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On a related note, does anyone have references which would explain VRChat (and the culture around it)? I'm not quite certain if the models are primarily used fo

by Jhsto 10mo ago

On a related note, does anyone have references which would explain VRChat (and the culture around it)? I'm not quite certain if the models are primarily used for comedic effect, role-play, or more of as a 'Ready Player One'-esque alternative identity. I think I know cases for the latter, but I feel like as someone who has never understood VR as a form of self-expression or played VRChat, I feel like I can't have the conversation with them.

cagenut 10mo ago
People Make Games did a mini documentary on almost exactly what you're asking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PHT-zBxKQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PHT-zBxKQQ Its three years old so things have slightly matured.
jauntywundrkind 10mo ago
I find the vtuber effect pretty offputting myself. It's so flat. It's going to wander into entirely different problems (one with a much more uncanny valley), but i'm curious to see how the field develops when facial animation systems start being able to parallel people's faces more.
- cosmic_cheese 10mo ago
  VTuber avatar expressiveness varies wildly depending on the software and avatar artists in question. With the right software and top tier avatars, it can be quite good, but high quality avatars are extremely time consuming to create and thus expensive so only the biggest streamers tend to have those. Some agencies also force usage of less advanced agency-proprietary software to prevent talent from using the avatars without authorization.
  - swores 10mo ago
    Not quite the same as Vtuber avatars, but what you said about their software makes me think (hope) you might be able to answer a question I was wondering about the other day: is any software/models good enough yet to be able to replace the face of someone talking into a webcam with a different, photorealistic face - either that of a different existing person, or an entirely fictitious face - in real time, such that it could be used to pretend to be a different person on a live video call? Or, if not real time, how about for non-live videos, is there a tool that can do it well enough to be convincing without needing any manual editing? And if the answer is no, how far away might it be? (I'd be curious to play with it myself if such a thing exists and is publicly available, but the main reason I'd like to know is to keep an eye on how soon we might see faked video calls joining faked voice phone calls in the toolbox of financial scammers.)
    - cosmic_cheese 10mo ago
      It’s not something I’ve looked into so I’m not sure. VTuber software output can be set up to appear as a webcam which can be used in Zoom and such, so that’d be the closest that I know of.
      - swores 10mo ago
        No worries, thanks anyway
  - numpad0 10mo ago
    It's a bit perplexing, but 1st gen VTubers were all 3D. They evolved through natural selection into current 2D forms, only slowly growing back supplemental 3D forms. My guess as to why is that full 3D must have been extraneous cognitive load to viewers - xkcd wouldn't have been as popular as it is now if it had been drawn somehow by Rembrandt himself. It owes its success to Randall Munroe's minimalist art style. That kinds of things.
    - dotnet00 10mo ago
      It's probably because high quality 3d is just much more expensive to do. You can easily do all sorts of effects in the constrained environment of a 2d model that take a lot more skill to pull off in 3d. Plus, ultimately, the anime aesthetic is a 2d thing. It's a lot harder to make a 3d model look good in a 2d art style, as a ton of anime over the years have shown.
      - numpad0 10mo ago
        A lot of them had 3D models and quit using it. So I doubt it had to do with the cost of making one. IMO the second one is much more likely.
reactordev 10mo ago
[flagged]
- bovermyer 10mo ago
  That seems... rather reductive. You give references, but their conclusions and yours seem to operate on different scopes and restrictions. I don't use VR, so I don't have a horse in this race. What do you gain from this?
  - reactordev 10mo ago
    >What do I gain from this? Nothing. Just sharing the experience of most on VRChat with links to studies and comments. Hate it or not, it’s not a very friendly place.
  - Libidinalecon 10mo ago
    No offense, but you really can't possibly understand how bad this place is if you have never been in VRChat. Picture a 30 something guy in a hotdog avatar telling children how he can't help be a pervert. Picture playing a game of chess in a chess room that should be really cool for all ages. Then a drunk woman is telling the room about the blowjobs she has given. Of course you can hear by the voices that some are little kids talking. If you put on a headset and go in VRChat right now, you too can have the same experience. Anyone who says this is not true is completely full of shit because everyone inside VRchat knows this almost like it is an inside joke. I would never bag on someone for being socially awkward. I was so awkward as a teenager. Social awkwardness is not the problem at all. Oh yea how about kids running around yelling the n word for no reason other than they can? That is standard. If you never used modern VR, the immersion is incredible. That is what makes the VRChat experience so disturbing.
    - t-writescode 10mo ago
      Most people with any sense avoid public instances. Most of the healthy interactions in VRC are almost certainly in highly curated Friends instances at the broadest and Invite or Invite+.
unsignedint 10mo ago
I provide full livecast coverage by visiting every booth at Vket, which takes place in VRChat twice a year, and over time I’ve noticed some clear patterns. In Japan, the market for 3D models and other VR/metaverse assets has steadily flourished. Within VRChat, it’s fairly common for users to purchase avatars from platforms like booth.pm and then customize them to their liking—sometimes as simply as changing colors, and other times by adding clothing, accessories, or other elements. The market itself is quite approachable: some avatars are used by thousands, or even tens of thousands, of people, while others cater to much more niche tastes. Either way, there’s something for almost everyone. Originally, the focus was largely on avatars themselves. Over the years, however, we’ve seen a noticeable shift toward clothing and accessories. Looking at booths in recent Vket events, roughly 40%—if not close to half—of the offerings now fall into those categories. Tools such as ModularAvatar and Mochifitter have made applying and adjusting these items easier than ever, lowering the barrier even further. More broadly, many Japanese users don’t seem to find working with Unity particularly daunting, and that comfort level has helped form the foundation of the ecosystem we see today. While comedy and roleplay certainly appear from time to time, many people treat their avatars as genuine representations of their identity. This doesn’t mean that identity is fixed—some users switch between multiple avatars—but there is often a strong sense of attachment. The avatar functions not merely as a surrogate in a virtual space, but as something that defines how they present themselves within that world. This emphasis on originality, combined with a general avoidance of ripped game assets or avatars based on existing IPs (at least compared to trends outside Japan), appears to have played a significant role in shaping this distinctive Japanese VR culture.
bottlepalm 10mo ago
It's the next level of social gaming, being in VR makes the experience a lot more immersive and visceral.

