Features and MingToon Properties

After reading this page you will know which MingToon material value each menu item drives, and you will have a reason for deciding what to turn on and what to leave off.

Menu item names can be changed freely in Menu Layout. The tables below are organized by feature, not by name, and use the names shown in the Selected Item Settings card.

Default catalog and advanced catalog

MLC's feature list comes in two bundles.

• Default catalog — usable as soon as you add the component.
• Advanced catalog — enters the list only when Advanced Catalog in the Advanced Options card is on. All eight items start turned off.

The Enabled Features row of the Budget & Validation card shows how many features are currently on out of the total.

Compact steps in the tables below is how many steps the Compact profile splits that value into before sending it. That number decides the synced bit count — 8 steps is 3 bits, 16 steps is 4 bits.

Virtual Light

A light that follows the character regardless of the scene lighting.

Feature	Menu form	Range	Default	Compact steps
Virtual Light	Toggle	—	Off	—
Light Yaw	Two-axis	-1 ~ 1	0	16
Light Pitch	Two-axis	-1 ~ 1	0	8
Virtual Light Intensity	Radial	0 ~ 1	0.25	8
Follow Character	Toggle	—	On	—
Replace Mode	Toggle	—	Off	—
Add Mode	Toggle	—	Off	—

Light Yaw and Light Pitch are the two axes of a single two-axis control. In the recommended menu, one item named Direction carries both features together.

Replace Mode and Add Mode write different numbers into the same material value. In the recommended menu the two items sit inside a Mode folder alongside the Auto Mode command.

Master Adjust

A higher-level intensity applied to everything that adds light, to all shadows, and to the final output.

Feature	Menu form	Range	Default	Compact steps
Additive Light	Radial	0 ~ 1	0.25	8
Edge Rim	Radial	0 ~ 1	0.25	8
Shadow	Radial	0 ~ 1	0.25	8
Final Output	Radial	0 ~ 1	0.25	8

In the recommended menu, Final Output is placed both at the root and inside the Master Adjust folder. That layout puts a frequently used value within one press at the root, and both places point at the same single feature.

Hue / Saturation Color Wheel

One two-axis control drives the two features Shared Color X and Shared Color Y together.

Feature	Menu form	Range	Default	Compact steps
Shared Color X	Two-axis	-1 ~ 1	0	16
Shared Color Y	Two-axis	-1 ~ 1	0	8

These two values move five color properties at once. That means the virtual light color and the four master colors always move in the same direction; they cannot be turned separately per part.

Performance

All five toggles are on by default. On here does not mean pushing the value to 1 — it means restoring exactly the state that was authored on the materials and renderers at install time. A module you deliberately left off is never switched on by the menu.

Feature	When off	When on
Cast Shadows	Shadow casting is turned off on every renderer	Restores each renderer's authored value
Depth Effects	Depth effects and the inner outline turn off, and any Light shipped alongside turns off with them	Restores each slot's authored value and the Light's authored state
Outlines	Outlines turn off	Restores each slot's authored value
Normal Maps	Normal maps turn off	Restores each slot's authored value
PBR / Reflections	PBR surfaces and in-shadow reflections turn off	Restores each property's authored value per slot

If the build has no Light, the Light side of Depth Effects does nothing. Even when there is one, a Light the author left off is never switched on.

The five features have to express 32 independent states, so five synced bits are their minimum cost. The Disable All and Enable All commands change all five at once.

Performance Distance Scale

Feature	Menu form	Range	Default	Compact steps
Performance Distance Scale	Radial	0 ~ 1	0.5	8

This is the only item inside the Performance folder that is a value rather than a toggle. The radial's 01 expands to the material-side Performance Distance Scale of 02, so radial 0.5 is the same state as the scale of 1 authored on the material.

MingToon materials split distance from the camera into three tiers. The actual boundary is the material's Performance Distance (m) × Performance Distance Scale.

Tier	How far	What changes
Near	Inside 0.4× the actual boundary	Nothing. Drawn exactly as authored
Mid	From there out to the actual boundary	Modules stay on; only the per-pixel sample ceiling drops
Far	Beyond that	Heavy items drop out, including the four depth-effect modules and the projection boundary feather

The decision is made per object, not per pixel, so every pixel of one character uses the same tier. Crossing the boundary switches everything at once.

How to use it in game

In a crowded instance, turn the radial down and stay in a light state at all times; when taking photos, turn it up and keep the near look further out.

Turning the radial all the way to 0 makes the actual boundary 0, so the character is always drawn in the lightest state regardless of distance. If the material-side scale is saved as 0, the MingToon validator reports it as a MING-MAT-PERF-DISTANCE-ZERO warning (not an error). If letting MLC drive it down to 0 in game is your intent, leave it as it is.

