How I Created a 3D VTuber Avatar Without Paying a Dime

[00:03] Hello my YouTube friends!

[00:06] Believe it or not this fully animated 3D

[00:09] Vtuber cost me exactly $0 to make and the

[00:14] best part you can build one just like

[00:17] this and have it running in

[00:19] OBS in less than 15 minutes.

[00:21] I'm going to show you the completely free

[00:23] software stack for creating, tracking and

[00:27] how to bridge all of this into OBS for

[00:30] your next live stream.

[00:32] We're going from blank canvas to

[00:33] broadcast ready so you

[00:35] know what, let's get to it!

[00:38] I don't want to be repetitive today so

[00:40] everything I'm going to show you is

[00:42] completely free and there is a link to

[00:45] each piece in the description down below

[00:47] so you can download it and follow along.

[00:50] That is the best way to learn.

[00:52] Let's get right into character creation.

[00:55] So to set up our model we're going to go

[00:56] ahead and use Vroid Studio.

[00:59] It's totally free, you can see it's for

[01:00] Windows, Mac and you can download it on

[01:03] Steam or of course the App Store.

[01:05] We're going to go with Windows and it

[01:07] just puts it in there so now we need to

[01:09] just go to our download folder.

[01:11] Once it's downloaded we're going to go

[01:12] ahead and just double click on it and you

[01:14] don't need to put this in any special

[01:15] place just click next and we're going to

[01:17] create a desktop shortcut by clicking

[01:20] next and it's just going to install.

[01:22] And it's that easy we can just click

[01:24] Launch Vroid Studio and finish.

[01:26] Boom!

[01:27] There it is.

[01:28] So we're going to click Get Started and

[01:30] agree to the terms and since I'm going to

[01:32] show you what to do we're just going to

[01:34] go ahead and click Skip.

[01:35] Alright so this is

[01:36] Vroid Studio right here.

[01:38] For whatever reason the sample models

[01:39] isn't working, doesn't really matter.

[01:41] We're going to go

[01:42] ahead and create a new one.

[01:43] We want a masculine one.

[01:44] Really they pretty

[01:45] much both look the same.

[01:46] You can use your scroll

[01:47] wheel to zoom in and out.

[01:49] You can use your right

[01:50] mouse button to spin it around.

[01:52] See it at all the angles.

[01:53] If you press your scroll wheel you can

[01:55] move this guy around like this.

[01:57] All of this is pretty much

[01:58] exactly what you would expect.

[02:01] If you've ever done character creation

[02:03] for any kind of video game

[02:05] this is like that on steroids.

[02:08] You literally have access to every bit

[02:12] and piece of your character.

[02:15] On the face you can move every piece.

[02:18] Your ears, your nose, your mouth.

[02:22] You can change all of those things up but

[02:25] it goes a lot farther because you can

[02:27] adjust the whole body, the torso and

[02:30] every aspect of the clothing.

[02:33] And I could certainly go through every

[02:34] bit and piece but since I'm sure that

[02:37] you've already done character creation in

[02:40] a game just imagine character creation

[02:43] where you have access to every bit and

[02:46] piece on that character.

[02:49] There is one thing that I want to show

[02:51] you though because while you can modify

[02:54] these characters in any way you see fit

[02:56] it doesn't make any sense for me to tell

[02:59] you that but not show

[03:00] you how you can do it.

[03:02] Obviously that's not

[03:03] the look I'm going for.

[03:04] I'd rather have him look like he's

[03:05] wearing blue jeans or something.

[03:07] So what we can do is go to custom up here

[03:09] and we can adjust them.

[03:11] I already did the adjustment on these but

[03:13] I'll go ahead and show you how I did it.

[03:15] I'm just going to go to edit texture

[03:17] right here and it'll come up here with

[03:19] some colors, base colors and otherwise

[03:21] and I'm going to move him over here so we

[03:24] can see how the colors work and we'll go

[03:26] to the base color and I'm just going to

[03:28] go with some blue jeans, go with darker

[03:31] ones like that and we can have our accent

[03:34] color here and we want it to be blue but

[03:38] it can be dark like that.

[03:40] That'll work.

[03:41] So we can click out of here and we can

[03:43] save the item or close without saving.

[03:45] It'll still save the

[03:46] colors that we have right here.

[03:48] Now our shirt doesn't actually look black

[03:51] which we want it to be black so we're

[03:53] going to do the same thing.

[03:54] We're going to edit our texture and we're

[03:55] going to come in here and

[03:57] we're going to go black.

[03:58] There we go.

[03:59] So what if we wanted

[04:00] to add a big logo here?

[04:01] Well you would think you'd be able to

[04:03] just click it here and input your logo

[04:05] but it doesn't really work like that.

[04:08] And what we would do is right click on

[04:10] here and export and it's just going to

[04:12] export this layer PNG right here.

