Can You Move an Avatar Face Without a Headset? It Turned Out to Cost Nothing
Last time I looked into moving your avatar’s face while wearing a VR headset. That world runs from ¥3,000 at the cheap end to ¥160,000 for the polished option.
Afterwards, something nagged at me: what about people who do not own a headset?
VRChat plays perfectly well on a monitor without one. There may well be more people doing that. So what do they need to move an avatar’s face?
The answer turned out to be nothing like what I expected.
Researched as of July 2026. I have not verified any of this on my own setup — please read it as an organized summary of published information.
The headset version is here
There was nothing to buy
An anticlimactic answer: it is already in VRChat. The feature is called Selfie Expression.
Point a webcam at yourself and it reads your expression from the video and puts it on your avatar. It used to be a paid-tier (VRC+) feature, but an update on 6 September 2025 opened it to everyone.
| What it tracks | Expression, gaze, head movement, arms, hands, fingers |
|---|---|
| What you need | One webcam. A phone used as a webcam also works |
| Avatar modification | None. It uses the viseme (mouth shape) data, so almost any avatar works |
| How to enable | Settings → Tracking and IK → turn on “Upper Body Camera Tracking", and point the camera at yourself |
The methods in the previous article all required the avatar itself to be built with expression controls. This one borrows the mouth-shape data instead, so that work is unnecessary. That is a significant difference.
The video does not leave your machine
Plenty of people tense up at “point a camera at your face". I did too.
Looking into it, the camera video is processed entirely on your own PC and is neither saved nor transmitted — that is stated explicitly. The footage of your face does not go anywhere; only the result, “what expression is this right now", reaches the avatar.
And because the latency budget rules it out, sending anything away is not even an option. Discomfort at being filmed, and the reassurance that nothing leaves the machine, are two sides of the same mechanism.
You can choose the image quality: light is 177×144 at 5fps, heavy is 800×600 at 30fps. Tracking hands and fingers needs the medium setting or above. Which also means an older PC can try it on the light setting.
For finer movement: an iPhone
If the built-in feature is not enough, there is a next step: using an iPhone’s face-authentication camera.
The mechanism behind Face ID reads the contours of a face in detail, and using it yields 52 kinds of expression data — close to what the dedicated headset hardware provides.
| Supported devices | Best with Face ID (iPhone X / XS / XR or later, iPad Pro 3rd gen or later). Without Face ID, A12 Bionic or later also works (iPad 8th gen, 2020 onward) |
| Apps | Unreal Live Link Face (free) / iFacialMocap (paid) |
| Connection | Wi-Fi to the PC. If latency bothers you, a wired adapter is an option |
| Caution | Using it for long periods while charging causes heat and throttling. Cooling is recommended |
If you already own an iPhone, you can start with the free app. You do need somewhere to put it, so a stand helps.
What it cannot do is equally clear
This part matters. None of this works while you are wearing a headset.
The reason is simple: the headset covers your face. This approach films you from the outside, so it cannot read what is hidden. The official documentation states that with a headset on, even the lower half of the face cannot be tracked.
Playing on a monitor? What is in this article is enough. No dedicated hardware required.
Prices, next to the previous article
| Method | Cost | With a headset on | Avatar modification |
|---|---|---|---|
| Selfie Expression (built into VRChat) | ¥0 (if you have a webcam) | Does not work | Not needed |
| iPhone + Live Link Face | ¥0 (if you have an iPhone) | Does not work | Needed |
| DIY (previous article) | From ¥3,000 | Works | Needed |
| PaperTracker (previous article) | From ¥13,000 | Works | Needed |
| Meta Quest Pro (previous article) | ¥159,500, discontinued | Works | Needed |
Lined up like that, the price difference is entirely decided by one thing: whether you wear a headset. Without one, ¥0. With one, ¥3,000 minimum.
And the surprise was that the cheapest method also involved the least work — no avatar modification, just one setting to turn on.
Wrap-up: try the free one first
- Not wearing a headset? VRChat’s built-in Selfie Expression costs ¥0, and has been open to everyone since September 2025
- Settings → Tracking and IK → turn on Upper Body Camera Tracking. No avatar modification
- It moves not just the face but gaze, head, arms, hands and fingers
- The camera video is processed locally and is neither saved nor transmitted
- Want finer detail? An iPhone. Live Link Face is free and yields 52 kinds of expression data
- But neither works with a headset on. For that, you need the approach in the previous article
Last time the story was “¥3,000 at the cheapest, ¥160,000 at the top". This time it is ¥0. Same phrase — “face tracking" — and the cost changes by orders of magnitude depending on the premise.
Try the free one first, and think about the next step only if it falls short. That seemed like the order least likely to waste money.
Hardware mentioned
A webcam, if you do not already have one. The built-in feature runs on this alone.
Somewhere to put the iPhone, if you go that route.
Sources
Checked 31 July 2026. Availability conditions and supported devices change. Please check the official sources before setting this up.