“How do you ignite your passion and elevate your skills and experiences to create your ultimate and most successful Freestyle project?”
Art credit: my bestie helagen.art on IG
The Zenith (meaning: “the time at which something is most powerful or successful”) project allows seniors to choose their own final project format! Basically anything goes as long as it excites us, builds on our knowledge, and is related to our elective classes.
In recent years, there has been a rise in “Vtubers”, YouTubers that use virtual characters as their avatars for creating content: be it streaming, gaming, drawing, singing, or just chatting. Their models can be either 3d or 2d and are set up to copy live motion with face tracking. As an Animation student that has one year of Maya experience under his belt, I already had an idea of how the 3d models would be set up. The 2d models, however, proved to be an enigma. And, man, am I a sucker for enigmas.
I chose to create my own original 2D Vtuber model, which challenged me to learn Live2D, an entirely new program. Additionally, I would have to research which face-tracking program would be the best, and how to set that up. Because of my three weeks deadline, after finalizing the concept and fully preparing the artwork in Clip Studio Paint, I only had a week or so to teach myself the program and set up face-tracking. Nonetheless, I managed to pull through.
Process Shots
Showcase
Below is a short showcase video and a presentation expanding on my thought process. It also includes a Live2D demo and a little extra at the end!
Zenith Reflection
Overview of the project and some final thoughts in an audio format!