Chapter 2: Technical Detail

Monday came unexpectedly fast. After some self-studying during the weekend, Hiro returned to the dilapidated office. Before him, all the office workers wore casual clothing, which made Hiro tilt his head in confusion.

"Hmm? New guy?" A passerby office worker greeted him.

"Um… Yes. Mr. David said I would be trained for the work I was going to do— "ARGGHHH!!!! DAMN YOU ALL!!"" A scream resounded from one of the private rooms in the office. Hiro stared at the door agape.

"Is the door not closed properly?" An office worker sighed, and a janitor hurriedly scampered toward the door, closing it with a thud.

"Wait, wait. Wait a minute. Why is that girl screaming?" But before Hiro could ask further, a petite girl with bob-cut hair opened the door and apologized with an embarrassed smile.

"Sorry, everyone. I just lost a Mario Kart tournament. Please don't mind me." She said and closed the door properly this time. Her bell-like sound betrayed her death-metal scream earlier.

"Ah, Hirojimi Tanaka? This way, please." Marie said as she welcomed him from behind. Hiro arrived at noon. He frowned a little at the work ethics of the CEO's daughter as she brought him to her office. It was an empty room with a computer, two monitors, a headset, and a mic. It was pretty similar to what he expected from a YouTuber's setup.

"So, first of all, welcome to VeeIdol Corporations. I am Marienne, your fellow Vtuber senior working in this company. First of all, log into your account, and there, you will see your status."

[Insert Images]
Lore
Name:	None	Races	unknown
Age	None	Sex	unknown
Biography:
Stats
Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
Follower/subscriber	0	Favourites	0
Average Views	0	Membership	0
Total Views	0	Status	Active

"Ahh, I see. But there are a lot of empty fields here." Hiro asked his first question. He finally realized that Marie was not related at all to David. Idols were often recruited young, and in fact, Marie was already a bit too old for the idol industry.

"She must be a former idol or something. That's why she was hired despite being young." Hiro thought to himself, finally getting rid of the idea that Marie was a spoiled CEO's daughter.

"Yes. Since you are new, we have not made your avatar yet. Please think of lore for your character. You will be trained using our default practice Live2D program named Yui." She booted up her computer and turned on the camera located on top of the monitor. It showed Hiro's ugly and obese picture, which made him retch.

However, the image soon turned into a cute anime girl. The software incorporated inside the computer read Hiro's facial expressions. It used the data to mold the Live2D anime facial expressions to match Hiro's. When he moved his head, the female character also moved hers. Hiro was elated when he saw his fugly face turned into an anime girl.

"Live2D tracks head, eye, and mouth movements. With it, we can create anime expressions in real-time. That is the foundation of what we do." Marie continued with her customer service explanation, her voice devoid of emotion. She didn't like Hiro, but she knew her prejudice was simply because he was ugly and overweight. His very being was an antithesis of what an idol is. But she didn't like being prejudiced, so she tried to present herself as an impartial professional. While some might say she was cold, Hiro respected her impartiality.

Hiro was flabbergasted at the anime character in front of him. He had always thought the anime characters shown on YouTube were scripted beforehand with 3D models such as MMD or Blender. He also thought millions of dollars and an outrageous amount of time were spent making it by an expert who graduated from Visual Effects and Animation Major. However, this program could make his female character move without much training and also in real-time.

"Ah, but how do I broadcast it on YouTube? The character is inside the monitor. Do I need another camera to point at the monitor?"

"With a program called OBS, it can capture a specific application or your entire screen. Here, let me show you. First, you choose an image or a video as your background, then put it inside a source tab beside the scene tab in your OBS."

"Then, in the settings, you can choose the YouTube service for streaming. You need to put a streaming key into it. But, since we have yet to make your channel, we shall skip that for later. By the way, we do not exclusively stream on YouTube. There are Twitch and Discord as well," Marie explained to him as her hand deftly maneuvered the mouse.

"Understand?"

"Yes, I understand." Hiro nodded. Marie looked at him, surprised.

"Good. You are a quick learner. Could you test it?"

Hiro did exactly as she showed him. Computers were his forte, as he had spent more time on them than in the outside world. He smiled in glee as new knowledge was poured into him. This time, what he learned would directly influence his real job, unlike those scamming schools where he had spent over twenty years and still came out jobless in the end. He silently cursed his school and college, as none of the knowledge they gave him helped him at all in this new job.

"Alright, nice work."

"But what about this green screen behind the character?" Hiro asked.

"You can remove it with the chroma key. Select the image inside OBS and then put a filter on it. Then put the chroma key to remove the filter. Or, you can delete the background directly from the Live2D app itself. It was made compatible specifically with OBS."

