...in which I bring an audience member to the stage and forget to let her leave.
This panel was presented at Colorado Anime Fest on 12 March 2023! Join the audience for a brief overview of the VTuber fandom, exploring how the industry got its start and where it might be headed next.
Follow along with the slideshow here: https://coaf23-vtuber-panel.nots.co
A blog post covering this panel can be found here: https://mountains.moe/vtubers-the-culture-and-business-coaf-2023-panel
---
Official website: https://nerdonthestreet.com
Discord server: https://discord.nots.co
Subreddit: https://reddit.com/r/nerdonthestreet
Facebook page: https://facebook.com/NerdOnTheStreet
Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/NOTS_Network
E-Mail: jacob@nerdonthestreet.com
This panel was presented at Colorado Anime Fest on 12 March 2023! Join the audience for a brief overview of the VTuber fandom, exploring how the industry got its start and where it might be headed next.
Follow along with the slideshow here: https://coaf23-vtuber-panel.nots.co
A blog post covering this panel can be found here: https://mountains.moe/vtubers-the-culture-and-business-coaf-2023-panel
---
Official website: https://nerdonthestreet.com
Discord server: https://discord.nots.co
Subreddit: https://reddit.com/r/nerdonthestreet
Facebook page: https://facebook.com/NerdOnTheStreet
Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/NOTS_Network
E-Mail: jacob@nerdonthestreet.com
Category
🦄
CreativityTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - All right.
00:19 That's taken.
00:20 We've got about a minute left here,
00:22 but we can go ahead and start getting into it.
00:25 Good morning, everyone.
00:26 Thanks for coming out to the first panel
00:28 on the last day of the con.
00:29 I know, I've gotten like four hours of sleep
00:31 the past two nights in a row.
00:32 You guys are all probably the same.
00:34 Appreciate you being here.
00:34 I've actually got a co-panelist,
00:36 and he's not here yet.
00:37 Not sure where he is,
00:38 but I'll just give the presentation by myself
00:41 until he gets here.
00:42 So today we are here to talk about VTubers,
00:47 both the culture and the business behind them.
00:49 Now, I wanna start out just by gauging the room.
00:52 Is there anyone in the room
00:53 who doesn't already know what a VTuber is?
00:56 All right, so everyone's at least
00:57 a little familiar with them.
00:59 How many people in here watch VTubers often already?
01:01 Okay, most of the people in the room, not everyone.
01:05 And then how many people were at the VTuber panel
01:08 at main events yesterday?
01:09 Okay, a couple people.
01:11 So that panel yesterday was interesting.
01:13 I went to it just to see what they were doing.
01:15 This panel is going to be more talking
01:17 from a viewer's perspective about what VTubers are,
01:20 why people watch them.
01:21 You know, a lot of people know what they are,
01:23 but some people don't understand what the appeal is.
01:26 So kind of talking about what they are,
01:27 and then, yeah, what really goes
01:29 into the industry behind them,
01:31 once again, from an audience perspective.
01:33 So to start out, what is a VTuber?
01:36 You guys already know, but it stands for virtual YouTuber.
01:38 And so they're not just on YouTube,
01:40 they're on YouTube, Twitch,
01:41 any website that allows live streaming.
01:44 Usually they're live.
01:45 Some VTubers do make pre-recorded content as well.
01:48 And the main thing that makes them a VTuber
01:50 is just that they're using virtual avatars for streaming
01:53 rather than their own face.
01:55 So there's someone on YouTube doing this,
01:57 and someone on Twitch, just to give an example.
02:00 Over on YouTube, I actually,
02:02 I pulled a screenshot the other day,
02:03 and if you look at the super chats in the chat,
02:06 they're all $100 super chats.
02:07 I actually thought I got a YouTube bug,
02:09 and I went back to get the screenshot again,
02:11 because if you go into YouTube playback for old streams,
02:15 sometimes if you just skip to a certain point,
02:17 it'll only show the larger donations.
02:19 So I went back, I went like 10 minutes before,
02:21 and watched the entire thing,
02:22 and she was just getting really big donations that day.
02:24 So that's one of the reasons some people are interested
02:28 in getting into VTubing is to make money,
02:30 but obviously it can also be a hobby
02:32 if you're just getting into it.
02:33 So what is it that VTubers do
02:35 if you're actually wanting to be a VTuber,
02:37 or if you're wanting to watch them?
02:38 They do a lot of the same things that IRL streamers do.
02:40 And explaining VTubers to people
02:42 who are getting into them for the first time,
02:45 you just start with that basic understanding,
02:47 and do you know what a streamer is?
02:49 They're gaming.
02:50 Sometimes they just chat with their audience.
02:52 They're singing a lot of the time with VTubers.
02:55 There's kind of an overlap.
02:56 People in Japanese culture,
02:59 they like karaoke and things like that,
03:01 so we like to watch VTubers do that.
03:03 They can also get creative.
03:05 They can do things like cooking and other things.
03:07 My co-panelist has one that he likes to watch
03:09 that's cooking-centric and be a VTuber.
03:11 Yeah, really, if you're a VTuber,
03:14 you can do theoretically most of the same things
03:16 an IRL streamer can do.
03:17 You've got some extra limitations
03:19 because you can't always show your entire body,
03:22 but then you've also got some things
03:24 that you can do a little bit easier if you're a VTuber
03:26 in terms of changing up your location
03:28 and things like that when it's all just virtual.
03:31 One of the other things that's nice about VTubers
03:33 as opposed to actual IRL streamers
03:35 is that a lot of the times they have characters
03:37 that they are sort of playing.
03:39 And some people enjoy the character aspect more than others.
03:44 There are some VTubers out there
03:45 who they are semi-anonymous,
03:48 and they don't really acknowledge their IRL personality.
03:50 They just, when they go to stream as a VTuber,
03:52 they are playing this character.
03:54 And a lot of VTubers,
03:55 like we talked about in the panel yesterday,
03:57 they enjoy getting into that mindset
03:59 of they're kind of in a different space,
04:01 they're being who they wanna be as a VTuber.
04:03 As an audience member, you can also appreciate that.
