Became the Mother of Virtual YouTubers - Chapter 119

“By the way, is there anything else we need to do before the official opening besides expanding the server and diversifying the ending branches?”

Jin Ha, who had been scrolling quickly on the hologram screen, paused for a moment and fell into thought.

“Hm… It’s not very urgent for me, but it’s quite urgent for Roji. We have an issue with our NPC.”

“Is there a problem?”

“It’s not a bug, but we need to increase the numbers. Additionally, we need to upgrade the overall quality.”

The most feedback received during this beta test (actually the only feedback) was that the village felt empty.

Clearly, the village was large enough that one would have to spend half a day wandering around to see everything, yet the only living residents necessary for the game to run were the essential NPCs.

Shop NPCs, and the goddess in charge of healing and resurrection.

For something confidently claimed as a ‘world,’ the composition was rather shabby.

“Well… mass-producing NPC models is a piece of cake. The humanoid models have already been templated anyway.”

There’s no need to run any AI.

After inserting the randomly set parameters, generating the models, and tidying them up, that would be the end of it.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s an orc or an elf.

For the orc, just increase its size abnormally and build up the muscle, then make its jaw broad.

For the elf, just touch the ears and change the face to a model type.

One head, two arms, and two legs for bipedal motion?

That’s all within Jin Ha’s coverage.

“The problem lies in the AI model to be integrated into the NPCs. We’ll need a more advanced AI language model than we currently have.”

Roji burst into an awkward laugh at Jin Ha’s comment.

“No way… is it because of Yu Da-hee?”

Jin Ha slowly nodded with a serious expression.

“Then why did you include Summer’s play log? Streamers and viewers’ expectations have skyrocketed through the roof.”

“Ahaha…”

“If it weren’t for that, we wouldn’t have had to bother upgrading the quality of the AI model for the NPCs.”

Basically, Jin Ha was just creating more work for herself, and she immediately chided Roji.

But Roji didn’t feel a hint of shame about her actions.

“Still! Thanks to that, we captured an incredible legendary scene! Right?!”

“That… can’t be denied.”

Surprisingly, the content with the highest views among the beta test videos for Jinro World was not the thrilling boss raid with the streamer guild, nor Winter’s heart-pounding Easter egg hunt.

It was none other than Summer’s chaotic otherworldly life.

While other streamers enjoyed the game merely as ‘players,’ Summer lived as a ‘resident’ of the village as if she had completely dimension-traveled.

She would often run to the temple and embarrass the village’s only saint, no, goddess.

She wandered the village streets singing her outlandish self-composed songs, creating noise pollution.

She would randomly pick fights with shopkeepers who were otherwise doing fine business and then leave abruptly.

Yet for some reason, no one could help but laugh at her cheerful and carefree demeanor.

Especially, in the last minute just before the beta service ended.

The scene where the goddess, Yu Da-hee, and Summer squatted side by side on the temple roof looking at the stars in the night sky attracted over 40,000 viewers who watched in real-time.

It was very brief, but it even surpassed Wugi, one of the top trio of Pasta.

[I’m going to take a little trip.]

[But I will be back soon.]

[When I return… I hope you will call my name again.]

[Even if you don’t remember me, it’s okay.]

[I will seep into your heart, over and over again.]

Yu Da-hee, with tears welling up in her eyes from the sadness, grieved that she didn’t want to forget this time, a scene she replayed dozens of times.

Soaking an entire tissue box with her tears, Roji made a resolution.

She wouldn’t compromise just because it’s a game.

With the mindset of creating a single world, she would raise the quality to the extreme.

“Well, putting the language and personality models into the NPCs is Roji’s role.”

Jin Ha, having also been touched by this, had no intention of stopping Roji from being ambitious.

“In the meantime, I still need to work more on the demon race modeling.”

Instead, she would upgrade her own work to match it or even go beyond it.

“Isn’t the demon race model sufficient as it is?”

“Only the humanoid ones. They all have movements based largely on bipedalism, so they feel quite dull.”

Jin Ha slowly turned her head and examined the illustration of monsters displayed on another hologram window.

Creating high-quality 3D models with human-like forms and similar movements was something Jin Ha was unparalleled in globally.

Jin Ha’s next goal was realistic animation for non-humanoid models.

