#1828：「Back to the Experience」— ワールドホップと合成キャラクターで描くVRChat文化の物語

The Voices of VR Podcast. VR chat, immersive narrative that is really well done. So Jesse Ann has the Virtual Museum of Virtual Art, and so he's done a number of different experiences in the past around calligraphy and last year at Rain Dance kind of featuring a number of different immersive artists. So he's really interested in this gallery space that is allowing you to kind of look at immersive art. And the first world that he did around the art of calligraphy, it's like these 3D calligraphy artists, and he did a really great job of telling the story of that artist. And so what's interesting about this piece is that he's telling the story, the anthropological story of all these various communities within VRChat,

but he's consolidating all of those into like a singular composite character that he ends up telling the story of that character. In VRChat, you have the ability to have local or global audio. So when you go into a world, if only you hear the audio, then it's local. And if everybody hears the same audio, it's global. So he has like this local audio that as you go through this world hop, you are hearing it at your own pace in a way that you go through like 20 different worlds that tells a story in like these four or five different sections and chapters. And so, yeah, just a really brilliant way of using space and architecture to move your body through space, but also to use that as a form of self-directed and self-guided editing of sorts. So the center of gravity is Earth-water. So it is very much centered in this Earth element, the spatial design, the embodied experience of actually being in these worlds and how the architecture is used as a form of storytelling. And then the water as more of this kind of composite character-driven story that is this kind of through line that allows you to go through each of these different 20 worlds,

but each of those worlds are kind of aggregating in different chapters and sections and themes. And then at the end of it, you end up going on this whole spatial journey that gives you an anthropological overview of the culture of VRChat. Because at the end, you end up being able to go into each of the different worlds and the credits that then break down who the original artists were rather than this kind of composite character. So we'll be covering all that and more on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Jessian happened on Monday, September 7th, 2026, at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in. Hi, I'm Jessian, Jessen Huang from China. And I do, actually I started to do VR projects from 2016 and I started to do VR chat projects from the COVID period and I learned architecture, but actually I never worked as an architect. I do VR stuff for 10 years. Nice. Maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background

and your journey into the space. Oh, okay. Actually, we have this talk last year. But we can do it again. So at the very beginning, I only want to try a little kind of format to share my architecture design stuff with the teachers and classmates. Because as you know, if I only use the 2D media, people cannot feel the skill, cannot feel the relationship. But in VR, it's more intuitive. So you don't need to think too much, just feel the space, feel the relationship. But I cannot remember the exact time. But one day, I cannot explain the exact reason, but I feel like VR is a child. It's a very talented child. We have saw he or she is good at something, but if we only use it for the one purpose or one reason, I think it will restrict its development because it has so many possibilities. But it works too much for one reason, so we lost others.

So I think perhaps I try to not use it to work for me. but to find some way we can develop together. So maybe we find some other advantage or characters for VR, and also I can maybe know myself better to do the creation stuff. So after that, I actually didn't do architectural designs, and I tried to learn more from games, from films. Actually, they are my hobbies before I do the VR projects. But from the real project, I learned more from other maybe co-creators or maybe companies. And more and more, yes, already 10 years. Nice. And at what point did you come across VRChat? Yeah, it's during the COVID time. So I'm trying to find some new platform or new place I can do VR stuff and can share to others. actually before that I do

LB stuff so now it's popular but at that time it's about 2019 so it's not still we're alone and we have a brand, we have a company and we even have our own VR store in cinema, a very famous cinema in China but no longer than half a year the COVID comes it doesn't open for more than one year so we have to find some new directions. And actually, during that time, some interesting events are hosted on the VR platform, VRChat, and Venice Immersive is actually one of them. So I've been there for these events. And after that, I saw many possibilities, so I stayed there to find more people and to do projects together. Nice. And so this year, you have a new narrative piece called Back to the Experience by the Virtual Museum of Virtual Art and so maybe you could describe

what is this experience? Oh yeah If the audience have seen the projects before so the last two exhibitions in Vimova, maybe as you have already tried them, so you might see the development one step by one step and so this time is not a sudden project but it's something new based on what we have done before. And this time it's more like a story because we switched one point that we use a virtual character, a composite character. It's from the real creators. But the last time I tried to do a group exhibition and also narrative mix. But the four artists, it already takes more than one hour. And actually I planned it for more artists last time, but the time doesn't allow to do more. And for four artists, it's already good enough for the last experimental. But it's not enough to showcase the diversity of virtual reality, actually.

So this time I switched to that point. And now we have 20 different units, and each one is different from each other. And you can try it in half an hour. So, whoa. Yeah, and it's a composite character who happens to be a part of every major community within VRChat, or at least kind of do a golden path of doing everything that's interesting on the platform. Yeah, yeah. So I guess, where did you begin with this process? Was it through a curation or was it trying to select different worlds? Or like how did you start to piece together the story? Well, actually for the screenplay, it was finished last year. So I prepared a little bit longer than I thought. But yeah, I think the more important thing is to find the right person who can cooperate together. Actually, I played VRChat for years, but I didn't in the public world much. So many times I only was with friends.