04:05 If you wanna watch a character
04:07 who's not necessarily going to be always talking
04:10 about all the latest problems in the real world
04:12 and things like that,
04:13 these characters can be a little bit more lighthearted.
04:16 A lot of times characters have physical traits
04:18 that identify them.
04:19 You've got the blank VTuber,
04:21 you've got different VTubers that try to find niches
04:25 so they might be a certain animal
04:28 that no other VTuber has done yet.
04:30 I've heard about a couple of moth VTubers, for instance.
04:34 And that's an insect you wouldn't necessarily think of
04:37 if you're just trying to think,
04:39 oh, what would be a cute avatar I can use to stream?
04:41 Oh, a moth.
04:43 But apparently multiple people did.
04:45 But that helps set them apart
04:46 because now the first person who did that
04:48 is the moth VTuber.
04:50 And then you remember that
04:51 even if you don't remember their name.
04:52 Another thing about the characters,
04:54 they can have personality traits, quirks,
04:57 and those can be imported from the real personality.
05:00 They can be made up.
05:01 A lot of times it's in the middle.
05:03 VTubers, when they're playing characters,
05:05 they tend to take aspects of their IRL personality
05:09 and they exaggerate those aspects
05:11 into something that's more entertaining, I guess.
05:14 And then the characters can also have backstory.
05:16 Different people do different things with this.
05:18 A lot of times VTubers will start off
05:20 with a backstory just to introduce their audience
05:22 to their personality and their characters.
05:25 But then as time goes on, they're streaming,
05:28 they adjust the backstory to fit
05:31 whatever it is that they do during their streams.
05:33 So like I mentioned,
05:36 part of the reason you might wanna be a VTuber,
05:37 I've talked to some people who wanna get into streaming
05:39 but they don't want to have their face on the internet.
05:43 And you can stream without a face cam at all,
05:45 but then people aren't connected to you quite as much.
05:47 So it can be helpful to have an avatar
05:49 just to show expressions.
05:51 And that way you can sort of get out there
05:53 without having to put yourself out there
05:56 in terms of your actual face and identity.
05:59 Now, established creators are often recognized.
06:01 If you look at the bigger VTubing companies,
06:03 which we'll get into in a couple minutes,
06:05 they are often recognized in terms of,
06:07 people see previous work,
06:10 they identify them by their voice.
06:12 A lot of times the YouTube algorithm,
06:13 if they're a big enough creator,
06:15 once a couple people figure out who it is
06:16 and they start going back and forth
06:18 between the IRL person's channel
06:19 and then the VTuber channel,
06:20 YouTube will start recommending you videos
06:23 from one if you're watching the other.
06:25 So that can sort of work around the anonymity thing,
06:28 which isn't always desired.
06:29 But another thing to keep in mind
06:31 if you are doing this yourself,
06:33 if you're going to sign up on Twitch or YouTube,
06:35 if you're expecting to make revenue,
06:37 you will probably need to give your IRL identity
06:39 to a company at some point.
06:41 Now obviously those companies,
06:42 Twitch and YouTube,
06:43 they're pretty secure in terms of
06:44 they try not to leak data for their users.
06:47 But if you're actually wanting
06:50 to be completely, completely anonymous,
06:52 then you probably won't be able to make money doing it.
06:54 But yeah, it's sort of a spectrum in terms of that.
06:58 So the next couple slides,
07:01 my co-panelist who's not here was supposed to present,
07:02 but I know a little bit about them.
07:04 The first sort of VTuber adjacent media,
07:08 they were kind of what we call PNG-tubers today,
07:11 which if you've heard that term,
07:12 it's a VTuber who doesn't have an animated model.
07:14 They just have a static sprite
07:15 because it's a lot cheaper to draw one image
07:17 than to have to rig it and everything.
07:19 So the first sort of VTuber-like people online,
07:22 they were mostly PNGs with voiceover.
07:25 And they were really more like short, low-budget animations.
07:28 They weren't necessarily streaming,
07:30 but they were drawing a couple pictures
07:32 and commissioning a couple pictures
07:33 and then using those for a lot of content over time.
07:38 And they weren't really,
07:39 they weren't similar to current VTubers, once again,
07:41 because they weren't always streaming long form
07:43 like a lot of current VTubers do.
07:45 Another sort of primitive type of VTuber
07:48 in terms of the timeline was Yamato.
07:52 Once again, I learned about this from my co-panelist,
07:55 but this was a blogger who started filming vlogs
08:00 and she would replace herself in post with an avatar.
08:04 So this wasn't VTuber streaming
08:06 and they weren't doing the same things that people do today
08:09 when they're doing 3D VTubing.
08:11 Today, if you're going to do that,
08:12 you'd probably be wearing some kind of motion capture suit.
08:14 I think this was a lot more primitive.
08:16 Like I said, they were basically going in
08:17 and sort of covering up the real person
08:19 with an avatar in post-production.
08:20 It took a long time.
08:22 So it's sort of similar to VTubing
08:25 in that it replaced the person with an avatar,
08:27 but production-wise, it was much more complicated
08:30 than what people normally do today.
08:33 In terms of modern day VTubers,
08:34 some of the early ones that you might have heard of,
08:37 Kizuna AI was one of the, or Kizuna AI,
08:41 was the first sort of modern style VTuber that came out.
08:45 And she debuted in November 2016.
08:47 So she was debuted by a company called Activate
08:51 and their goal with her was to create an idol
08:54 who was sort of ageless or timeless.
08:58 You know, a lot of idols in Japan,
09:00 age is sort of a factor in that.
09:01 And so when they get too old, they have to stop.
09:03 Their original idea with Kizuna AI was,
09:05 let's make an idol that people can connect with
09:07 and then she never ages because it's an avatar.
09:09 Obviously, the voice behind it's still going to age,
09:11 so eventually you need to make a decision
09:13 in terms of are you gonna switch voice actors out
09:15 or are they gonna stop?
09:16 In Kizuna AI's case, they actually did technically retire her
09:21 or graduate her a couple years ago.
09:24 And she has, let's see here.
09:29 My notes are a little bit jumbled here.
