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Japan's Latest Rock Star Is A 3D Hologram - Draws Huge Crowds
- camtarn 16y agoThere's a good documentary on Hatsune Miku here - it's in Japanese but with English subtitles (click the 'CC' logo in the bottom right of the YouTube player to turn them on): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBZOlipfjkQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBZOlipfjkQ I find the Hatsune Miku phenomenon somewhat amusing at the moment, given the trend of overt Autotuning in pop music - while virtual singers' voices are getting more realistic, real singers' voices are being manipulated to sound impossibly accurate and digital. It's also an interesting study in image and marketing: Crypton really pushed the concept of associating a character with the voice, as if Vocaloids were virtual pop stars whose services you could buy, rather than just another virtual instrument.
- moomba 16y agoI guess its the next logical step. If the pop singer doesn't write their own song, doesn't sing their own song live, and doesn't understand the lyrics; you might as well just use a hologram. I never realized how frightening a life sized version of an anime character is. Still, its an interesting phenomenon.
- zdw 16y agoLife imitates anime - anyone else get a Macross Plus flashback about the concept?
- radley 16y agoSharon Apple will happen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWUb04t6_ws http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWUb04t6_ws
- Sindrome 16y agoNow someone just has to hack it during a live performance.
- lostbit 16y agoIndeed. That was the first thing I though: Macross! It did not end very well. The movie/series explored a dark side of this tech.
- jianshen 16y ago+1 Sharon Apple Flashback! The Macross Plus soundtrack was one of my all time favorites from the ridiculously talented Yoko Kanno. Now to wait for Veritech's to be invented...
- BjornW 16y agoWow! This reminds me of the book Idoru by Willam Gibson. Idoru on Wikipedia: "In the post Tokyo/San Francisco earthquake world of the early 21st century, Colin Laney is referred to agents of the aging mega-rock star Rez (of the musical group Lo/Rez, and seemingly very much styled after former The Smiths frontman, Morrissey) for a job using his peculiar talent of sifting through vast amounts of mundane data to find "nodal points" of particular relevance. Rez has claimed to want to marry a synthetic personality named Rei Toei, the Idoru (Japanese Idol) of the title, which is apparently impossible and therefore questioned by his loyal staff, particularly by his head of security, Blackwell.[...]" source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idoru http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idoru
- barber 16y agoI'm starting to think Gibson is writing the future.
- vcrash 16y agoThese days, he focuses on writing the present
- mrcharles 16y agoBut only because by his point of view, the present is effectively the future he looked forward to. I've always felt it's both an interesting and bold position for a writer of sci-fi to take.
- ghshephard 16y agoDoes this mean that sometime soon, Gibson will be writing historical fiction?
- chipsy 16y agoIn one sense, he already has.
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- locopati 16y agoI want a t-shirt that says 'Gibson FTW!' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idoru http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idoru EDIT: Looks like BjornW and I had the same idea
- joezydeco 16y agoThis looks more like rear-projection video (note the starburst in the back of the stage) or Pepper's Ghost, although the scrim is too vertically oriented to be that. Nothing here looks 3D, but of course these videos are very carefully shot and enhanced from all appearances.
- Groxx 16y agoAnd all the videos are from near-straight-on. Because this type of projection (onto a flat, semitransparent screen) gets skewed when at an angle.
- drinian 16y agoYou're right, this is the same technology used for the Gorillaz tour a few years back. In that case, some very talented, real musicians were hiding their wrinkles and gray hair behind the screens.
- FiddlerClamp 16y agoThey really missed the boat by not naming her Jem.
- najirama 16y agoThat would be truly outrageous.
- noonespecial 16y agoNot Jem, but Synergy I think...
- djtumolo 16y agoIs this really that different from Gorillaz? They are also cartoon personas that perform music. If it gets to the point where an artificial intelligence composes and performs, then we will be in Gibson's Sprawl.
- camtarn 16y agoSlightly different. Gorillaz band members are usually voiced by one real artist (although this artist can change from album to album), whereas Hatsune Miku is one step removed - while there was a real voice actress providing the foundation for her voice, the actual lyrics sung don't pass through any human mouth. The persona of Hatsune Miku also seems to have evolved a little more organically: the style and personalities of Gorillaz are basically driven by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett; Hatsune Miku started out as an image on a software box, but got adopted by the internet community who produce videos based on her, with quite diverse personality and style. As for artificial intelligence composition, Emily Howell is probably the closest we've got at the moment: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/09/virtual-composer-makes-beautiful-musicand-stirs-controversy.ars http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/09/virtual-composer...
- djtumolo 16y agoSo do they record and then playback, or is it voiced fully by computers?
- DrPhish 16y agoFully voiced by the computer. Think of a midi keyboard that also has a 'syllable' component for each note: So for example you make her sing the syllable 'Ka' in middle C. There are also a dozen or so other knobs that control how it is sung at that particular point in time.
- ars 16y agoSo the singing is synthesized, but the band is real? Backwards world :)
- tocomment 16y agoWe can make computer controlled, real-time holographic displays now? That seems like bigger news than a rockstar. Isn't that the holy grail of 3D displays?
- cma 16y agoThere is a brute force approach. Recent radiohead concerts had crude voxel displays based on towers of LEDs; you could probably scale it down to a character like this. http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2008/05/radiohead.jpg http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2008/05/radiohead.... NiN did some similar stuff, but fewer layers: http://florago.net/notes/?p=41 http://florago.net/notes/?p=41
- amelim 16y agoIt's still just a projection onto some sort of medium.
- cullenking 16y agoIf we are talking a "virtual" rock star, I prefer a hybrid approach, like sushi k in snowcrash. A real, single musician writing and performing, but using different mediums - the metaverse in snowcrash, or maybe even holograms in real life.
