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title: How I VTuber
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date: 2022-01-13
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tags:
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- ENVtuber
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---
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If you've watched tech talks I've done and any of my Twitch streams recently,
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you probably have noticed that I don't use a webcam for any of them. Well,
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technically I do, but that webcam view shows an anime looking character. This is
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because I am a VTuber. I use software that combines 3d animation and motion
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capture technology instead of a webcam. This allows me to have a unique
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presentation experience and helps me stand out from all the other people that
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create technical content.
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[I stream <a href="https://twitch.tv/princessxen">on Twitch</a> when I get the
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inspiration to. I usually announce streams about a half hour in advance on
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Twitter. I plan to get a proper schedule soon.](conversation://Cadey/enby)
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This also makes it so much easier to edit videos because of the fact that the
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face on the avatar I use isn't too expressive. This allows me to do multiple
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takes of a single paragraph in the same recording because I can reset the face
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to neutral and you will not be able to see the edit happen unless you look
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really closely at my head position.
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## Version 1.x: Dabbling in Experiments
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Some of the best things in life start as the worst mistakes imaginable and the
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people responsible could never really see them coming. This all traces back to
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my boss buying everyone an Oculus Quest 2 last year.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Working at <a href="https://twitter.com/Tailscale?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Tailscale</a> is great. They sent us all an Oculus Quest 2! <a href="https://t.co/dDhbwO9cFd">pic.twitter.com/dDhbwO9cFd</a></p>— Xe Iaso (@theprincessxena) <a href="https://twitter.com/theprincessxena/status/1362871906597224456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 19, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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This got me to play around with things and see what I could do. I found out that
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I could use it with my PC using [Virtual Desktop](https://www.vrdesktop.net/).
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This opened a whole new world of software to me. The Quest 2 is no slouch, but
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it's not entirely a supercomputer either. However, my gaming PC is better than
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the Quest 2 at GPU muscle.
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One of the main things I started playing with was
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[VRChat](https://hello.vrchat.com/). VRChat is the IMVU for VR. You pick an
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avatar, you go into a world with some friends and you hang out. This was a
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godsend as the world was locked down all throughout 2020. I hadn't really gotten
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to talk with my friends very much, and VRChat allowed us to have _an experience_
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doing it more than a giant Zoom call or group chat in Discord.
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One of the big features of VRChat is the in-game camera. The in-game camera
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functions like an actual physical camera and lets you also enable a mode where
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that camera controls the view that the VRChat desktop window renders. This mode
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became the focus of my research and experimentation for the next few weeks.
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With this and [OBS' Webcam Emulation
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Support](https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/obs-virtualcam.949/), I could
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make the world in VRChat render out to a webcam which could then be picked up by
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Google Meet.
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The only major problem with this was the avatar I was using. I didn't really
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have a good avatar then. I was drifting between freely available models. Then I
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found the one that I used as a base to get my way to the one I am using now.
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Version 1.x was only ever really used experimentally and never used anywhere
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publicly.
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## Version 2.x: VRChat and Wireless VR
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I mentioned above that I did VR wirelessly but didn't go into much detail about
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how much of an excruciating, mind-numbing pain it was. It was an excruciating,
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mind-numbingly painful thing to set up. At the time my only real options for
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this were [ALVR](https://alvr-org.github.io/) and Virtual Desktop. A friend was
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working on ALVR so that's what I decided to use first.
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[At the time of experimentation, Oculus Air Link didn't
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exist.](conversation://Cadey/coffee)
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ALVR isn't on the Oculus store, so I had to use
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[SideQuest](https://sidequestvr.com/) to sideload the ALVR application on my
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headset. I did this by creating a developer account on the Oculus store to
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unlock developer mode on my headset (if you do this in the future, you will need
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to have bought something from the store in order to activate developer mode) and
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then flashed the apk onto the headset.
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[Fun fact: the Oculus Quest 2 is an Android tablet that you strap to your
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face!](conversation://Mara/happy)
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I set up the PC software and fired up VRChat. The most shocking thing to me at
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the time was that it all worked. I was able to play VRChat without having to be
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wired up to the PC.
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Then I realized how bad the latency was. A lot of this can be traced down to how
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Wi-Fi as a protocol works. Wi-Fi (and by extension all other wireless protocols)
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are built on shouting. Wi-Fi devices shout out everywhere and hope that the
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access point can hear it. The access point shouts back and hopes that the Wi-Fi
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devices can hear it. The advantage of this is that you can have your phone
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anywhere within shouting range and you'll be able to get a victory royale in
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Fortnite, or whatever it is people do with phones these days.
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The downside of Wi-Fi being based on shouting is that only one device can shout
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at a time, and latency is _critical_ for VR to avoid motion sickness. Even
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though these packets are pretty small, the overhead for them is _not zero_, so
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lots of significant Wi-Fi traffic on the same network (or even interference from
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your neighbors that have like a billion Wi-Fi hotspots named almost identical
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things even though it's an apartment and doing that makes no sense but here we
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are) can totally tank your latency.
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However it does work...mostly.
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It was good enough to get me started. I was able to use it in work calls and one
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of my first experiences with it was my first 1:1 with a poor intern that had a
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difficult to describe kind of flabbergasted expression on his face once the call
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connected.
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By now I had found an avatar model and was getting it customized to look a bit
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more business casual. I chose a model based on a jRPG character and have been
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customizing it to meet my needs (and as I learn how to desperately glue together
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things in Unity).