09:30 So she has 993 pre-recorded videos
09:33 on her YouTube channel right now and 112 livestream archives.
09:37 So Kizuna AI was very much a pre-recorded video
09:40 type of VTuber.
09:41 Most of her content was, she was recording things
09:43 in advance, they were editing them.
09:45 So if you're doing pre-recorded videos,
09:47 you have that opportunity to go back.
09:49 You don't have to do everything in one take.
09:51 If you don't like something,
09:51 you can cut it out, that kind of thing.
09:54 And yeah, even though they technically graduated her
09:56 a few years ago, like I said,
09:57 she's been doing like one video a year
10:00 or one video every six months, like very slow.
10:02 She's graduated but not actually disappeared.
10:05 And then one of the other very early VTubers
10:08 was Tokino Sora and she was the first VTuber
10:11 with an agency called Hololive.
10:13 So let's see here.
10:16 She debuted in September 2017.
10:18 So about a year after Kizuna AI.
10:21 Her design is sort of inspired by,
10:23 you can see they look kind of similar
10:25 and they've acknowledged that.
10:26 They've actually done videos on each other's channels,
10:28 sort of impersonating each other before as a joke.
10:30 And yeah, Sora also started out doing similar content
10:35 to Kizuna AI.
10:36 Sora started out doing sort of vlog style videos
10:38 where she was sitting down or standing up
10:40 and talking to her audience about things,
10:41 asking for comments and then responding to them
10:43 in the next video.
10:45 But then Hololive, especially with Sora,
10:47 they kind of evolved over time to much more live streaming.
10:51 Part of the reason why they did that
10:52 is because live streaming in terms of
10:54 how much money you're spending per hour of content
10:56 is a lot cheaper because you don't need to
10:59 spend time editing, you don't need to spend time in post.
11:01 Obviously some more time may need to be spent in preparation
11:05 because you don't want your live stream to go wrong.
11:07 But yeah, Sora kind of led Hololive
11:11 into this new era of VTubers
11:13 that most people are familiar with today.
11:15 And just to illustrate that, she currently,
11:17 as of last month, she had 174 prerecorded uploads
11:20 and 652 live stream archives on her channel.
11:23 So her channel shows she's done a lot more streams
11:26 than live content.
11:27 So yeah, Kizuna AI was the first big VTuber
11:31 in the sense of that word, virtual YouTuber.
11:33 And then Sora brought that over, once again,
11:35 to live streaming where you can have
11:36 more spontaneous audience interaction as well
11:38 as another advantage to live streaming.
11:41 You don't have to wait until the next video
11:42 to actually respond, which is another reason
11:44 people like watching VTubers a lot.
11:46 So if you're going to get into VTubers,
11:50 the big two companies that you're probably
11:51 going to hear about are Hololive and Nijisanji.
11:54 And Hololive is owned by a Japanese company
11:56 called Cover Corporation.
11:58 Nijisanji is owned by a Japanese corporation
12:00 called AnyColor.
12:01 And let's see here.
12:03 So Hololive currently has 75 active members,
12:07 plus a couple that have left over the years.
12:08 And the VTuber with the most subscribers
12:10 in the world on YouTube is named Garagura.
12:13 And she is a part of Hololive's English branch.
12:16 She's part of Hololive, so they have that title
12:19 of most subscribed persons with them.
12:22 Now, out of everyone in Hololive,
12:23 only 10 of their members are English.
12:25 They also have nine Indonesian talents,
12:27 and they speak Indonesian, Japanese, and English.
12:30 So they've got a really global audience.
12:32 And then the rest of their talents are Japanese.
12:34 The other big name, like I said, Nijisanji.
12:37 Niji stands for, Niji means rainbow in Japanese.
12:42 So the umbrella company, AnyColor,
12:45 it's sort of a reference to that name.
12:48 Nijisanji's first generation of talents
12:50 debuted in February 2018.
12:51 Nijisanji was about half a year after Sora from Hololive.
12:54 So Hololive has been around a little bit longer.
12:57 Today, Nijisanji has 179 talents.
12:59 So they've got over twice as many talents as Hololive.
13:02 They tend to debut them a lot quicker,
13:04 and they debut bigger groups of them at the same time.
13:06 They go for a little more quantity.
13:08 And Nijisanji holds a VTuber called Kuzuha,
13:12 who is the most subscribed male VTuber in the world.
13:14 So they have that title.
13:15 Related to that, Cover Corporation has another subunit
13:19 called Holostars.
13:21 And it's sort of a male branch of Hololive.
13:23 Sometimes they treat them all as one Hololive entity,
13:26 but sometimes they separate out the Holostars
13:28 and Hololive by gender.
13:30 So Hololive is technically all girls and Holostars
13:33 is all guys in terms of the characters
13:34 they're playing at least.
13:36 But they do interact.
13:37 They both appear in promotional materials together.
13:39 Nijisanji also splits up the male and female groups
13:41 when they debut.
13:42 A group typically will be all male or all female
13:44 that they're debuting at the same time.
13:46 Once again, the characters they're playing,
13:47 not necessarily the actors behind them.
13:50 But they just put them all under the same name.
13:53 They don't have a separate official name
13:55 for their male branch.
13:56 So for each of these, I've got a pretty recent
13:58 sort of family photo for each of them.
14:00 Interesting, the Hololive one,
14:03 they're all just sort of in a jumble.
14:04 And then Nijisanji, it looks like they're on risers
14:07 at a school event or something, much more organized.
14:10 I don't know if that actually reflects their talents or not.
14:13 I watch a lot more Hololive myself.
14:14 My absent co-panelist watches more Nijisanji.
14:18 So yeah, both of these companies are very large.
14:21 With all of Hololive's talents combined,
14:23 they have over 70 million YouTube subscribers.
14:26 And Nijisanji has over 60 million
14:28 with all of their talents combined.
14:30 So Hololive is ahead by a tiny bit
14:32 in terms of total subscribers.
14:35 Obviously, I live here in the United States
14:37 and I've heard that Nijisanji is actually more popular
14:39 over in Japan, but Hololive has a more popular
14:43 global audience.
14:45 So yeah, Anycoder and Nijisanji, it's interesting.