[04:16] So we're just going to save that and then

[04:17] we're just going to go

[04:18] into an editing software.

[04:21] In this case I use Photopita.

[04:23] It's totally free.

[04:24] I'll leave a link in the description.

[04:26] We can just drag our layer on there.

[04:29] Super easy.

[04:30] And then download whatever logo you want,

[04:33] drag it on and all we have to do is put

[04:36] it where we want it or shrink it up.

[04:38] Now needless to say there would be a

[04:39] little bit of warping or something like

[04:41] that because these are 3D assets.

[04:45] So one of the things that you could do if

[04:46] you wanted to is take this logo and maybe

[04:50] give it a little bit of a shift and then

[04:53] stretch it like this a little bit.

[04:55] It'll look a little weird here but it

[04:58] will look better on your character.

[05:01] And then we're going to click the check

[05:02] mark and we're going to go with file and

[05:05] export PNG and we can just

[05:08] call this whatever we want.

[05:10] And then what we can do is go back into

[05:12] here and all we have to do is go to our

[05:15] layers here and click on the image and

[05:18] just go to our downloads where that just

[05:20] went and click on it

[05:22] and click open and boom.

[05:24] There it is.

[05:25] And then all you have to do is remove

[05:27] your base color and you can see that it

[05:29] shows up and looks pretty good.

[05:32] Now you can go in here and tweak this up

[05:34] in your photopea so it's exactly how you

[05:37] want it or whatever but for the purposes

[05:40] of this that looks pretty good.

[05:42] We can click on here and save our tops so

[05:45] it's going to save it as an item.

[05:47] So we can come in here anytime if we

[05:49] wanted to dress them up in a different

[05:50] way and boom it's

[05:52] going to still be there.

[05:54] The last thing we have we've

[05:55] got to do is our socks here.

[05:57] Those look like socks that we would use.

[06:00] And right here we want to go with shoes

[06:02] and I'm going to go with a pair of

[06:04] sneakers of some sort.

[06:05] These kind of look like Jordans.

[06:07] I like it.

[06:08] That will work just fine.

[06:09] So now we've got our character all

[06:12] created and we can go into

[06:14] accessories and add them.

[06:16] There aren't really any in here.

[06:18] We can also look at our character and

[06:20] adjust or outline the width.

[06:22] All that sort of stuff.

[06:24] Add rim light shading, eye alignment,

[06:26] change up the bones,

[06:28] whatever you want to do.

[06:29] So you can get

[06:30] accessories and all that stuff.

[06:31] I'm going to show you how

[06:32] you can do that as well.

[06:34] But pretty much once you're done you're

[06:36] just going to want to

[06:37] save your character.

[06:38] So we're going to come up here and click

[06:40] export as VRM and we can reduce polygons

[06:44] and all that sort of stuff.

[06:45] But there's no real need to do any of

[06:47] that if you have a

[06:48] reasonably decent graphics card.

[06:50] So what we're going to do is export.

[06:52] It's going to bring this up.

[06:53] Now the program we're going to use is

[06:54] going to be a VRM 0 and all we have to do

[06:57] is put the name of

[06:58] our character in there.

[06:59] We'll call this one Mike

[07:00] and the creator is also Mike.

[07:03] And basically that's about all the

[07:04] information that we have to put in here.

[07:07] And we can put redistribution prohibited

[07:09] at whatever blah blah blah and export.

[07:12] It processes this up and we just get to

[07:14] decide where we want it to go.

[07:16] So that looks good.

[07:17] We'll save it right there.

[07:18] And now we're exported and

[07:20] ready to get this thing working.

[07:22] Now you could spend hours or even days

[07:24] creating your character.

[07:27] Every aspect can be modified and you can

[07:29] open each asset and paint your own bits

[07:32] and pieces if you're

[07:34] artistically inclined.

[07:35] That works exactly the

[07:36] same as the logo on the shirt.

[07:39] Every asset from the face to the shoes

[07:41] can be downloaded and modified.

[07:43] So to use these models with OBS we're

[07:46] going to go ahead and use

[07:47] a program called VC's face.

[07:49] It's totally free.

[07:50] All you have to do is

[07:51] click here to download it.

[07:54] Boom it downloads.

[07:55] Go to our download page and what we're

[07:57] going to do is right click and unzip it.

[07:59] And there is really no install here.

[08:02] You just run it right from here.

[08:04] So what we're going to do is right click

[08:06] and copy this and then we're going to

[08:08] take it and put it somewhere.

[08:09] We'll be able to find it later.

[08:11] So we'll just stick it over here.

[08:12] I'm going to right click and paste it.

[08:14] And we'll double click in here and we are

[08:17] going to right click on the faces here

[08:19] and we're going to copy as path.

