Something to do in my other spare time...

 

[atani]

Good point, fair enough. I know that if I started writing a tut on TimeLine, I'd get in over my head real fast. OTOH, I could write one about using automated motion generators and physics links. I do a lot of that. Something to do in my other spare time...

Ah, yes, the "spare time" concept that was never the same after discovering VAM
Would be cool to see a guide about those, there's always space for sharing knowledge and ideas.

 

[Electric E-Boy]

Your questions suggest that you may think there are easy answers, so i would like to say that VaM is a different beast. It is very powerful, but there are tons of great plugins and content, and you will need to dive into that yourself as an autodidact for some parts if you want to get the most out of it. If you want a streamlined creator tool for easy content creation you still have enough to enjoy, but you will limit your possibilities.

Lots of plugins need a guide on their own. So the simple summarized question "tell me every important plugin and how to use them" doesn't work, there is no shortcut in magically learning everything right from the start. I am a beginner myself, learning for 3 months now, and boy, there is still so much to learn and discover.

I can tell you a lot of my own experiences and things that are important, but i would need more information: what kind of content do you want to within VaM? I first guessed single high quality image renders, but then you are also mentioning sex scenes.


Anyway, this is how i would generally answer your questions:

(1) What are the must have plugins for a creator? I mean for saving/loading scenes, Posing, Rendering (and how to use them)?

For animation AcidBubbles Timeline. For post processing Post Magic, for high resolution screenshots Supershot, AshAuryn's morphs for facial expressions, BodyLanguage, SexyFluids, Too many too list them all...

Some links you will find interesting i think:

Question - Plugin to make good screenshots?

Is there plugin to make good quality screenshots? Especcialy i'm interested in a way making renders. So i could play in low quality(in vr mode), but making screenshots of ultra quality.

hub.virtamate.com

VAM Desktop ReShade Guide 2025 + Redux Presets - Guides -

ReShade Guide for VAM Introduction I am updating my previous guide as I have learned a bit since then. Some of the stuff in this guide will mirror the last guide as nothing has changed in those sections. I have also included some of my...

hub.virtamate.com

(2) Do I need to pose the characters myself (How?) or are there gender specific pose packs like Daz which can be used for every character?

There are lots of pose packs on the hub. You can access the hub inside VaM itself or here through the page. This is in general your starting point to discover all the content there is, lots of clothes, looks, poses, even animations. You can sort by "hot picks", most downloaded etc.

You can pose your characters yourself as you wish. But this is a complex topic, because the way nodes and colliders work (see wiki again). For example you can have different node setups where you are moving a hand and the rest will "comply". Also there are several plugins (search for pose or posing).

(3) Clothing and Accessories? Can I change clothing on a character (How?) or is it fixed and I need both the nude and clothed version?

Lots of free clothing and accessories on the hub. If you downloaded some, you can select your character (also called atom, that is the term for objects inside VaM) and then go to the clothing tab: there you can use the checkbox to activate a clothing item. You can mix and match all of them as you wish.

(4) How to create sex scenes properly, I mean posing characters and controlling genitalia (which plugins and how?) at the same time.

There are several plugins for that. It is important to know what you really want to create. For example interactive scenes or scripted "movies". For the latter you can animate everything within the timeline plugin on an atom/character.

(5) Lighting? Of couse I need to ask this.

I would suggest the wiki. You can have several types of light in your scenes, also there are prefab "light rigs" on the hub, where different light setups are glued to a "subscene", which is some kind of container for other objects. Additionally there are lots of plugins to enhance lighting or "rendering". For example there is a great volume light with dust particles etc.

SubScene Lighting Rigs - Lighting + HDRI -

##Updated to var format## The new SubScene atom is a great way of saving and re-using lighting setups between scenes, or even quickly switching out lighting setups within the same scene for a different look. This is a collection of lighting rigs...

hub.virtamate.com

 

[Stars&Garters]

I'm slightly surprised it hasn't been mentioned in the replies so far, but I feel like even a beginner could get a TON of their needs met simply by downloading supperGR's "slut show" scene (including all dependencies) from the Hub and going from there.

That scene alone should solve many of your posing/lighting/basic animation needs involving a single model. It's very user-friendly with well-automated transitions and features, though it will take some time to load up. The required dependencies will also give you a bevy of choice/critical plugins and other resources right off the bat.

...I was considering other suggestions but I don't think anything else I've started to suggest is as user-friendly as "slut show." There are so many well-labelled buttons, and it's been bugfixed/optimized/enhanced so much since release that it really should be pretty usable even for a straight beginner. Even HQ in-game image captures should be easy since it now has a dedicated photo mode which utilizes MacGruber's "SuperShot" plugin at the click of a button, with lots of automated camera/lighting transitions to best account for each pose.