14:49 They are both listed on the, or at least,
14:51 Nijisanji is currently listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
14:54 Hololive was approved to be listed
14:58 just within the last month or two.
14:59 They're not actually on there yet,
15:01 but they did get their approval to go on there.
15:04 So both of these are very large.
15:05 There's a lot of money going into them,
15:07 now public investment going into
15:09 some of these larger companies.
15:10 And there are a number of smaller companies as well.
15:14 And if you're going to watch VTubers
15:15 or you try to be a VTuber, it's important to keep in mind
15:18 that it's not just the big companies, obviously.
15:20 You don't even need a company at all.
15:21 I'll get into indie VTubers in a couple slides,
15:23 but there are these five and many more
15:27 sort of smaller companies, and you'll hear these groups.
15:29 A lot of times, these companies start out
15:31 with just a group of VTubers who are maybe already streaming
15:33 or they wanna start streaming together, they're friends,
15:35 and they want to sort of support each other
15:37 and do that together.
15:38 So they'll form a company or they'll approach one together.
15:42 Of course, some companies have disappeared over the years.
15:45 The logos on the screen right here are defunct companies.
15:48 That large logo there, Sundaria,
15:50 they were the first Western VTuber company.
15:54 So they were founded in California and headquartered there.
15:58 They debuted the first talent in June, 2020.
16:00 I've heard from my co-panelists
16:03 that they worked well with their talents,
16:05 but they suffered from low funds.
16:07 They had a little bit of mismanagement
16:08 in terms of their stores, both online
16:12 and when they went to conventions,
16:13 they would run out of merchandise very quickly.
16:15 So sometimes they were not able to make all the money back
16:18 that they were trying to in terms of their ventures.
16:21 And so they went under eventually.
16:24 Now, in terms of defunct companies,
16:27 there's also defunct subsidiaries
16:29 or branches of other companies.
16:30 Hololive, for instance, like I said,
16:33 they've got their main Japanese branch,
16:35 an English branch, and their Indonesian branch.
16:37 They also had a Chinese branch a few years ago,
16:40 and they ended up having to close their Chinese branch
16:43 because political issues with that
16:45 were basically affecting the rest of their branches.
16:47 People from the audiences were not able to get along,
16:50 and they decided the best thing financially
16:52 was to just pull out of China.
16:54 But yeah, there are companies that come and go.
16:58 And like I said, you don't need to be part of a company
17:01 to VTube.
17:02 RISC-TV on the right here, this is one of the VTubers
17:04 that was at that panel at Main Events yesterday.
17:07 On the left, a VTuber that I personally know online,
17:10 Cowboy Kiwami.
17:11 You can just go on, and if you're able to get an avatar
17:15 and rig it, and I'll show you some of the technology
17:17 in a few slides.
17:18 But you can really get started pretty cheap
17:20 and pretty easily, and you don't need anyone's permission
17:23 to do it, obviously, if you're gonna be
17:24 an independent VTuber.
17:26 Yeah, you can just get online and start streaming,
17:29 and you can do really whatever you want.
17:30 You can game, you can draw, or anything else.
17:34 These are a few popular indie VTubers
17:37 that you might hear of.
17:38 Shy Lily is probably the most well-known indie VTuber
17:41 that's not technically associated with any company.
17:44 She has, let's see, she has a million followers.
17:48 I got this information from my co-panelist.
17:51 And she has collabed with somebody called GamerSups.
17:53 I don't know who that is personally.
17:55 The next one over is Onigiri.
17:56 She's a cooking VTuber, and cooking is an interesting thing
17:59 to do as a VTuber, because food pretty much has to be,
18:02 you know, if you're cooking IRL,
18:04 you're not gonna have virtual food
18:05 tracking what you're doing.
18:06 You're gonna have to show your actual food.
18:08 And so sometimes these VTubers will actually
18:10 sort of put on gloves and have a camera
18:12 pointing at their food, but then they still have
18:14 their face avatar on the side,
18:16 and they try not to show their face in the video.
18:18 So it's a really interesting setup
18:19 that kind of really pushes the line
18:21 in terms of keeping it virtual or not.
18:24 Let's see, so we've got Shixto might be how that's pronounced
18:29 that third one from the left.
18:30 He is the most popular indie male VTuber.
18:32 He's got a million Twitch followers.
18:34 And then on the right here we've got Shugure Ui.
18:38 And she is an artist that became a VTuber.
18:39 That's a common thing that happens,
18:41 because artists, they're able to draw their own avatars,
18:43 and so half the cost of startup,
18:45 they've already got covered,
18:46 'cause they can just draw for themselves
18:47 instead of commissioning.
18:49 She also created the design for Subaru and Hololive.
18:53 So a lot of people have heard of her through Hololive.
18:55 She's done collaborations with people
18:56 from both Hololive and Nijisanji.
18:59 And that brings up, just because you start
19:00 as an independent or you are an independent VTuber,
19:02 doesn't mean you can't interact
19:04 with the people in the big companies.
19:05 They've got their communities and they're sort of in groups,
19:09 but they all sort of collab with each other
19:11 when they want to.
19:12 So getting into sort of the technology behind it,
19:15 how does it actually work?
19:17 And I was really, as a tech person myself,
19:20 I was sort of most interested in the technology side
19:22 when I started learning about VTubers.
19:24 So the best way to understand how VTubing works,
19:28 first of all, take how regular streaming works.
19:29 So you've got yourself, you've got a camera,
19:31 pointed at yourself, that's going into some software
19:34 like OBS Studio that's gonna put that on a screen,
19:36 add titles on top of it, and then you're gonna stream out
19:39 from that software to YouTube or Twitch
19:41 or whatever other website you want to.
19:42 So streaming as a VTuber, exact same thing,
19:45 you're just adding an extra step in the middle,
19:48 which is after your camera, you're gonna convert that into,
19:51 somehow you're gonna convert that into a virtual avatar.
19:54 It's not necessarily using a camera,
19:56 it can use other equipment,
19:58 but you're really just inserting an extra step
20:00 into the regular streaming process.
20:02 You can separate out different computers,
20:03 different devices if you want to.
