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The show was a first for VTubers and WePlay, the company that produced the live VR event.Image Credits:The VTuber Awards
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The event blended WePlay’s physical production space with a VR stadium.Image Credits:The VTuber Awards
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Each physical camera could capture multiple angles in VR.Image Credits:WePlay Studios
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Motion capture technology is not new to the film and video game industries, but incorporating it into a live streamed event was a challenge.Image Credits:WePlay Studios
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Like many VTubers, Filian is fiercely protective of her privacy. A crew member stood in for photos.Image Credits:WePlay Studios
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A crew member standing in for Filian tests the mocap suit and helmet.Image Credits:WePlay Studios
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Anime cat girls are at the forefront of tech innovation
On current , Filian bring the leg at the center of a stupendous arena , get off with violet public eye and circumvent by crowds of fans reserve lightsticks . The banner opened the show raiment in a pictorial purple skirt , Battle of Magenta crouch standoff and high white boots that matched her crown — a ritzy variation of her embodiment ’s common sailor - style schoolhouse uniform .
“ Please be patient with us . This show has a lot of technical school … it ’s as live as it comes,”Filiansaid during her opening remark . “ It ’s not rocket science , but it could be . ”
Filian , a streamer with over 766,000 Twitch followers , hosted the first annualVTuber Awardslast weekend . Like manyVTubers — a portmanteau of “ practical YouTuber ” — Filian keeps her identity secret , and rather of showing her real face , streams using a digital example .
Filian was physically host the ceremonial from an confine green box in WePlay ’s Los Angeles studio apartment , a space typically used for esports events . The virtual world awards show is one of the first of its form — both for WePlay , a yield fellowship that has principally focused on hosting and producing in - mortal play tournaments in its Los Angeles and Kyiv studio over the last decennium , and for VTubing , which has grown from a niche streaming musical style to abillion - dollar industryin late years .
VTubers have been broadly recognized in other shows ; theStreamer Awardsincludes a category for “ Best VTuber , ” and at this class ’s Game Awards , VTuber Ironmousemade historyby being the first inspire banner to advance Content Creator of the Year . But neither award show accounts for the acquirement unique to VTubing , like avatar pattern , technological innovation and host virtual event .
The award for best tech VTuber , for example , go to Vedal987 , a streamer and programmer who grow the chatbot VTuberNeuro - sama , which uses text - to - speech communication and AI to play game and communicate with Twitch viewing audience .
“ In every awards show , VTubers are often a footnote or sometimes treat as a unique , strange matter , and so the approximation for these honor is like , ‘ Why not have a show for ourselves ? ’ ” Filian say TechCrunch in an interview in the twenty-four hours leading up the show .
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on the 8th of january I did a stream where I attempted to have neuro learn to play slay the spire . she did n’t even make it past the first foreman .
attempt 2 is going well though.pic.twitter.com/aISW0poN5v
— Vedal ( @Vedal987)October 12 , 2023
VTubers , who typically present with animal ear , exaggerated feature or dingy outfit , are often written off as lewd anime streamers . The genrestarted in Japan in the early 2010sas an offshoot of idol culture , and need off outside of Asia when VTuber yield company Hololive debut its first English - mouth streamers . Filian noted that the awards show also acknowledges VTuber watcher as much as single cognitive content Maker , since buff drove the literary genre ’s find to mainstream recognition . In addition to the class for most dedicated fanbase , the VTuber Awards also includes a category for VTuber limiter , who clip , curate and post VTuber content online .
“ And so what these people would do is mail to YouTube , and in many way , they created a monolithic demand for VTubers , ” Filian continued . “ When VTubers lastly come to the west , it was prim up to explode . It ca n’t be overdraw how crucial VTuber clippers are and were to VTubers being where they are today … In many ways , VTubers are typically a great deal more knotty with their fans than a lot of other creators are . ”
The show was a technical exploit as well . The five - hr event married WePlay ’s physical production space with unnumerable hours of engine room and design . Though WePlay has used augmented world chemical element in late live production , the award show was the first fully virtual case that the fellowship has create . WePlay ’s Chief Marketing Officer Iryna Chuhai pointed out that for the celluloid and video biz industry , using this scale of mocap technology is an “ average event . ” Incorporating it into a live product , however , is more challenging .
design in partnership withMythic Talent , a management company that represents VTubers admit Filian , the case was initially going to take place on a strong-arm leg with “ screens and graphics ” to accommodate VTubers , WePlay ’s Chief Visionary Officer Maksym Bilonogov told TechCrunch before the show .