So I didn't actually know many people. There are other players that are very well-known and welcomed. So actually I find some trusted friends. They introduced different creators to me. and actually I'm also lucky because I have done the two projects before, so maybe they know them over. They know I treat the creators' creations and also their stories with respect, so it's more like smooth than I thought to connect them. Actually, so I write the screenplay, the whole structure, and of course the stories, some are from my memories with different creators in VRChat, But for the final version, it was replaced to the real creator from different parts. So I do the structure parts, but each part will go to the real one later. And I also prepared different creators because I tried some guys,

but it's not so suitable for this time because they have their personal stuff in real life. So sometimes, yeah, we cannot force anyone. yeah but maybe we can like cooperate later or in the future but this time so I need to find the different creators but yeah there is many talented guys in VR chat so yeah Ian I think we might have talked about this in the previous episode but I think it's worth mentioning again in terms of can you talk about the origin story of the virtual museum of virtual art and how that came about oh yeah yeah we talked about it last time but it's a little bit different because today like we talked about how I treat VR as a child. So actually, when I say that, I see my limitation, the limitation of my, as one person. So I learned architecture and maybe I'm good at space or something, but it's not enough because I always think like VR can learn from different,

but doesn't belong to any exist domain now. So maybe it will grow up as itself someday. So it needs to learn from more creators. And when I see my limitation, personal limitation, I think I need to find a form, a form I can invite different creators from totally different areas. They are good at their stuff. Maybe they didn't thought they can do something in VR or they don't think like some connections they didn't see before. So maybe I can invite them. We can have some kind of chemistry stuff. So, like Vermova is for that, actually. Okay, and so at what point did you decide that you wanted to tell the story of VRChat through this composite character? Oh, at the very beginning, it starts with story, like the thickness of calligraphy. So that experience is what we call it like an exhibition, but it's very easy to understand for the audience. many audiences

they find they will maybe like the experience because of the story so I love like exhibitions in many like real museums sometimes and when I was attracted to the creations or the exhibits I want to learn more about the creator but I need to search it online by myself with my phone or with something and my experience is like dots connected together so I need to switch by myself but maybe but in VRChat I tried it at the beginning because I think if we call the artworks is the result, but the process is actually the stories. And they help each other to understand more easily or something. So at the beginning of the Vermova, I tried to do stories together. And so back to the experience, how did you go about curating which parts of the culture of VRChat that you wanted to share and incorporate into this composite character? Actually, I didn't realize that I have done choice, actually.

But I realized recently because I see some feedback from the website or from social media. And I see some guy says I'm showing the light version of VRChat. But I didn't realize, actually, because that's what I see on VRChat. So I play with these creators. I appreciate their creations. so everything I say here so I didn't think I may actually pass something like during the process and oh I think this is not suitable so I will not show this I don't think I did this so I don't think the choice made by purpose maybe somehow but I don't I don't know gotcha yeah and so yeah so it sounds like that you just had your encounters through these different communities and that you wanted to kind of weave them all together. And so I guess the experience starts off like you're in an attic and then you go in and you walk into the computer and you're in the Microsoft Windows world

and then, yeah, you start to see these drawings. And so and then from those drawings, you start to go from what you talking about in the credits this kind of like architectural visualization And because this is a composite character were there times when you were actually talking about yourself or is everything constructed for this composite character Oh, yeah. Yes, because I learned architecture, so maybe somehow from myself personally. But actually in this project, there are about four creators from architecture backgrounds, so it's not only me. So I know they are doing architecture stuff. And actually there's also a plan because I use two concepts in the experience, like a window and a door. And it's somehow a metaphor. So the window is for 2D media. I see that I cannot go through, and the door is actually in there. And if I just jump from the window to the door, there is a missing part, actually. So like 2D, 3D, and VR.

Because 3D is not only VR. VR is not only 3D. So they are not equal to each other. So the architecture modeling part is like a traditional 3D, but not VR. So I leave the middle part. So before we go into the portal, we do 2D and 3D creations first. So that's where the architecture comes. It can be like other 3D modeling areas. It also works. Yeah, maybe you could talk about of the 20 or so worlds that are featured in this experience, How many of them already existed and that you just needed to port them into this experience? And how many of them did you create from scratch? Yeah, I do create some units by myself, actually, because I need to make sure the experience is complete. So when I cannot find this user guy, I will be the guy. So that's how. And actually, there are 10 words have the original reference as a portal in the credits part.