by Jhsto 10mo ago

cagenut 10mo ago

People Make Games did a mini documentary on almost exactly what you're asking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PHT-zBxKQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PHT-zBxKQQ Its three years old so things have slightly matured.

jauntywundrkind 10mo ago

I find the vtuber effect pretty offputting myself. It's so flat. It's going to wander into entirely different problems (one with a much more uncanny valley), but i'm curious to see how the field develops when facial animation systems start being able to parallel people's faces more.

cosmic_cheese 10mo ago
VTuber avatar expressiveness varies wildly depending on the software and avatar artists in question. With the right software and top tier avatars, it can be quite good, but high quality avatars are extremely time consuming to create and thus expensive so only the biggest streamers tend to have those. Some agencies also force usage of less advanced agency-proprietary software to prevent talent from using the avatars without authorization.
- swores 10mo ago
  Not quite the same as Vtuber avatars, but what you said about their software makes me think (hope) you might be able to answer a question I was wondering about the other day: is any software/models good enough yet to be able to replace the face of someone talking into a webcam with a different, photorealistic face - either that of a different existing person, or an entirely fictitious face - in real time, such that it could be used to pretend to be a different person on a live video call? Or, if not real time, how about for non-live videos, is there a tool that can do it well enough to be convincing without needing any manual editing? And if the answer is no, how far away might it be? (I'd be curious to play with it myself if such a thing exists and is publicly available, but the main reason I'd like to know is to keep an eye on how soon we might see faked video calls joining faked voice phone calls in the toolbox of financial scammers.)
  - cosmic_cheese 10mo ago
    It’s not something I’ve looked into so I’m not sure. VTuber software output can be set up to appear as a webcam which can be used in Zoom and such, so that’d be the closest that I know of.
    - swores 10mo ago
      No worries, thanks anyway
- numpad0 10mo ago
  It's a bit perplexing, but 1st gen VTubers were all 3D. They evolved through natural selection into current 2D forms, only slowly growing back supplemental 3D forms. My guess as to why is that full 3D must have been extraneous cognitive load to viewers - xkcd wouldn't have been as popular as it is now if it had been drawn somehow by Rembrandt himself. It owes its success to Randall Munroe's minimalist art style. That kinds of things.
  - dotnet00 10mo ago
    It's probably because high quality 3d is just much more expensive to do. You can easily do all sorts of effects in the constrained environment of a 2d model that take a lot more skill to pull off in 3d. Plus, ultimately, the anime aesthetic is a 2d thing. It's a lot harder to make a 3d model look good in a 2d art style, as a ton of anime over the years have shown.
    - numpad0 10mo ago
      A lot of them had 3D models and quit using it. So I doubt it had to do with the cost of making one. IMO the second one is much more likely.