20:05 You don't have to, there's very low cost solutions
20:08 that you can sort of do everything on one computer
20:11 if you need to.
20:12 And this slide, this is a chart I found online
20:17 that I found very accurate and also kind of obvious.
20:20 I was surprised somebody made a chart showing this.
20:22 Basically what this chart says, it's got a lot of words.
20:25 What it says is if you spend more money,
20:27 you got more capability.
20:28 You can do more the more you spend.
20:30 If you don't spend more money, you can still stream,
20:32 but your functionality will be lower.
20:35 So some of the common software you'll hear about
20:38 in VTubing, Live2D is a big name in VTubing
20:41 and the name of the program is Live2D Cubism.
20:44 Live2D is the company itself that makes this program,
20:47 people just call it the shorthand.
20:49 And this is the software that you actually use
20:51 to rig up your model.
20:52 So if you've got a static image,
20:55 you can actually bring it into Live2D
20:57 and then you basically tell it where it's going to fold,
20:59 where it's going to stretch,
21:01 when it's actually animating that
21:02 so that you can then move around.
21:05 So Live2D typically isn't going to actually
21:08 be moving things around for you in real time.
21:11 That's what you use to set up the avatar
21:13 and then you use other programs
21:15 that work with Live2D models.
21:17 One of those programs is called VTube Studio.
21:19 This is one of the bigger ones.
21:20 And so you would import your Live2D model
21:22 into VTube Studio.
21:24 And this would take care of actually mapping
21:26 your real time expressions onto your model for you.
21:30 This isn't the only option for the mapping.
21:34 VUP or VirtualUP is another option for that.
21:37 So it's the exact same thing.
21:38 You import your model from another program
21:40 and then it will map your expressions onto that model.
21:43 And there's even cheaper ones and lesser known ones.
21:45 If you go on Steam and just search VTuber software,
21:48 there's tons of low budget software out there.
21:51 Most of these are free to use at least.
21:54 VTube Studio, you can use it for free with a watermark.
21:57 You have to pay, I think it's $20 to get rid of the watermark.
22:01 But it's not even that expensive to begin with.
22:03 But then yeah, if you really can't even afford that
22:05 and you don't want the watermark,
22:06 there are very, very cheap options out there
22:08 and you can find them quite easily.
22:11 So I have a tech demo semi-prepared here.
22:16 I am just going to see if I can get this laptop
22:18 to connect to my phone's hotspot here.
22:22 And if it doesn't, we might have to skip the demo for now.
22:26 Unless, does anybody in the audience have an iPhone
22:29 with data tethering and want to try mapping your face?
22:33 Can you do it?
22:34 Do you want to come up and help with it?
22:35 - So what app do you have on your phone to do this?
22:44 - So I'm going to be showing VTube Studio.
22:48 So we're going to use that.
22:50 And if the person with the iPhone,
22:51 if you can go on the app store real quick
22:53 and download VTube Studio,
22:54 you can come up here while you're doing it.
22:56 You can sit in my co-panelist chair.
22:58 He lost the right to it, I guess.
23:00 But yeah, VTube Studio, how it works.
23:04 It actually can just use,
23:06 oh, I don't have the slideshow up there anymore.
23:09 Start that.
23:10 VTube Studio can use your webcam, like I said.
23:13 If you just want to use the computer,
23:14 you don't need a phone to do this.
23:16 I'm using a computer with Linux on it,
23:18 which is a little bit more complicated
23:19 than if you've got Windows or Mac.
23:21 So it won't detect the webcam on this computer
23:23 because I'm running it through an emulation layer.
23:26 But it can use a webcam.
23:28 It can also use a phone for better tracking.
23:30 One of the reasons why iPhones are great,
23:31 this is actually good because both of my phones here
23:33 that I've got, I brought a backup,
23:35 but neither of them are working.
23:36 But those are both Android.
23:38 iPhones have ARKit,
23:40 which is sort of an augmented reality feature
23:42 that lets you, it tracks your eyes
23:45 and just expressions in general a lot more accurately
23:47 than you can get with just regular cameras.
23:49 And that's why people tend to use phones.
23:51 Yeah, that's the one.
23:52 Thank you so much for helping with this.
23:57 Let me know whenever you've got the hotspot started
23:59 and I'll connect to that.
24:00 Let's try that here.
24:08 That one?
24:11 - Yeah.
24:18 - Is anybody in here a VTuber yourself already?
24:20 A couple, okay, cool.
24:22 How long have you guys been doing it?
24:25 - A month.
24:26 (laughing)
24:26 - About a year.
24:27 - Oh, I don't know if this is,
24:35 I think the problem here is the computer and not the phone.
24:39 I've actually got a backup computer as well.
24:41 I've got a few more slides after this.
24:46 So if this doesn't work, we can just move on.
24:47 But I thought it would be cool to show you guys
24:49 the software, so I'm just gonna try to get that going here.
24:51 All right, well, these computers are not liking
25:04 Wi-Fi this morning.
25:05 I think maybe we'll move on for now.
25:07 And then if people wanna stick around
25:08 after we're done with the PowerPoint,
25:09 we can keep trying to get the tech working.
25:12 But basically how this works,
25:14 you're going to have a phone or a webcam
25:16 that's going to look at your face.
25:18 It's going to map your basic expressions
25:20 onto the model on the screen.
25:23 So when you blink, it's going to blink for you.
25:25 When you turn left or right,
25:26 it's going to get that sort of thing.
25:28 Now, when you're using these 2D programs
25:31 with Live2D models, typically you're not going
25:33 to have things like full arm movement.
25:35 If you want to raise your arms,
25:36 or if you want to have very exaggerated expressions,
25:39 a lot of times those things,
25:41 you'll actually map to keys on your keyboard,
25:43 so they're manually triggered.
25:44 So if you want to have a throwing your arms up expression,
25:48 you hit a key on the keyboard, it throws your arms up,
25:50 and then you hit another key to put them back down
25:51 to your standard pose.
25:53 And Live2D is really good at sort of mixing
25:56 different expressions together.