[08:21] Then what we're going to do is go to our

[08:23] desktop right click and

[08:24] we're going to go to new.

[08:26] Shortcut and we're going to paste that

[08:27] path and click next and finish and boom.

[08:30] Now we have a shortcut on our desktop.

[08:32] We can just double click on

[08:34] that and we're ready to go.

[08:35] All right.

[08:36] So here it is.

[08:37] VC face loading an avatar is super easy.

[08:41] We already created one.

[08:42] So we're just going to add it.

[08:43] Click opened and then we can set our

[08:45] camera camera settings all this stuff.

[08:48] You can just click recommended settings.

[08:50] It'll scan your system and put the best

[08:53] settings possible right here.

[08:55] You can select our dude.

[08:56] We actually see him down here.

[08:58] Just click start and you can

[08:59] see it works really really good.

[09:02] When I blink it blinks.

[09:03] When my mouth moves it moves.

[09:05] It really does a nice job but you will

[09:08] see that my hands don't really work and

[09:11] that's really kind of the only bummer.

[09:13] Now there are free plugins that allow you

[09:15] to add hand tracking to CV face but I

[09:18] found them to be pretty

[09:20] bad and add a lot of latency.

[09:22] So I found another solution for face

[09:24] tracking with hand tracking built in.

[09:26] Let me show you.

[09:27] So to control our little guy we're going

[09:29] to use this program called Warudo and we

[09:32] could just go over here and click

[09:33] download and you can see that the

[09:36] unfortunate aspect of this is you have to

[09:37] download it on steam.

[09:39] It's really easy to get a steam account

[09:41] and all that sort of stuff.

[09:43] So I'm just going to go ahead and open

[09:44] steam and we're going to search for it

[09:46] and it's totally free.

[09:47] So we're just going to add it to our

[09:48] library and then we can just go over into

[09:51] our library here and

[09:52] find it and install it.

[09:54] So once it's

[09:55] installed we can just run it.

[09:56] Only thing annoying about this is that it

[09:58] has to run the steam

[09:59] client while it's running.

[10:01] So next we want to click on basic setup

[10:03] and so we're going to go ahead and select

[10:05] our character folder.

[10:06] In this case I have a character saved so

[10:10] this will be the folder.

[10:11] So what I'm going to do is cut our

[10:13] character and we're going to open the

[10:15] character folder here and I'm just going

[10:16] to paste it in there.

[10:17] And close all that stuff out.

[10:19] Then I'm going to drop this down and we

[10:21] can select Mike and click OK.

[10:23] And we're going to go ahead and let it

[10:24] help us configure our motion capture.

[10:27] So do we want to track full body?

[10:29] Probably not.

[10:30] Upper body.

[10:30] Yes.

[10:31] We don't have Leap Motion controllers.

[10:33] We don't have an iPhone or iPad that

[10:35] supports face ID because not everybody's

[10:37] going to have one but we

[10:38] do have a working webcam.

[10:40] That's our working webcam.

[10:41] We're going to click OK

[10:42] and then face tracking.

[10:43] There's a whole bunch of

[10:44] different ones that you can use.

[10:46] We're going to go ahead and start with a

[10:47] media pipe and we can customize our face

[10:49] tracking right here with different info.

[10:52] We know our blend was already VMR zero.

[10:54] So and body movements.

[10:56] Yes.

[10:56] Auto blinking.

[10:57] Yes.

[10:58] Eye movements.

[10:58] Yes.

[10:59] Head movements.

[10:59] Yes.

[11:00] And all this stuff is pretty good.

[11:03] Lip Sync.

[11:03] We're going to go ahead and click yes.

[11:05] We're going to select our microphone and

[11:07] we're going to go ahead and

[11:08] click yes on there and click OK.

[11:10] And we can customize our post tracking so

[11:12] we can use the keyboard the

[11:13] trackpad all this sort of stuff.

[11:16] Mere tracking fingers

[11:17] only and all that's fine.

[11:20] We're going to leave that and click OK.

[11:22] Yes.

[11:22] We want to import the expressions of

[11:24] course and click OK.

[11:25] And it tells you what your expressions

[11:27] are and how to access

[11:28] them with the shortcut keys.

[11:31] So take a picture of this or whatever.

[11:33] Write it down somewhere

[11:34] so you know what they are.

[11:35] We're going to click OK and we want to

[11:37] use a transparent

[11:38] background and we're done.

[11:39] So here we go.

[11:40] There are all kinds of settings that you

[11:43] can change and move and do so that you

[11:46] could literally set

[11:47] this up any way you want.

[11:49] You can change your environment.

[11:50] You can change the directional light.

[11:52] This will affect how your character looks

[11:54] and all that kind of stuff.

[11:56] It's really pretty amazing.