Of course, she had previously undertaken similar tasks while creating the VR TRPG.

Generating arbitrary 3D models.

Automatically generating skeletons for them (Auto Rigging).

Moreover developing technology to automatically connect the skeletons to 3D models (Auto Skinning).

However, this technology still had clear limitations.

It was a kind of workaround where the animation of humanoid models was used for transfer learning, then weight values were forcibly set to produce plausible results.

“Before the server opens, I guess I’ll have to think about how to diversify and mass-produce the demon race.”

“Ahaha- you really are working hard. Every demon’s mother, Jin Ha.”

At Roji’s joke, Jin Ha smiled slightly.

Well, as the saying goes.

It’s not possible to make beloved children carelessly.

That would be humiliating for Mama.

*

The meeting to summarize the beta test with Roji didn’t end until almost dawn.

This is the problem with VR Chat. Once you enter a private room, unless you check the clock separately, it’s hard to really notice the passage of time.

Moreover, both Jin Ha and Roji had the kind of personality that neglected their health when immersed in work.

Work-life balance? What’s that? If work is life, there’s no need to balance anything, right?

Having finished their marathon meeting and dividing the tasks.

Just before starting work, she barely laid out her bedding and lay down, hoping to catch a short nap.

“sh*t… it’s blinding…”

The morning sunlight coming through the window woke Jin Ha from her sleep.

She groggily got up, closed the curtains, and completely turned off her computer that was in standby mode.

The room, blocked from all outside noise and unnecessary light, had become her own world.

“…Ah, I’m fully awake now.”

Trying to close her eyes again, but there was no way she could sleep.

Even if it was briefly, waking up made her mind clear.

All sorts of formulas and monster models floated around in her head.

Eventually, Jin Ha took a can of coffee from the refrigerator and sat down in front of her computer again.

The 3D model viewer program filled one side of her monitor.

Once she dragged a few files onto it, strange models began to appear amidst the foggy light.

Starting with a jellyfish-type monster draped in multiple tentacles around its body.

A long-legged arthropod-type monster.

And even a wolf-type monster with unnaturally twisted legs.

All of them had failed to implement natural movements and were stored in a temporary folder.

It wasn’t that the animations had failed; the models themselves were decently well made.

Honestly, it felt a bit wasteful to discard them as they were.

If possible, she wanted to salvage them somehow.

“Hm… let’s see…”

Jin Ha stared intently at the demon race models displayed on the screen while lightly rubbing her temple.

Creating basic humanoid characters had become so easy now that she could do it with her eyes closed.

From the movement of muscles and joints to the fine tremors of the skin.

She had already gathered sufficient data and optimized it through numerous past projects.

However, this time the form was too different.

For jellyfish, there’s no framework to begin with.

The arthropod-type monster had too many legs.

Of course, for the quadrupedal wolf, it could be done by twisting the skeleton structure appropriately and transferring the data.

But even this would yield results that were unusable if judged by realistic quality standards.

What Jin Ha desired was not a person imitating a wolf by crawling on four legs.

But a real ‘true’ wolf, where robust muscles tighten and pull when sprinting across the plains.

When growling, its elongated, torn snout grotesquely opens.

“One thing’s for sure, the rigging itself is not the problem.”

In fact, auto-rigging technology was no longer difficult.

The process of analyzing the model shape and embedding skeleton data into the model is perfect.

Jin Ha had completed an algorithm that extracts point clouds based on modeling data and automatically generates joints at appropriate locations by analyzing point density.

The problem was the next step.

“Indeed, the skinning is the issue.”

The skinning process, which creates a natural link between the model surface and internal skeleton, was one of the most problematic areas when implementing animations for humanoid models.

To make the model deform naturally when the skeleton moves.

Ultimately, thousands and tens of thousands of weight values existing between numerous points in the model and the skeleton had to be adjusted.

Simply put, it’s like solving an equation with as many variables as the number of polygons.

Formulas might seem simple in a world where copying the entire equation and pasting it into a chatbot will yield results with just a click.

The real issue lies in defining the formula itself.

“Bundling the non-humanoids entirely is too wide a scope to handle.”

Therefore, first categorizing creatures according to animations.

Solving the complicated problem piece by piece and then merging it into one huge model is what Jin Ha does best.