- tomjen3 16y agoHmm, interesting. Can't wait for the first time they have to sue a real flesh and blood human being over the copyrights to a song by a hologram. Still, the future its going to be awesome.
- daten 16y agoI would guess that with most pop. music performers the copyright to their songs are owned by the "Record Label" or company that signs their paycheck. None of the money from current RIAA lawsuits goes back to the artists.
- RodgerTheGreat 16y agoI'm reminded of NG-Resonance[1] from Deus Ex 2. Of course, in that case, it was based on a real person. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_Ex:_Invisible_War_characters#NG_Resonance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_Ex:_Invisible_War_characte...
- hasenj 16y agoWow! Japan never ceases to amaze me. Would be interesting if the 3d hologram can be controlled by a human in real time. Although that would probably suck for the self-esteem "I'm not good enough, they put a fake anime hologram in my place".
- daten 16y agoI previously heard of Hatsune Miku because she did a cover of "Still Alive" from the computer game "Portal". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_12b6Om758Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_12b6Om758Q
- jrockway 16y agoWow, nice. I will never complain about the audience singing along at Jonathan Coulton concerts again.
- whalesalad 16y agoReminds me of Genki Rockets, which also has a "vocaloid" singer synthesized from a couple of female singers. I first found out about this sort of think when I was working for Henk Rogers (Tetris mogul) down in Honolulu. The office was always full of really big names from Japan, like the guys from Square Enix, Nintendo, etc... The guys that made Lumines II were in the office playing some sick blu-ray footage of a Genki Rockets concert and from that moment on I was hooked. The DJ was wearing an astronaut suit and there was a hologram projection of Lumi singing and dancing above the crowd. So sick! Here is a link to Genki Rockets -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genki_Rockets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genki_Rockets
- Timothee 16y agoI wasn't expecting an anime character, but more something like in the movie S1m0ne (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/). In that movie, the movie/pop star is computer generated but is a "real" person and there actually is a scene with a 3D hologram of her on stage. As someone else mentioned, though I find that to be fascinating, I'm more interested in what they mean exactly by "3D hologram" and how it works.
- agotterer 16y agoAn unrelated observation, is the layout of this site completely ripped off of techcrunch?
- jrnkntl 16y ago'Rock'-star? That's not rock.
- cafard 16y agoI guess The Archies were ahead of their time.
- perplexes 16y agoI hate the future.
- dkersten 16y agoYou mean the present?
- Vivtek 16y agoI have to admit, I'm getting a little uncanny-valley vibe from that. The movement is too crisp (they've got to be digitizing the movement of a human dancer?) in combination with the cartoony appearance.
- stcredzero 16y agoYes. I think it would've actually worked better if the toon shading was a bit more "toony" and the frame rate was lowered to 12. It would seem more "magical" that way, like the mixed live/cartoon scenes in Mary Poppins.
- damncabbage 16y agoThe otaku subculture is getting creepier.
- astrange 16y agoBy holding pop concerts? Have you seen anything else they do?
- stuhacking 16y agoThis isn't really limited to otaku subculture at all. There will be lots of different people who enjoy this.
- runjake 16y agoThis disturbs me beyond words. It seems like a real loss for humanity and a real gain for special interests (although it can be argued that humans can be manipulated as easily as this hologram for such purposes). In any case, this isn't part of any future I'll be embracing.
- electromagnetic 16y agoSo a 'performer' that doesn't write their own songs, sing their own songs or even do their own choreography isn't already a real loss for humanity? We elevate talentless, brainless schmucks to the pinnacle of our culture apparently just to watch them fall from grace. How is going one step further to an artificial performer less human? At least no one is hurt when they go on a crack/booze/heroin/etc binge. And at least I won't have to hear of some dumb bitch shaving her head and nigh-on abusing her kids on a daily basis.
- rsaarelm 16y agoThis disturbs me beyond words. Popular music hasn't been doing too well on the all-important "making grown-ups uncomfortable" front recently. Great to see it catching up a bit.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- NewHighScore 16y agoI didn't know it was possible to have video 3d holograms like that! Does anyone know where to find out more about the technology used?
- swah 16y agoIf only the crowds could also be an hologram.
- Towle_ 16y agoHave the Japanese hit such an enormous creative block that they're investigating our PBS cartoons from 1998 in hope of business plans?
- ENOTTY 16y agoSomebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I looked into this when Hatsune Miko made the rounds on reddit a month or so ago. I think the technology used is done by a company called Musion. http://www.musion.co.uk/ http://www.musion.co.uk/ And it's based on an old visual trick called Pepper's ghost http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper%27s_ghost http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper%27s_ghost
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- joelmichael 16y agoHere are some famous Miku Hatsune videos. Po pi po (the vegetable juice one): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0-2lzA7_Cg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0-2lzA7_Cg "Yukkuri shiteitte ne", which means "take it easy", a Japanese meme/philosophy based on the "yukkuris": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cHsNnDfmDs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cHsNnDfmDs Disappearance of Miku Hatsune, about someone deleting the vocaloid program from their computer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN7mR_ECQjo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN7mR_ECQjo It's worth noting that all of these videos and songs are completely fan-made. There is no official representative of Miku Hatsune; that's sort of the point. You can make her sing anything you want. She's more of a platform than a star. There are several other vocaloid singers besides Miku. The whole thing is very popular on the Japanese video site Nico Nico Douga.
- JulianMorrison 16y ago"Love is War" is my favourite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dYk5Plhl9Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dYk5Plhl9Y
- waterlesscloud 16y agoMeanwhile American labels waste time suing people when they could be rolling in the dough by producing American vocaloids. I wonder which one of them will figure that out first?