It creates a "pngtuber" i.e. a static image vtuber. So you get a very limited amount of animation that is voice activated (basically animated discord speaking icons). It's used for streamers who are getting into vtubing but who can't yet afford a full vtubing rig (or the hardware to run it).
The act of being a vtuber where vtuber means "virtual youtuber". Essentially youtubers or streamers in general who don't show their face but instead use an animated character model that is controlled by the user's face and/or body.
Some fancier vtubers use mocap suits for this but generally it's done with phone or desktop based face tracking software. That then maps to control inputs for manipulating the rigged model.
It really does depend. If you are doing full mocap with a rig it gets super expensive.
If you are doing basic 3d you more or less just need a VR setup with hand and feet tracking (still not cheap).
The cheapest hardware wise is your standard face tracking Live2D system. Pretty much just need an iphone (commonly used because they have good face tracking natively) or a webcam based face tracker.
The thing that really makes vtubing expensive is the cost of getting a model. If you aren't making it all yourself, those commissions for the design and then the rigging can very quickly go from a few thousand dollars to well over 10k.
And that video specifically is code miko. Her setup is one of the most expensive setups I've seen to be honest. She built the system herself however nowadays I think she pays a dedicated engineer to develop and maintain tooling for her bespoke setup. It's certainly not normal compared to most vtubers.
Hardware-wise most vtubers don't have much more than a good microphone, a gaming PC, and an iphone (which is much easier to achieve than the setup code miko has)
Avatar is used synonymously with profile picture. If I said I had an "avatar," the last thing you would think of is a fully rigged and mocapped 2d/3d avatar. Notice how I had to qualify the word avatar there ("animated avatar" is hardly specific enough), hence why it has its own name: vtuber.
Get over it. You keep complaining about the word vtuber in this thread, but it's an extremely common and popular term with a whole damn industry behind it.
The term virtual youtuber comes from japanese for what it's worth. It's a loan word of a loan word. It's the term that is used.
And avatar is used in the space. They are "formally" called vtuber avatars or vtuber models. But the occupation/hobby is called vtubing and a person who uses them is a vtuber.
It's not that avatar isn't used. It's just not specific enough to what this is. vtubing rigs specifically aren't exactly general purpose. Some of them are and work as avatars that can be used with mocap or vrchat or whatever but a lot of them just aren't. A lot of them are "Live2D" which is a much more restricted type of model that is effectively various different transform and distortion effects on 2d images to give the perception of 3d motion.
Avatar covers a lot of things. Vtubers are a very specific subculture. They have avatars/models but to just call them avatars sells them quite a bit short of what they are specifically.
This comment, and the fact that you had to make this point twice (three times actually!) in this thread, is some real "old man yells at cloud" energy.
There is nuance to the term that "avatar" doesn't remotely capture. Language is ever-evolving. Keep up with the times, or ignore it. But yelling about going backwards is a waste for you to type and a waste for everyone to read.
> VTuber (Japanese: ブイチューバー, Hepburn: BuiChūbā) or virtual YouTuber (バーチャルユーチューバー, bācharu YūChūbā) is an online entertainer who uses a virtual avatar generated using computer graphics.
“Vtuber” refers to the the virtual persona but also the real person behind the avatar, cf. “Youtuber”, “blogger”. And “avatar” is a much less specific and less informative term than “vtuber”. And anyway the street finds its own names for things.
