A VTuber is a content creator who uses a virtual character to represent themselves, usually animated avatars inspired by anime. VTubers live on YouTube and similar video platforms quite successfully, and despite being influenced by anime culture, they produce videos on various topics.
What does the word VTuber mean?
VTuber is an abbreviation of the expression virtual youtuber, that is, a youtuber who has decided to remain anonymous and not show his real image, replacing it with that of a computer-generated character, more typical of the virtual world.
What is the origin of the VTuber phenomenon?
This phenomenon originated in Japan in 2011 with the appearance on YouTube of Ami Yamato, an entertaining 3D animated character that represents a Japanese woman with a fairly extroverted character. Later, Kizuna AI emerged in 2016 in that same country, who managed to become a great celebrity and contributed to expanding the VTuber phenomenon to other latitudes, in addition to having been the one who coined the expression virtual youtuber.
There are currently tens of thousands of VTubers, a number that can increase with the use of new artificial intelligence tools, with the Gawr Gura avatar produced by the Hololive company being the most popular on YouTube with 4.4 million subscribers. .
How to become a VTuber
In addition to generating content to interact with the audience they are targeting, a VTuber must have the software to create their virtual identity, generally, specific computer programs for VTubers that integrate functions to create animated 3D avatars, personalize them, control their movements and synchronize your facial expressions with the creator’s voice and finally have it broadcast live on YouTube, TikTok, Twitch or similar sites.
These programs include Steam’s VTuber Maker, VTube Studio (in 2D), Vroid Studio, and Facerig. Other tools that can help design 3D models are Blender, Photoshop and VMagicMirror. On the other hand, the computer from which the live broadcasts will be broadcast must necessarily have a webcam.