25:57 So while you're in that hands up expression,
25:59 it will still be tracking your face
26:00 and sort of mixing that in.
26:03 So that was what the demo was going to be.
26:04 Like I said, we'll, oh, I've got, okay.
26:07 I've got this through their public Wi-Fi.
26:13 This is going to be very slow and iffy.
26:16 I guess we can see if that's going to work.
26:18 So I'm going to launch VTube Studio here.
26:25 I can at least show you the computer side of it.
26:28 So this is what it's going to look like
26:43 when you're bringing it up on your own computer.
26:45 I'm so sorry to bring you up here
26:46 when this isn't going to work.
26:47 What's your name?
26:48 - Angie.
26:49 - Angie, my new assistant here.
26:51 So this is one of the, this is just the default
26:55 VTuber model with VTube Studio.
26:56 It comes with a couple models.
26:58 It's two girls and then like three animals.
27:00 I tried to get a boy model because I'm a boy
27:01 and I was planning on doing this myself,
27:03 but none of the defaults are that.
27:04 But basically you've got your character here
27:09 and you can have multiple characters loaded in there.
27:12 You can select two different backgrounds.
27:15 But these settings here are where you really
27:18 choose everything.
27:19 So when you're going to connect to a phone,
27:21 the way that I was trying to do it here
27:22 was actually connecting my phone to this laptop via wifi.
27:25 So if you've got them both on the same wifi network,
27:28 then it will send that data over the network.
27:30 You typically only want to do that
27:31 if you've got a very fast wifi connection.
27:33 It's recommended if you can to actually plug in with USB.
27:36 That only works on Windows or Mac OS.
27:37 You need to have iTunes installed
27:38 if you've got an iPhone for that.
27:41 But yeah, it's going to send that data
27:43 and let's see what else we've got here in the settings.
27:48 So like I said, there is webcam tracking.
27:50 Once again, this computer won't do it,
27:51 but most computers will.
27:53 So you can go in there and configure that
27:55 and it won't be quite as high fidelity
27:57 as the phone, once again.
28:00 It'll just be not as accurate, not as expressive,
28:03 but you can absolutely get started with it that way.
28:09 And then you've got your virtual webcam configuration.
28:12 This is the other important one.
28:13 This is the output from this program.
28:15 So if you guys are familiar with programs like OBS Studio,
28:19 programs that you use to send your video
28:20 to YouTube or Twitch or whatever you're using.
28:22 Normally you go into this program
28:24 and you select a physical webcam.
28:26 This program will give your computer a virtual webcam
28:28 that's going to display your VTuber.
28:30 Now, if you want to have your VTuber
28:32 on top of like games or things like that,
28:33 you can just go and configure
28:35 like a solid green background in this program
28:37 and then you green screen it out in OBS Studio
28:39 or whatever program you're using for that.
28:41 And that's how they get those just overlays
28:44 without a background around the character.
28:46 And so even though I don't have the face tracking right now,
28:50 I do have some of the expressions sort of keyed.
28:54 So I've got, let's see here.
28:57 So numpad one, it looks like that's going to
29:03 put some sparkles in this character's eyes.
29:05 So that's like an anime thing,
29:06 if you want to be able to do that
29:07 when you see something that excites you.
29:09 Let's see.
29:11 I think the most expressive two,
29:13 I've got a happy emotion and then a sad emotion.
29:17 And so for these expressions,
29:19 you can go in for every single one
29:21 and sort of configure what you wanted to do
29:23 for that expression.
29:24 And once again, anything that you're going to move
29:26 in VTube Studio needs to be rigged in Live2D first.
29:29 So your Live2D rig is going to limit
29:32 what you can or can't do once you get to this step.
29:34 But...
29:36 For the sad expression here, for instance,
29:38 you just go into the expression editor.
29:42 The expression editor is back at the top right here.
29:45 All right, and so for the sad expression,
29:59 once again, when I hit it,
30:01 oh, it's not going to hit it while I'm in this mode,
30:03 but basically you can go and say,
30:05 okay, when I'm in my sad expression,
30:07 I want the eyes to no longer shine.
30:10 Or you can say when I'm in the happy expression,
30:12 I want them to shine.
30:14 You can say, let's see, where was the...
30:16 height one that was more...
30:19 Right here.
30:22 So this was one that was not in the default configuration.
30:25 I went and configured this that when this character,
30:27 when I put the sad expression on,
30:29 I want her to sort of slump down.
30:31 And so, yeah, that's the kind of configuration you can do
30:35 in terms of the different expressions there.
30:38 All right.
30:43 Well, yeah, like I said, we'll move on with the PowerPoint,
30:46 and then anyone who wants to,
30:48 if you get bored of the troubleshooting,
30:50 you can leave after the PowerPoint's done.
30:52 But then if anyone wants to stick around
30:54 and try to see it in action and try it yourself with the camera,
30:57 then we can keep going with that later.
31:00 So what's next for VTubers was the other stuff we were going to cover.
31:06 VTubers, like I said, right now, they do a lot of gaming streams,
31:09 and it's very cheap for them to do that, very inexpensive.
31:12 That's the reason why it's sort of proliferated
31:14 and come out on top in terms of what's the most popular,
31:17 because you can sit down.
31:19 Someone else has already made the game that you're going to play,
31:22 so you don't need to come up with material completely from scratch.
31:25 And you can just sit down and have hours of content
31:27 generated just by reacting to that.
31:29 Obviously, some VTubers are still doing vlogs,
31:31 some VTubers are doing cooking, some VTubers are doing drawing,
31:34 so you can absolutely do more creative, productive stuff as a VTuber as well.
31:39 But that's all stuff that's being done now,
31:42 and then we can look at what might be next for VTubers.
31:45 I think two of the big ones are AR and VR,
31:47 and the difference in a VTuber context between those,
31:50 AR, augmented reality,
31:52 I think of that as bringing VTubers into the real world,
31:55 so allowing us, IRL, to sort of interact with them
31:58 and make it seem sort of real.
32:00 And then virtual reality, VR, is sort of the opposite direction.
32:03 It's bringing real people into the VTubers' world
32:06 so that you can interact with them.
32:09 Some other things here.
