How to become a VTuber

This is how Virtual YouTubers gained a huge fan base, offering their gorgeous creativity and novelty. For creators, VTubing is a great avenue for self-expression through animated characters, while for viewers, this format of content is received with much more activity and engagement compared to others.

While VTubing has gained momentum, its strong points remain in its special anime-like art and that conceptually, one is able to make up a character that could well be fully fictitious. This openness to imagination can mean some VTubers will come up with elaborate characters while others will just use the system to have fun and express themselves more authentically. This makes the VTuber experience dynamic and able to change at will, testing out other designs and backgrounds.

In many ways, technically speaking, it's not much different than traditional streaming. However, to get to the slightly higher barrier of entry for specialized equipment requirements one needs to be dealt with. First things first, you will need to have a proper idea of what your channel is supposed to be about and what your content is going to look and feel like.

This post covers everything one needs to know in order to become a successful VTuber.

How to be a VTuber

1) Get a decent gaming PC

As powerful as modern PCs have become, there remains one absolute necessity in delivering the best VTubing experience: a strong gaming rig. A strong PC means seamless performance during streams-especially on more demanding games.

Well, rendering of your avatar can be very resource-intensive. Since you invest in an effective gaming PC, it will ensure smooth performance and never drop any frames while streaming. Remember, this is going to be important for the viewers' experience.

Of course, if you cannot invest in an ultra-powerful PC, then temporarily disabling your avatar when the game gets too heavy and enabling it again during breaks or when you want to interact with your chat is a good way to balance performance with the least inconvenience to viewers.

2) Get a good webcam and microphone

With that said, it's only fair to note that the heart of VTubing-an animated avatar hosting your channel-needs another essential component: a great webcam. A good webcam captures even minute facial expressions and movements, thus creating lively moments with your avatar and allowing for better viewer interaction. It is always those minor smirks that sometimes make one moment in your stream memorable.

Pairing a high-end webcam with a premium microphone might lure your viewer's eyes and ears both visually and audio-wise. A good microphone does not just cover the clarity of sound, but also minimizes background noise and allows you to experiment with changing your voice without making it sound unnatural. Good equipment might provide quite a lot of difference in the VTubing career.

Presenting your professional self will attract the attention of sponsors and agencies. Having equipment available shows that you are very serious about VTubing, and it can help you make a lasting impression to bring you closer to your dream partnerships.

3) Create or buy an avatar

The first thing that one needs to start VTubing is an interesting avatar. If one has graphic skills, they can make their avatar in programs like Live2D, one of the more available user-friendly types of advanced avatar-creation software.

For people who don't want to show their faces, an avatar is important in making a distinctive online identity. Whereas having one consistent avatar might help you reinforce your brand, it may be the best thing that you could do in order to change it later once you have built a very strong following.

If you don't know how to create an avatar, then you might want to consider hiring a professional artist who can design an avatar custom-fit to your ideas. Professional artists can also instruct you about how to use your avatar effectively during streams.

More on the budget-friendly side are options like VDroid. It's quality may be different compared with professionally designed avatars, but this one allows creating an avatar in a more user-friendly manner with its templates and customization options.

Utilize YouTube's search to find tutorials and guides on how to create an avatar. With a little persistence, you'll find informative guidelines to help you through this process.

Next, connect motion tracking software to your avatar, whereby your character can be animated in front of your audience in real-time.

4) Using the facial cam software, your expressions are converted into those of your avatar.

For VTubing to be more interactive and lively, your avatar has to be dynamic and animated; a static one will obviously bore your viewers very fast. You use motion tracking software for that, which turns the avatar into some living, breathing entity-much like Pinocchio.

Several VTubers have adapted the popular face cam programs FaceRig, Wakaru, VTube Studio, and Luppet. If you made your avatar in VDroid, VSeeFace is also an alternative.

Try each software to figure out which one will be most suitable for your preference and skill level. Each one works differently. You will need to find out which one works best for you.

You can make them a part of the content by asking them for suggestions and ideas about what they want to happen or what they believe should go on. Giving them this will make them feel part of it and, in turn, set you up with much better VTubing.

Most of the facecam programs will have comprehensive tutorials to bring you through their setup process. You will have to add your avatar in the software, set up your webcam and microphone, adjust your avatar's posture, and so on.

5) Set up your recording/streaming tool with your avatar

Once you have created your avatar, the core elements of VTubing are in place. The remaining steps now closely relate to traditional content creation: recording with your avatar on screen.

The actual process of integrating your avatar into your streaming software will vary, depending on which platform you chose to go with. OBS probably is the most used option for streaming. It lets you overlay your output from facial cam software onto the screen you want to capture, effectively a picture-in-picture effect.

If you are having issues with your recording program of choice, try searching up online tutorials with keywords like "X recording program VTubing tutorial" or "How to stream two screens at once on X recording program."

Even with large steps forward in technology, there is still the possibility of some accidental happenstance. Some programs may act strangely when you are off-screen; this includes exposing your avatar as if it were not there. Make sure to test and set up everything without a flaw, so this circumstance doesn't occur.

Don't be discouraged if you have initial difficulties with your stream; often, the technical difficulties can be resolved, and it adds a lot of humor to your stream. The best VTubers, in fact, are great at these situations with grace and make them entertaining for their audience.

Also, do test recordings ahead of the beginning of your live streams, in order to make an assessment of your avatar performance and find any problems. This will let you improve on these minute details so that you're seen in a more polished and professional light by your target audience.

The VTuber is successful when original, creative, and committed to making content that is quite special and entertaining for viewers.