Layers

What are the different layers used for in VRChat? What special properties of some specific layers should you know?

Below I've listed the currently used (+ reserved) layers and their use cases based on experimentation using my layer inspection tools.

My layer research is currently ongoing and information on this page may still be incomplete!

Any object set to 19-21: reserved2-4 will be forced to 0: Default on build (You can still manually force the layer during runtime)

No	Name	Visual elements	Notes
0	Default	Avatar pedestals Emojis	Default layer
1	TransparentFX		Used for Unity's Flare Assets
2	IgnoreRaycast		Ignored by Unity's Physics Raycasts if no layer mask is provided. Not ignored by VRChat's Physics Raycasts
3	reserved3
4	Water	Portals Mirrors
5	UI	Remote camera lens Player scanning highlight Personal mirror visuals	Interactive objects on this layer can't be interacted with unless the menu is open Colliders of remote players exist on this layer
6	reserved6
7	reserved7
8	Interactive		Unused by Unity and VRChat
9	Player	Remote players Remote player chatbox
10	PlayerLocal	Local player without head	VRCMirrorReflection refuses to render this layer
11	Environment		Unused by Unity and VRChat
12	UiMenu	Nameplates Remote camera nameplate
13	Pickup		Default pickup layer
14	PickupNoEnvironment	Personal mirror collider (regardless of whether grabbable or not)	Colliders on this layer only collide with the 'Pickup' layer
15	StereoLeft		Unused by Unity and VRChat
16	StereoRight		Unused by Unity and VRChat
17	Walkthrough		Colliders on this layer won't collide with players
18	MirrorReflection	Complete local player (shown in mirrors and cameras)	Only layer that isn't rendered by the main camera (local player's sees the headless copy of themselves on layer 10) Colliders on this layer don't block VRChat raycasts
19	InternalUI (Previously "reserved2")	HUD Main menu Camera UI Camera lens Cursor Tooltips Expression menu	Will render over everything
20	HardwareObjects (Previously "reserved3")
21	reserved4

Changelog

[2024-09-04]

Added note about recently discovered personal mirror visuals on UI (5) Added note about recently discovered personal mirror collider on PickupNoEnvironment (14)