32:11 I've got slides for these.
32:13 In terms of augmented reality and VTubers,
32:15 a couple of current developments, and these are both by Hololive.
32:18 Cover Corporation that founded Hololive,
32:21 they actually started as a virtual reality company
32:24 that made games before they were a VTuber company.
32:27 They pivoted to VTubers and are much more successful doing this.
32:31 But they've got a lot of experience using these models in an AR context.
32:36 So they've got an app on the App Store and the Play Store called Hololi.
32:40 That's shown on the left there.
32:42 You can sort of interact with a VTuber in the real world.
32:46 It's still very limited right now,
32:48 but it will sort of project that VTuber in front of you,
32:51 and you can see their reactions to different things.
32:55 I think as augmented reality headsets maybe become more popular,
32:58 we're going to see that kind of thing become more capable,
33:01 where you can actually walk around and have a VTuber following you around
33:04 and talking to you.
33:06 Obviously, this would be a programmed thing.
33:08 The voice actress for that VTuber is not going to be interacting
33:11 with everybody using that live.
33:13 They're going to have pre-programmed expressions and phrases they can use.
33:16 So it is a little bit different, but they're using their VTuber model
33:19 to make you feel more connected so you go and watch their streams more later.
33:23 Another really cool thing--
33:26 I wasn't ready to move on from that slide yet.
33:29 Oh.
33:31 I think the computer is struggling here with the GIFs.
33:37 So Hololive last year, they put on their third concert.
33:40 You can see a GIF of it on the right there.
33:42 This was really cool.
33:44 This was an IRL concert. It happened in Japan.
33:46 Unfortunately, Japan's borders were still closed,
33:48 so it was basically exclusive to Japanese people who got to go and see this.
33:52 But they filled up a stadium with 9,000 people, and they had a concert.
33:56 This wasn't the first time they did this, but it was the first time
33:59 they used an AR system to broadcast the concert online.
34:02 And they actually, as you can see, they were using 3D models,
34:05 compositing those models onto the stage in real time.
34:08 So if you're watching this online, it looks like those VTubers
34:10 are actually standing in front of those people.
34:12 Now, if you were actually there in that room for that concert,
34:15 what you were actually watching was a big flat screen on the stage.
34:19 And then you've got the 3D, the same things the livestream gets.
34:22 They did have that on the side screens.
34:24 You can sort of see in some of the shots.
34:26 But they had a live band playing along with these songs,
34:29 and then they were just playing the voice tracks over that.
34:32 And theoretically, they're supposed to be live, at least in story.
34:36 Nobody's actually sure if they're actually performing these dances live
34:39 or if these were pre-recorded dances and singing.
34:43 But yeah, I think as display technology progresses,
34:47 we're about one step away from this being something you can actually see
34:50 when you're in the concert venue.
34:53 Currently, 3D holograms and things don't exist.
34:56 It's really complicated because you have to have a medium,
34:59 either water or glass or something,
35:01 to actually make the light appear in front of you.
35:05 But as we get better 3D technology,
35:07 you might be able to go and see a VTuber concert
35:09 and actually have it look as realistic as it did
35:11 watching the live stream while you're actually there.
35:14 So yeah, I'm pretty excited about that.
35:16 Hololive's fourth concert is, I think it's about a week from now.
35:20 Very, very soon that it's coming up.
35:22 So they normally stream the first part of that on YouTube.
35:25 So if you haven't seen those, I would go and check it out.
35:28 Hololive's concert last year was one of the things that sort of made me realize,
35:31 like, wow, VTubing is really bigger than just streamers playing games.
35:35 It's an industry that is going to evolve entertainment.
35:39 And then, like I said, the other side of things,
35:41 virtual reality and VTubers.
35:43 On the right here you can see this was a different concert that Hololive did,
35:46 and they actually had a concert in VR.
35:49 So if you wanted to watch this, you could watch it on a computer,
35:51 but you could also, if you have a VR headset,
35:53 you could put that on, go into the world, and actually see--
35:56 in that case, you see the VTuber avatars in 3D in front of you on the stage.
36:02 And so this is two of the talents there
36:05 sort of interacting in the audience section of that concert.
36:08 Yeah, I think that's--as VR becomes more popular once again,
36:11 right now it might not make sense for a company
36:13 to put a lot of money into a VR production
36:15 that not a lot of people are going to be able to join
36:17 if they don't have VR headsets.
36:19 But as that becomes more commonplace,
36:21 we might see more people targeting that medium.
36:23 And then on the left we've got a virtual set
36:26 that a VTuber named Amelia Watson created or commissioned.
36:30 And so I think it's interesting.
36:32 We're starting to see sort of TV and movie sets in VR,
36:36 which is really an extension of VTubers,
36:38 because what it is is people acting in real life,
36:41 and they're wearing motion capture suits,
36:43 and then it's translating their movements
36:46 into these virtual characters in VR.
36:48 But they don't have to build the sets,
36:50 they don't have to do their characters' makeup,
36:52 they just have to put these suits on,
36:54 and then everything else can be handled digitally.
36:56 Once again, it can still take money, it can still take time to do,
36:59 but it can be cheaper than actually building these sets IRL.
37:03 So yeah, I can sort of lower the barrier to entry for that.
37:07 And then the last bit of information here
37:11 that we wanted to cover was VTuber fandom terminologies.
37:14 Most of you, it sounded like, already watched some VTubers,
37:17 but if you're just getting into it,
37:19 I wanted to include something that would sort of help people
37:21 understand what they're looking at when they go in.
37:23 And so these are some common terms you might hear
37:25 in VTuber fandoms and what they mean.
37:28 So "oshi" is your favorite VTuber.
37:32 And so yeah, "oshi men" is what the full expression is.
37:35 So I think "oshi" just means "favorite" or something along those lines.
37:39 But yeah, "tskr," it means something like "thanks for the help,"
37:46 "thanks for helping," or "tskr" itself is just like, "that was helpful."
37:50 People typically use "tskr" in the context of like,
37:53 "Oh, you did something really cool, and it was helpful to me."
37:56 They're using it very sort of metaphorically
37:58 because it basically is just a reaction of like, "I really liked that."
