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VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

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Re: VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

#41

Post by pndy »

rmunn wrote: post #4

The first time I encountered VTubing, I thought the point was just to hide your face, for various reasons. Being sensitive about your looks, not wanting to attract stalkers, whatever. But there's apparently a lot more to it; I was surprised.

I've ran once on some streamer who along with the CGI animation also wears some full body suit of anime girl with helmet, wig. That looked like a blend of two ideas. But that's still nothing new - there were always people on youtube who did fully cover their faces to not be recognized.

How to not be seen

Re: VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

#43

Post by koteelok »

maeln wrote: post #12
krige wrote: post #2

That's a bit... late to the party. I can't find when the article was published, but the phenomenon "went worldwide" several years ago by the means of COVID. These days the vtubing as an industry is in a somewhat stable state, if not a possible decline, going by viewership hours over the same period. Many big EN and JP names have already retired too.

For the big VTuber corporate brand, for sure. But the indie VTuber scene as exploded. It used to be fairly expensive to get in the hobby, and you needed to be technically savy or have someone be for you. Now there is a lot of free and open-source VTuber software that don't need complex setup, just a webcam. And you can easily commission a few hundred bucks an artist to get your whole character and animation. This mad…

Is this AI? That was the case like 5 years ago. Every big western vtuber right now started out as an indie using free models.

Re: VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

#44

Post by not_a9 »

numpad0 wrote: post #34
ledoge wrote: post #16

Strange omission to talk about the general anti-AI sentiment, while not mentioning that the #3 most-watched English VTuber (Neuro-sama) is an LLM – who is actually widely accepted as a "good" use of AI by other VTubers and viewers.

Does anyone actually believe the premise of Neuro-sama that she is an AI? The original premise was that she is a lightweight AI model livecoded on streams, but that is obviously not the case anymore.

Do humans often repeat JSON spewed by integrations? It’s still very much a LLM.

Re: VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

#45

Post by harrisoned »

I'm not particularly into VTubing (not a fan of social streaming or the japanese style), but i find the tech and creativity amazing. I'm very into mocap and started building an experimental facial capture system, which overlaps a lot with the VTubing concept, but using different protocols (most VTubing models/solutions uses VMC) and more varied custom cartoon models.

If you are into the tech behind mocap this community is a fun place to explore.

Re: VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

#46

Post by [deleted] »

sunaookami wrote: post #20
rmunn wrote: post #4

The first time I encountered VTubing, I thought the point was just to hide your face, for various reasons. Being sensitive about your looks, not wanting to attract stalkers, whatever. But there's apparently a lot more to it; I was surprised.

That's what many western VTubers don't get, they see it as an "avatar" for themselves which is not what VTubing is. It's supposed to be a completely different persona with no connection to your real identity. It completely dilluted (and I would say even ruined) VTubing in the west.

[deleted]

Re: VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

#47

Post by numpad0 »

Bjartr wrote: post #38
numpad0 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone actually believe the premise of Neuro-sama that she is an AI? The original premise was that she is a lightweight AI model livecoded on streams, but that is obviously not the case anymore.

It's certainly possible someone could fake something like that for views, but I'm curious what you consider to be the tells that it's no longer an LLM behind the wheel?

Maybe it's LLM and human actor splitting work, but she looks too natural, too fast and too error-free to be LLM based since too long ago. Just their dictation -> thinking -> TTS loop is too fast to be LLM. Context awareness and character adherence is too perfect as well.

Re: VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

#48

Post by [deleted] »

Cytobit wrote: post #26
sunaookami wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what many western VTubers don't get, they see it as an "avatar" for themselves which is not what VTubing is. It's supposed to be a completely different persona with no connection to your real identity. It completely dilluted (and I would say even ruined) VTubing in the west.

Supposed by whom?

[deleted]

Re: VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

#49

Post by mghackerlady »

vehemenz wrote: post #30

The last section should have been titled “Why Do People Watch It?” because I finished the article still wondering.

I watch a few indie vtubers (and was a fan of idol corp before they got sold off and their first english gen left). I like the streamers and would watch them regardless of what they look like in meatspace

Re: VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

#50

Post by mghackerlady »

rmunn wrote: post #4

The first time I encountered VTubing, I thought the point was just to hide your face, for various reasons. Being sensitive about your looks, not wanting to attract stalkers, whatever. But there's apparently a lot more to it; I was surprised.

That's one reason. Another big one is it's fun to put on a character. It lets you step away from things you don't like about yourself while embracing the things you do
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