"Ah, thank you."

https://youtu.be/QVIAkPV6VqY

Hiro moved his head, opened his mouth, and winked. His less-than-attractive face drove a stifled giggle from Marie as she watched him warmly. After several minutes of playing around, Marie continued with her lecture.

"So, Hiro. What kind of vtuber do you want to be? Ah, by the way, I did not ask you to answer something abstract like 'I want to bring a smile to everyone' or 'I want to bring happiness to my audience.' I want something more concrete. What do you plan to present to your audience? We mainly sing or play games. Some offered consultation as a place to chat."

Hiro was silent. He got the job just yesterday, and while he did his homework and watched several vtubers from VeeIdol Corporations, he never thought he was going to be asked such questions.

"Our company currently has four English vtubers and ten Japanese vtubers. Have you watched some of our vtubers?"

"Yes, I have watched Ruru Rirulia, Sherlie Watason, Ana, and Justina Bitterly. Sorry, but I haven't watched the Japanese ones due to the language barrier," he replied.

"I see. Good. So, what kind of impression do you get from them?"

"Well, Ruru has that sweet voice but that deathly metal scream when she loses a game. Ah! Was that one Ruru?"

"Yes," she smiled.

"Then Sherlie focuses on chatting. Most of her stream is just chatting with her viewers."

"Then Justina has that sexy voice with big boobs."

"And what about Ana?" Marie's eyes sparkled as she mentioned the name. Little did Hiro know that Ana was Marie, and he stupidly gave an honest answer.

"She is normal, I guess...." Hiro said. He could not pinpoint anything wrong about her, and neither could he identify anything good about her. She was a normal idol. She is good at singing, but not as good as the Ak47 group idol. If he had to take note of her, it is that she is the most senior member of the group.

"Ugh... so what if she is normal!! Is it bad?" Marie lashed out. She has taken critical mental damage due to Hiro's honest report. "Ahem. Sorry. Continue on. As you can see, these members all have their own persona that they project to their viewers. Did you know that they also have their own lore? Did you know, for example, that Ruru was a vampire?"

"Well, their species was never mentioned outside of their introduction. But yes, I know them."

"And that's what I want you to think about starting now. Envision what kind of vtuber you want to be. Start out with your lore. The faster you do this homework, the better because that means more time for the artist to draw your model." Marie concluded their orientation.

"Alright. Please come again tomorrow. Your homework for today is to design your background and work on your vtuber persona." Marie sent a message to Hiro about what he should do for tomorrow. It looks short since it only consists of background design and the character's lore, but the abstract wording made Hiro raise an eyebrow. Hiro had never designed anything in his life. He was an inexperienced engineering graduate. However, in the world of engineering, designing was all about safety. Aesthetics and UI were alien to him. When Hiro was about to go home, Marie called out to him.

"One more thing, Hiro. There is an explicit taboo in this industry. You must not, under any circumstances, tell anyone else about your identity as a vtuber, nor should you tell anyone else about others' vtuber identity. This is an ironclad rule, and violation of this rule could lead to severe repercussions."

"Huh? Why?"

"Well, the persona we present to our audience is like a second life to us. It would be a massive spoiler to let the audience know that the persona they saw was just a normal human, right?" Marie smiled, but she strained her voice to emphasize the importance of this rule.

"Okay. I will keep that in mind," Hiro replied. He didn't go home immediately. If he went home, he felt he wouldn't do his job and would instead play games or watch anime, so he chose to sit in the open office lounge and stare at his worksheet.

"Ah, you didn't go home?" Marie asked. Her blouse was neat and tidy. Now that he was relaxed, he appreciated how fancy her fashion sense was. Unlike her, Hiro wore a formal suit, so he didn't look out of place except for his physical appearance. But when he looked at her, he knew how significant the disparity in their social skills was. She was fancy and pleasing to the eye, while Hiro could not even look himself in the mirror without disdain.

"I felt like doing the homework here," he replied.

"Good. Nice attitude. We allow our talents to work from home, but working here is better since they would lend you their computers," Marie answered.

"Hmm? Aren't they supposed to provide us with the equipment anyway?"

"Yes, but you may not bring them home. Are you having trouble providing the equipment at home? To ensure smooth streaming, we require some high-end computers, after all."

"It is fine. I still have a gaming laptop. I saw the computer's specifications in your room. My laptop is about the same. It is enough," Hiro answered. His laptop was an i5 gen 9, while the company used an i3 gen 11. He assumed his comp was better, but he did not want to belittle the company on his first day. All that he needed to buy was another monitor, or maybe he could just plug in his old TV at home to become his second monitor. Some of his old TVs had HDMI or VGA ports, which means they could connect to his computer.

"That's good." Marie smiled genuinely this time. She was impressed by his work ethic.

Hiro then contemplated his vtuber characters the entire day and what he wanted to show.