38:02 "Kusa" is a term you might hear.
38:05 This is sort of a weird one.
38:07 When I started learning Japanese, I got to this character,
38:09 I was like, "Oh, that means 'laugh,'" and then I found out it means "grass"
38:12 and not "laugh." And the reason why that is, if you type "lol, lolol,"
38:17 it sort of looks like grass in the grounds standing out.
38:20 And so they abbreviated that into their character for grass, "kusa."
38:24 And then sometimes they also-- Japanese people, you'll see,
38:27 they're using a bunch of Ws, once again, because it looks similar to "lol" to them.
38:32 It looks like grass.
38:34 "Mama" and "papa" are terms that have to do with people
38:37 who were behind a VTuber's model.
38:40 And so sometimes they refer to the person who drew their model as their mama,
38:44 and then the person who rigged their model in Live2D or a program like that as papa.
38:49 Now, they don't always use those terms.
38:51 Sometimes they actually use-- if they're both men or both women,
38:54 they use just "both mama" or "both papa,"
38:57 but sometimes they separate them out like that.
39:00 "Titi" or "teitei" is slang for-- it means "precious," "innocent," "cute."
39:06 And so if you see something, once again, people will just sort of react,
39:09 "Oh, that was so titi," if they see something they thought was cute.
39:14 "Satsudan" is one that you'll hear a lot if you look at Hololive streamers
39:18 or Japanese streamers. "Satsudan" means "free talk."
39:21 It's an unscripted conversation, so they're just sitting down,
39:25 and it's basically a just chatting stream.
39:27 They're not playing a game, or they don't have any sort of specific script
39:30 that they're reading from.
39:32 "Kaigai niki" is another one you'll hear if you're looking at groups
39:35 that have Japanese talents and Japanese fans.
39:38 "Kaigai niki" means "overseas brother," and so it's them referring to--
39:44 the "kaigai niki" would be us, the people overseas who are enjoying their content.
39:49 "Akasupa" is short for "Aka superchats," "red superchats,"
39:53 which are just superchats that are $100 or more on YouTube.
39:57 And so if you hear a VTuber thanking someone for akasupas,
40:01 they're just large superchats, donations that people are making to them.
40:05 And then "anti" is a term you might hear, and "anti," as you can maybe get
40:09 from the word, it means "hater," but it is a very, very strong term.
40:14 Typically, an "anti" is someone who--they're not just disliking a VTuber.
40:18 They are actively harming the community with their spamming or things like that,
40:24 and so you don't want to be labeled that.
40:28 So, yeah, that is everything that was in here.
40:31 I am going to put this slideshow up, and I'll have all of the avatars.
40:35 If you saw any avatars you liked that you didn't already recognize,
40:37 I'll have all of the names for them in the notes,
40:39 the ones that weren't already on the screen.
40:42 But I'll have that up at that URL a little bit later, the one on the left.
40:46 And then if you want to find more of my stuff, I blog about anime stuff
40:50 at mountains.moi on the right, and I also make YouTube videos
40:54 at nerdonthestreet.com doing tech stuff, which you can tell I'm great at
40:57 since my tech demo didn't quite work today.
41:00 So yeah, like I said, we'll go back--I guess we'll spend the rest of the time--
41:03 what time is it? 1042. Okay, so we've got like three minutes.
41:07 So we don't really have time to do the troubleshooting,
41:10 but thank you guys once again for coming out.
41:12 If you don't have any questions or comments about VTubers, throw out there.
41:17 Yeah.
41:19 This may be related to the big companies, VTubers.
41:24 A lot of them borrow from idol communities and idol fandom.
41:29 Absolutely.
41:31 In your opinion, do you think how much of the content that VTubers
41:36 kind of choreograph or how much of them are really the content
41:42 that's trying to sell their presence to the world?
41:45 Sure. Yeah.
41:47 So I think that question's about--yeah, like Hololive, it's a company
41:50 that they were sort of founded around this idol culture.
41:53 And idol culture in Japan, it's going to be people sort of acting pure.
41:57 A lot of times it has to do with music.
42:00 But yeah, it's basically asking how much of that is choreographed
42:06 in order to achieve that.
42:08 I think with things like Hololive, they definitely started out more choreographed
42:11 where Sora in the beginning was acting like an idol.
42:14 And they've got a few talents who still try to do that over time.
42:18 As you're streaming thousands of hours, eventually you're going to stop acting
42:21 so choreographed because the stuff isn't scripted
42:24 and you can't always sort of be in that headspace.
42:27 So Hololive has gotten a lot more sort of off the cuff
42:30 and not quite as idol-ish in the original Japanese sense of the word.
42:35 But yeah, I'm not sure how much it actually is choreographed.
42:37 A lot of that you don't know unless you work there.
42:39 Like I said with that concert, when I was watching it live,
42:42 it really impressed me they were compositing their 3D avatars
42:46 onto a real live stage in front of a live band.
42:49 But then some people online pointed out, well, they're not actually performing
42:52 the song live.
42:54 They probably pre-recorded those dances and those songs.
42:57 And so if you're like me and you want to sort of enjoy that
43:00 as it's meant to be enjoyed, you can try to believe that it was live.
43:04 I still watch that.
43:06 They threw in some off the cuff sort of things in the talking segments
43:09 between songs that makes it seem like it's live.
43:13 But yeah, if you want to go and dig in and see
43:17 what would be the easiest way to do this and did they actually do it live,
43:20 I'm sure that things are sort of planned out sometimes.
43:23 Some people have compared VTuber culture to wrestling culture actually
43:27 in that sense.
43:29 And there's an overlap in wrestling fans and VTuber fans
43:32 because you're kind of watching something and you know it's staged,
43:35 but you're going to enjoy it anyway as if it sort of wasn't staged.
43:38 So yeah.
43:41 And that is just about time for us.
43:43 Once again, thank you guys so much for coming out.
43:45 I hope this was interesting.
43:47 I hope you enjoy the rest of the Equinox show.
43:49 [applause]
43:52 [background chatter]
43:55 [♫ ♫ ♫]
44:16 (upbeat music)