“ But then we realized it ’s not the way , it ’s not the good philosophy , ” Bilonogov said . “ Because it ’s VTubers , it should be a fully practical space . So we take up building the technology to make it real , so the real cameraman using the real camera can inject the practical globe . ”
The flow depicted a vast arena , but Filian ’s embodiment was essentially confined to a minuscule rotary stage surrounded by concealment , which was a virtually constructed variant of WePlay ’s physical yield stage . In veridical life , tv camera operator controlled three tv camera linked to virtual angles , so that each physical pan , controversy and focus pulling was muse in the practical broadcast . The physical operator could switch between multiple different angles in the stadium using iPads connected to the tv camera , so that the yield appeared to practice at least a dozen cameras instead of just three . The physical lights on the stage were connect to match virtual light , so that WePlay could contain the arena ’s spot by activating the real ones . WePlay also connect Resolume , a software for live event visuals , to the virtual venue to control the graphic that played on the VR stage ’s screens .
“ From a visual perspective , from the engineering , it ’s fully new for us , ” Bilonogov continued . “ We ’re hear a lot . I can say that it ’s the hardest technical project for WePlay . It ’s fully practical reality with virtual cues . ”
In the control way several feet away , crew members juggle dozens of blind , which depicted Filian ’s embodiment on the virtual leg , IRL Filian in her mocap causa and visuals of other VTubers , who call in throughout the stream to host the pre - show and gift or accept accolade .
VTubers who appeared in the pre - show or present awards come along to be at the venue on the stream . They rive it off byco - streamingFilian ’s broadcast and give way WePlay accession to their streams so that their commentary could be seamlessly integrated into the show . VTubers who appeared on the watercourse to accept their awards appeared on screens above the practical stage . WePlay organized behind - the - scenes logistics with other streamers using Discord — not for any unique platform lineament , Chuhai state during a walkthrough of the studio apartment , but because it ’s already a “ familiar tool for all these gamers . ”
Filian , meanwhile , host from a disjoined green silver screen room containing only a teleprompter . Markers on Filian ’s motion gaining control suit dotted her limbs and digit , capturing her body movements , while an iPhone rigged to a headband welt around her frontal bone tracked her facial formula .
There is no industry monetary standard for VTuber software , but many VTubers let in Filian use model designed in Unity . WePlay ’s virtual sports stadium was work up using Unreal Engine , which is n’t as commonly used by VTubers . The company terminate up rebuilding Filian ’s avatar from abrasion . Small details that would take space during a strong-arm award programme , like a mid - show outfit change , were “ hard rhytidectomy , ” Filian said . switch from one outfit to another , like Filian did during the stream , involved a whole new set of animations . A more voluminous chick , like the one Filian wear at the start of the show , would n’t move the same means as a form - fitting robe .
Like many VTubers , Filian is fiercely protective of her anonymity and did not want to be snap , so a crew member stood in for behind - the - scenes photos of the move seizure turnout . Although everyone involved in the production prognosticate to maintain her namelessness , Filian said it was “ really unusual ” for her to do as her VTuber persona in front of actual people .
“ There ’s a idiom fromElden Ringthat ’s called,‘Touch grass,’and I do n’t do a luck of that . And I do even few interactions like , outside in general . And I peculiarly do n’t do fundamental interaction where I ’m making depicted object while there are people around me , ” Filian said in a call a few day after the event . “ When you ’re an actual human acting like an anime character , it ’s very awkward . ”
Filian added that the crew kept their distance out of respect for her secrecy , which quench the awkwardness . It also avail that the masses who saw her literal face and body were multitude that she trusted , because she spent the last week rehearsing with them .
Full - body streams are n’t new to Filian , who started out making content inVRChat . concede , WePlay setup is importantly more sophisticated than the one Filian use for her streams , which involves a few cheap Vive tracker and tv camera in the corners of her room . Unlike her home streams , hosting the VTuber Awards was peculiarly grueling because she could n’t take many breaks .
To host the consequence , she persist in the mocap suit for more than seven hour ( include day - of rehearsals ) and was open two toilet breaks full , which each take at least 20 minutes of getting in and out of the suit . She stretched between hosting , and at one point during a short segment about the chronicle of VTubing , put up a sandwich and shake to “ keep the vigour up . ” Filian was eat when the show wrap , and she say that she nearly fell departed on tv camera when she tried to stream the twenty-four hour period after .
“ It felt a lot less intimidate to be in that box than it would have been to stand up in front of M of the great unwashed , ” Filian sound out . “ So if anything it was a fleck uncomfortable , I guess , but it was just me , a teleprompter and a cover show the genuine stream , and it made it a lot easy because of that .
The first VTuber Awards was a major success , much to the relief of Bilonogov , who trace the task as a “ huge experimentation ” for WePlay days before the event . As Filian welcomed spectator to the surreal virtual stadium on Saturday , Bilonogov marveled at the TV stream the show in WePlay ’s lobby . He was n’t sure how else the engineering could be used , he said , but he was sure that it ’s the future of live event . WePlay plans to continue experiment with bouncy VR events ; Chuhai suppose that next year , the fellowship is opening another studio across the street from its Los Angeles space specifically for VR yield .
“ VTtubing , it ’s like rock and roll and roll or malarky . It ’s an entire industry . It has a important community . It ’s a futurity of amusement , ” Bilonogov said . “ I mean the awards show is just the beginning . ”
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