Photo look bits

Feature	Menu form	Default
Photo Look Bit 0	Toggle	Off
Photo Look Bit 1	Toggle	Off
Photo Look Bit 2	Toggle	Off

Photo looks are not one integer parameter but three saved and synced booleans. The combination of the three bits points at one of eight looks, and the eight commands in the Photo Looks folder pick that combination for you.

The three bits are one set. Enabling only some of them, or leaving only some of them on the menu, causes the install to be rejected.

Commands

A command item holds no value; pressing it runs one predefined action. These are the only commands MLC accepts, and a command item carrying any other value is rejected by validation.

Command	What it does
Reset	Returns the features to their reset values
Auto Mode	Returns the virtual light mode to automatic
Photo: Neutral and seven more	Picks one of the eight photo looks
Disable All	Turns off all five performance toggles at once
Enable All	Returns all five performance toggles to their authored state

Photo: Neutral is the look that returns every value a photo look touches to exactly its original state.

Commands travel through one shared command value and it returns to 0 as soon as the action finishes, so pressing the same command repeatedly works.

A command item enters the final menu only when the feature it drives is enabled. If the condition is not met, the configuration carrying that command is rejected by validation.

Command	What has to be enabled
Every command	The Unified Command feature that carries the shared command value
The eight Photo: …	All three photo look bits
Disable All · Enable All	At least one of the five performance toggles
Auto Mode	At least one of Replace Mode · Add Mode
Reset	No extra condition

"Enabled" here means all three conditions hold — Enabled on, Animated on, Pin To Value off.

Advanced catalog items

All eight are radials with a 0~1 range and 8 Compact steps. They all start turned off.

Feature	Default	What that value means
Minimum Brightness	0	Raises the brightness floor
Maximum Brightness	1	Lowers the brightness ceiling
World Light Color	1	How much of the world lighting color reaches the character
Unlit	0	How far lighting is ignored
Emission Intensity	0.5	Emission multiplier
Backlight Intensity	0.5	Backlight multiplier
Value	1	Value of the final output color
Temperature	0.5	0.5 is neutral; lower is cooler, higher is warmer

Each default is the point at which enabling the feature does not change the look. Enable one and leave the value alone and the screen does not change — only the parameter cost goes up.

Rows on the menu with no feature behind them

The Advanced > Color Grade folder of the recommended menu has three rows placed in it — Global Hue · Global Saturation · Gamma — but neither the default catalog nor the advanced catalog has a matching feature. That is also why those three rows alone keep an English name that is never translated. Selecting one of those three rows shows The feature for the selected menu item was not found in the catalog., and it creates no parameter, no menu, no animator layer, and no material binding.

Value and Temperature in the same folder do exist in the advanced catalog, so they work normally.

Those three rows are placeholders kept so the layout does not have to be rebuilt when features are added later. If you are not using them now, leave their checkboxes off.

MingToon property map

These are the MingToon material properties each feature actually drives. A menu value of 0~1 is multiplied by the scale below (and, for temperature, has -1 added on top) to become the property value.

Feature	MingToon property	Scale
Virtual Light	_MingVirtualLightEnabled	1
Replace Mode	_MingVirtualLightMode	1
Add Mode	_MingVirtualLightMode	2
Follow Character	_MingVirtualLightFollowCharacter	1
Light Yaw	_MingVirtualLightYawOffset	180
Light Pitch	_MingVirtualLightPitchOffset	89
Virtual Light Intensity	_MingVirtualLightIntensity	4
Shared Color X	_MingVirtualLightColorX · _RimMasterColorX · _EdgeRimMasterColorX · _ShadowMasterColorX · _OutputMasterColorX	1 each
Shared Color Y	The Y components of those same five	1 each
Additive Light	_RimMasterIntensity	4
Edge Rim	_EdgeRimMasterIntensity	4
Shadow	_ShadowMasterIntensity	4
Final Output	_OutputMasterIntensity	4
Performance Distance Scale	_PerfDistanceScale	2
Minimum Brightness	_MingVrcPhotoMinimumBrightness	4
Maximum Brightness	_MingVrcPhotoMaximumBrightness	8
World Light Color	_MingVrcPhotoLightColorInfluence	1
Unlit	_MingVrcPhotoUnlit	1
Emission Intensity	_MingVrcPhotoEmissionScale	2
Backlight Intensity	_MingVrcPhotoBacklightScale	2
Value	_OutputMasterColorValue	1
Temperature	_MingVrcPhotoTemperature	2, then -1 added

The five performance toggles restore an authored state instead of writing a value, so they have no scale. This is what they cover.

Feature	What it covers
Cast Shadows	The renderer's shadow casting setting
Depth Effects	_DepthEffectsEnabled · _OutlineInnerEdgeEnabled · the active state of any Light shipped alongside
Outlines	_OutlineEnabled
Normal Maps	_NormalEnabled
PBR / Reflections	_PbrEnabled · _ShadowReflectionEnabled

Related Pages

• Component Inspector
• Menu Layout
• Build and Upload
• VRChat
• Troubleshooting