Crystal Rune Shield — Light-Rune Shield for VRChat (Runelight No.3)

▶ VRChat avatar effect · 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 left forearm bone at upload, so it works on humanoid avatars in general. Checked in Unity on the VRChat SDK sample avatar.

A shield made of nothing but floating light runes. Hold the rune bracelet on your left wrist and it flies apart and locks into a tall crystal along your forearm; press its face and the crystal cracks open wide; sweep your hand along it and it flips, row by row, into its next form.
No metal, no frame: a dark crystal window with a galaxy inside, outlined in glyphs of light. Even while you stand still, the runes breathe and twinkle, light runs along the facet lines, the galaxy turns and star dust drifts up.

THREE THINGS YOU DO WITH YOUR RIGHT HAND
1. Hold the bracelet (about 0.4 s): its 14 runes fly off your wrist one by one, wind round your arm and lock into the corners, the facet lines grow and the galaxy opens (1.4 s). Hold it again and the lines retract and the runes wrap back round your wrist (0.9 s).
2. Press the middle of the face (about 0.25 s): the crystal splits facet by facet and opens wide (0.25 s) with rune sparks. Take your hand away and it closes again with a small bounce (0.45 s). Touch it near the elbow, in the middle or near the wrist and a ring of light ripples out from that spot (0.8 s).
3. Sweep your hand along the face from the elbow end to the wrist end (within 0.7 s): the face flips over like cards, row by row behind your hand, into the next form. Galaxy → Fallen → Void → Galaxy (1.1 s).
And: grab the tip at the elbow end and turn it, and the pattern inside turns with it. Let go and it springs back.

3 FORMS (each one a different shape, not only a colour)
• Galaxy (order): a tall hexagon crystal, an even rim of runes, a milky galaxy down the middle
• Fallen (broken): it sags and cracks into burning cells, some cells are gone, black-glass thorns break out of the rim and shards slide off its tip
• Void (pulled in): the whole shield winds into a spiral round a black hole, the runes lie along the spiral, black shards circle it

MENU ("Rune Shield")
• Galaxy / Fallen / Void: show the shield in that form (all off = back to the bracelet)
• Touch controls: the bracelet, press, touch and sweep gimmicks on / off (on to start, remembered). Turn it off if you touch your arm a lot.
• Effects: the sparks, the flying shards and the star dust on / off (on to start, remembered). The shield and the hand gimmicks keep working.

FULL OR LITE (2 prefabs in the package)
• Runelight_No3_CrystalShield (Full): rune sparks when it opens, shards flying when it changes form
• Runelight_No3_CrystalShield_Lite: no particle systems. The ripples, the star dust and every change of shape are drawn by the shader, so they stay.
VRChat PC performance rank of the shield by itself (VRChat SDK check): Full = Good · Lite = Excellent.
In VRChat you see the rank of your avatar and the shield together (on the SDK sample avatar, which is Medium by itself, both are Medium).

EASY TO PUT ON
Drag one prefab onto your avatar and upload. Modular Avatar adds the "Rune Shield" menu, the parameters and the animator layers for you, and keeps the shield on your left forearm bone.

WHAT'S INCLUDED
• RSh_1.0.0.unitypackage: 2 prefabs (Full / Lite), 2 shaders, 1 rune texture, materials, menu and animator
Folders: Assets/Caligo/Runelight/No.3 Crystal Rune Shield/ (the shield) and Assets/Caligo/Runelight/_Common/ (shared by the Runelight series)
• README (English and Japanese)

SPECS
• Tris: 746 (one mesh)
• Mesh renderers: 1 / Materials: 2 (Lite 1) / Textures: 1 (512, BC7) / Lights: none
• Particle systems: 2 (at most 88 particles; Lite 0) / PhysBones: 1 / Contacts: 5 (your own right palm and 4 spots on the shield)
• Synced parameters: 19 bits
• Wear it with Runelight No.1 Rune Bow: checked in Unity with both packages in one clean project and both prefabs on one avatar. The shared _Common files, both menus and all the animator layers work side by side (47 synced bits for the two together).

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, and both prefabs import into a clean project with no problems.
PC only (custom shaders, no Quest version).

GOOD TO KNOW
• The shield sits on your left forearm and your right hand does the touches.
• Only your own right hand counts: other players can't open, change or ripple it.
• People who block custom shaders or particles in their Safety settings won't see the effect.

SUPPORT
If the bracelet, the press, the sweep or anything else 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 shaders, the code that builds this shield 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 shield.

RUNELIGHT SERIES
No.3 of five light-rune pieces made to go together.

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 (2026-11-08): first release