reactordev 10mo ago

[flagged]

bovermyer 10mo ago
That seems... rather reductive. You give references, but their conclusions and yours seem to operate on different scopes and restrictions. I don't use VR, so I don't have a horse in this race. What do you gain from this?
- reactordev 10mo ago
  >What do I gain from this? Nothing. Just sharing the experience of most on VRChat with links to studies and comments. Hate it or not, it’s not a very friendly place.
- Libidinalecon 10mo ago
  No offense, but you really can't possibly understand how bad this place is if you have never been in VRChat. Picture a 30 something guy in a hotdog avatar telling children how he can't help be a pervert. Picture playing a game of chess in a chess room that should be really cool for all ages. Then a drunk woman is telling the room about the blowjobs she has given. Of course you can hear by the voices that some are little kids talking. If you put on a headset and go in VRChat right now, you too can have the same experience. Anyone who says this is not true is completely full of shit because everyone inside VRchat knows this almost like it is an inside joke. I would never bag on someone for being socially awkward. I was so awkward as a teenager. Social awkwardness is not the problem at all. Oh yea how about kids running around yelling the n word for no reason other than they can? That is standard. If you never used modern VR, the immersion is incredible. That is what makes the VRChat experience so disturbing.
  - t-writescode 10mo ago
    Most people with any sense avoid public instances. Most of the healthy interactions in VRC are almost certainly in highly curated Friends instances at the broadest and Invite or Invite+.

unsignedint 10mo ago

I provide full livecast coverage by visiting every booth at Vket, which takes place in VRChat twice a year, and over time I’ve noticed some clear patterns. In Japan, the market for 3D models and other VR/metaverse assets has steadily flourished. Within VRChat, it’s fairly common for users to purchase avatars from platforms like booth.pm and then customize them to their liking—sometimes as simply as changing colors, and other times by adding clothing, accessories, or other elements. The market itself is quite approachable: some avatars are used by thousands, or even tens of thousands, of people, while others cater to much more niche tastes. Either way, there’s something for almost everyone. Originally, the focus was largely on avatars themselves. Over the years, however, we’ve seen a noticeable shift toward clothing and accessories. Looking at booths in recent Vket events, roughly 40%—if not close to half—of the offerings now fall into those categories. Tools such as ModularAvatar and Mochifitter have made applying and adjusting these items easier than ever, lowering the barrier even further. More broadly, many Japanese users don’t seem to find working with Unity particularly daunting, and that comfort level has helped form the foundation of the ecosystem we see today. While comedy and roleplay certainly appear from time to time, many people treat their avatars as genuine representations of their identity. This doesn’t mean that identity is fixed—some users switch between multiple avatars—but there is often a strong sense of attachment. The avatar functions not merely as a surrogate in a virtual space, but as something that defines how they present themselves within that world. This emphasis on originality, combined with a general avoidance of ripped game assets or avatars based on existing IPs (at least compared to trends outside Japan), appears to have played a significant role in shaping this distinctive Japanese VR culture.

bottlepalm 10mo ago

It's the next level of social gaming, being in VR makes the experience a lot more immersive and visceral.