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During this process I was able to get a [Valve
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Index](https://store.steampowered.com/valveindex) second-hand off a friend in
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IRC. The headset was like new (I just now remembered that I bought it used as I
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was writing this article) and it allowed me to experience low-latency PC VR in
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its true form. I had used my husband's Vive a bit, but this was the first time
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that it really stuck for me.
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It also ruined me horribly and now going back to wireless VR via Wi-Fi is
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difficult because I can't help but notice the latency. I am ruined.
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## Version 3.x: VRM and VSeeFace
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Doing all this with a VR headset works, but it really does get uncomfortable and
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warm after a while. Strapping a display to your head makes your head get
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surprisingly warm after a while. It can also be slightly claustrophobic at
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times. Not to mention the fact that VR eats up all the system resources trying
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to render things into your face at 120 frames per second as consistently as
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possible.
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Other VTubers on Twitch and YouTube don't always use VR headsets for their
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streams though. They use software that attempts to pick out their face from a
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webcam and then attempts to map changes in that face to a 2d/3d model. After
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looking over several options, I arbitrarily chose
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[VSeeFace](https://www.vseeface.icu/). When I have it all set up with my [VRM
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model](/blog/vrchat-avatar-to-vrm-vtubing-2022-01-02) that I converted from
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VRChat, the VSeeFace UI looks something like this:
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The green point cloud you see on the left of this is the data that VSeeFace is
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inferring from the webcam data. It uses that to pick out a small set of
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animations for my avatar to do. This only really tracks a few sound animations
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(the sounds of vowels "A", "I", "U", "E", "O") and some emotions ("fun",
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"angry", "joy", "sorrow", "surprised").
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This is enough to create a reasonable facsimile of speech. It's not perfect. It
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really could be _a lot better_, but it is very cheap to calculate and leaves a
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lot of CPU headroom for games and other things.
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[VRChat uses microphone audio to calculate what <a
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href="https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/unity/audio-ovrlipsync-viseme-reference/">speech
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sounds</a> you are actually making, and this allows for capturing consonant
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sounds as well. The end result with that is a bit higher quality and is a lot
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better for tech talks and other things where you expect people to be looking at
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your face for shorter periods of time. Otherwise webcam based vowel sounds are
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good enough.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
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It works though. It's enough for Twitch, my coworkers and more to appreciate it.
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I'm gonna make it better in the future, but I'm very, very happy with the
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progress I've made so far with this.
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Especially seeing as I have no idea what I am doing with Unity, Blender and
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other such programs.
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[Advice for people trying to use Unity for messing with things like spring bone
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damping force constants: take notes. Do it. You will run into cases where you
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mess with something for a half an hour, unclick the play button in Unity and
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then watch all your customization go down the drain. I had to learn this the
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hard way. Don't do what I did.](conversation://Cadey/coffee)
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## Future Plans
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Right now my VTubing setup doesn't have a way for me to track my hands. I tend
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to emote with my hands when I am explaining things. When I am doing that on
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stream with the VTubing setup, I feel like an idiot.
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[VMagicMirror](https://malaybaku.github.io/VMagicMirror/en/index) would let me
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do hand tracking with my webcam, but I may end up getting a [Leap
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Motion](https://www.ultraleap.com/product/leap-motion-controller/) to do hand
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tracking with VSeeFace. Most of the other VTubing scene seems to have Leap
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Motions for hand tracking, so I may follow along there.
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I want to use this for a conference talk directly related to my employer. I have
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gotten executive signoff for doing this, so it shouldn't be that hard assuming I
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can find a decent subject to talk about.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I officially double dare you</p>— apenwarr (@apenwarr) <a href="https://twitter.com/apenwarr/status/1476592790201303041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 30, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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I also want to make the model a bit more expressive than it currently is. I am
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limited by the software I use, so I may have to make my own, but for something
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that is largely a hackjob I'm really happy with this experience.
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Right now my avatar is very, very unoptimized. I want to figure out how to make
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it a lot more optimized so that I can further reduce GPU load on my machine
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rendering it. Less GPU for the avatar means more GPU for games.
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I also want to create a conference talk stage thing that I can use to give talks
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on and record the results more easily in higher resolution and detail. I'm very
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much in early research stages for it, but I'm calling it "Bigstage". If you see
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me talking about that online, that's what I'm referring to.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">starting to draw out the design for Bigstage (a VR based conference stage for me to prerecord talk videos on <a href="https://t.co/n8osEv9BQI">pic.twitter.com/n8osEv9BQI</a></p>— Xe Iaso (@theprincessxena) <a href="https://twitter.com/theprincessxena/status/1470763334400159747?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 14, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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---
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I hope this was an amusing trip through all of the things I use to make my
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VTubing work. Or at least pretend to work. I'm doing my best to make sure that I
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document things I learn in forms that are not badly organized YouTube tutorials.
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I have a few things in the pipeline and will stream writing them [on
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Twitch](https://twitch.tv/princessxen) when they are ready to be fully written
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out.
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This post was written live on Twitch.
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You can catch the VOD on Twitch [here](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1261737101).
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If the Twitch link 404's, you can catch the VOD on YouTube
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[here](https://youtu.be/BYIlYMM6_Cw).
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The YouTube link will not be live immediately when this post is, but when it is
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up on Saturday January 15th, you should be able to watch it there to your
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heart's content.
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My favorite chat message from the stream was this:
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> kouhaidev: I guess all of the cool people are using nix
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