[11:57] Then we've got our character right here

[11:59] and we can go through and mess around

[12:01] with different media pipe settings and

[12:03] everything else on how this is handled.

[12:05] And we can change the shortcuts for our

[12:08] emotions if we want.

[12:10] So all of this stuff is in here.

[12:12] We can save animation profiles.

[12:14] The amount of customization that this

[12:16] program has is absolutely unbelievable.

[12:20] It's really really awesome.

[12:22] And then of course the media pipe.

[12:23] This is the motion tracker.

[12:25] We can go down here and what we want to

[12:26] do is go ahead and

[12:27] calibrate the face tracking.

[12:29] And then what we want to do is we could

[12:31] change the global sensitivity and all

[12:33] that stuff on here if we like.

[12:34] Our eye blinking

[12:35] sensitivity and all that stuff.

[12:38] And then hand tracking.

[12:39] We want to calibrate our hand tracking.

[12:41] So put your hands up and

[12:42] then go ahead and calibrate it.

[12:44] And there we go.

[12:45] So now when we go down here you can see.

[12:47] Now I don't know what this stuff is.

[12:49] So this gives you your frames per second.

[12:51] How fast it's tracking you.

[12:53] All that sort of stuff.

[12:56] And there we go.

[12:58] Turn the pendulum physics off.

[13:00] If you want that stuff off you can see

[13:02] over here it shows you your

[13:03] hand tracking when it's on.

[13:05] But we really need to kind of move

[13:07] ourselves or zoom ourselves out.

[13:09] So we can just go in the window.

[13:12] Zoom ourselves in and out.

[13:14] Basically move it around just like you

[13:15] did on the other piece.

[13:17] Rotate it around.

[13:18] So there we go.

[13:19] And of course we've got all of our hand

[13:21] movements and everything else.

[13:23] Now all we have to do

[13:24] is get this into OBS.

[13:25] Go ahead and click the plus.

[13:27] And this time we're going

[13:28] to do a video game capture.

[13:29] You can have as many of

[13:30] these in there as you want.

[13:31] We'll just call this VTube.

[13:33] Click OK.

[13:34] And we're going to go ahead

[13:35] and capture a specific window.

[13:37] We're going to drop this down

[13:38] and select the right window.

[13:40] Right.

[13:40] There we go.

[13:41] And then we're going

[13:41] to allow transparency.

[13:43] And that's it.

[13:44] Now all we have to do is

[13:45] place this wherever we want.

[13:46] And there you go.

[13:47] We're all set.

[13:49] Now I don't think this one is quite as

[13:51] expressive as the other one.

[13:52] Let me show you what I mean.

[13:54] If we go into our game capture again.

[13:57] Let me go to VTube.

[13:58] Let's just call this one VC.

[14:01] And what we're going to do is capture a

[14:02] specific window once again.

[14:04] And allow the transparency.

[14:05] Click OK.

[14:07] And there we go.

[14:07] So now we have two of them

[14:09] running at the same time.

[14:10] So you can see the

[14:11] difference in expression.

[14:12] Now I get it.

[14:13] This stuff is on here.

[14:15] It's really easy to get rid of these.

[14:17] All you have to do is

[14:18] hold down the alt key.

[14:19] And you can drag these off.

[14:21] And there we go.

[14:22] So I don't know.

[14:23] What do you think?

[14:24] Obviously it is really nice

[14:25] to be able to use your hands.

[14:27] But we've got VC on the left.

[14:29] And we've got Warudo on the right.

[14:32] Which allows you to

[14:34] use your hands and stuff.

[14:35] But I still think VC is much more

[14:37] expressionate and all that sort of stuff.

[14:40] And of course I have to use two different

[14:42] webcams in order to make this work.

[14:44] Because the same webcam can't share both

[14:46] without a lot of latency.

[14:48] But it just seems to me like there is a

[14:51] lot more expressive

[14:52] activities going on with VC.

[14:55] So it's up to you.

[14:57] And they're both free.

[14:58] So try them out.

[14:59] Now let me know what you think about the

[15:01] two trackers in the comments below.

[15:04] And do you want to

[15:04] see more about VTubing?

[15:06] There are a lot of different

[15:08] things that we can explore.

[15:10] From where to find assets, to creating

[15:12] and modifying the stock assets.

[15:14] And even advanced

[15:15] movements and character setups.

[15:17] Let me know about it

[15:18] down in the comments.

[15:20] And if you want something even simpler

[15:22] you should check out

[15:23] this video on PNG tubing.

[15:25] It's all totally free there as well.

[15:27] And if you're always looking for tools,

[15:29] tips and tricks to help make you a better

[15:31] live streamer or YouTuber,

[15:32] subscribe to the channel.

[15:34] My name is Michael Fire Jr.

[15:35] Thank you so much for watching.

[15:37] Have a great day.

[15:39] And I'll see you in the next one.