So if you count, there will be 10 portals to different words. So there's about half we have the original one. And in another 10, which we don't have the original word, maybe they are not in the form of words. For example, the outfit, the virtual outfit, yeah, is on boots. So the clothes is generally wear on the avatar, so it's not from words. But that part is created by Polaris. Actually, he is also involved in what is virtual art last time. So, like, he do, like, more new stuff for this experience. And for other parts, I try to find the creations that already exist. Because, like, you know, if I organize too many people and we all do new stuff, the project management will be so difficult. Right, right. And, yeah, I really appreciated the diversity of the different types of parts of the culture that people go into in VRChat, and I feel like that,

even though it's a composite character, I feel like there's a plausible path that many people have taken that path of working on clothes or avatars and then getting into worlds and getting more and more involved in the community. And so, have you been involved in actually creating costumes or avatars at all? Actually, no. I have never done anything like that. So, I was also surprised by how they created the outfits. It's very interesting. I didn't try it before, so I didn't involve in that part. Nice. And so how would you describe the journey that you take people on? Because you're going through a number of different, 20 different chapters, and so are those worlds clustered together in like three acts or different chapters that have clusters? So narratively, I'm just trying to get a sense if it just is from one chapter to the next or if you found that there was a logic or a clustering or a theme that you were exploring? Yeah, it's different stages, actually.

So there's like 20 parts, if you recall. But actually, they are like one group, and each four will be one group. So there is five stages. The five stages somehow grow up or the development of the composite character. So at the beginning, four-part is like before VR. So we do the computer thing and 2D, 3D, and one day we finally find the headset. And after that, the second stage is adventure. So the voiceover, we call the composite character, he's a visitor here. So he visits different worlds. So that part he didn't evolve into that. And he even didn't have a friend there. So he didn't realize how he looked like because he always be there by himself. and by the end of this part he realized, oh, because I see the self-poetry on the wall, so how do I look like her? He realized his personal outfit as a character or something, and he had the things how I need to learn something to make

him, actually this is what I heard from the real creators many people were like to do some adjustment about the avatar, but not so many about the walls, because the avatar is more connected to themselves, so that part he do like the decorations first and then the outfit and then actually he do the switch in the narrative part because it's a switch from how i look like to what i have done because he have a new somehow a new identity because people calling him virtual fashion designer is something like a job in the real world but in virtual world he didn't expect that so that actually so let's go deeper before he thought. And he makes friends from this part. So that's where social part comes. Because actually, that's another thing I realized. Because many people play VRChat, but what they were right in the self-introduction part, even on the social media.

So if he were describing more what he had done and some projects, so it may be more easy to connect it with people. For example, myself. because I do Vamova, when I reach out to them, they will, don't think I'm a strange guy or something like this. They're much easier to understand what I've done and maybe something I want to reach out to connect with them. So there's somehow a virtual identity. So that part comes to the social. And because these friends, they not only play by themselves, they introduce interesting stuff to each other. So the community comes. So like painting, dancing, and music are different. We only do like most well-known. but actually they're much more. I say them like colors. So we all know red, blue, yellow, some color, but actually color is much more than that. So actually the community is more than that. We only do some easy understanding stuff. And after that, oh, maybe we can do something, word or something we can share. Even I'm offline, but people can see what I'm creating,

what I'm talking, so it's the final part to the creator, world creator. So extra days, five stages. Oh, yeah. That's really helpful. It makes a lot of sense as I reflect back on the experience that there is these different stages. And so the first stage of outside of VR, you're kind of learning about the history of this composite character, of doing art, and then doing different aspects of the architecture. Is there any other scene that he goes to before he starts exploring? Is the first exploration world is like the monument with the dragon flying around? Is that the first part of that chapter, or is there another? Oh, you mean the adventure part? Yeah. Oh, there's another. Yeah. So we talk about the, maybe this is also the part I can share with you how I organize the story, because, like, I do the big structures first. But for the adventure part, the first one is from the real world. It's the real building from Hong Kong. Oh, that's right. That's right, yeah. So I organize the different parts in one stage. And for that part, because this is, I think there's a part where you can set some kind of middle part.

It's from the real world, but now it's in virtual. And how do I recognize, like, this is only another place, or this is another world? Because, like, world is a totally huge concept for many new guys. So I set the real world as the first part. So maybe they will be confused. Oh, this is somehow. And I set the world with actually low sound surrounding. And you can see the beauty is many people live here. It cannot be totally silenced. So the totally silenced can be the unreal part and to make the character realize, oh, this is not the real world because real world cannot be this. And, oh, maybe there is a virtual one. And if I can find the first virtual one, does that mean there is more? So the second part here. So the second word goes to not still real. So this goes to the dragon stuff, totally the Legends part. Nice, yeah. And then he also visits a music club, and yeah, there's just a huge music scene within VR.

And maybe say a little bit around the music club that you are featuring and also just how you tell the story of what's happening with the music scene in VRChat. Yeah. Yes, also a special one, because the music is a final section of that stage, for the community stage. Yes, that's to the final, because the scene is more detailed compared to the scenes before. And also because they do music not like the bands, they are like DJ and VG stuff. So you have the visual, and you also have the sounds. And so they combine the experience together. and also when we talk about the content we choose the second anniversary part so for the community it's much more easier to imagine oh there are more performers more staffs because like for the second anniversary you can see all performers come here and it's only for this one club but yeah it's like a room

but there is maybe one part you can see outside so you can imagine the other part so that's that to the community for the final stage and so it works for when I can open some imaginations and it's not only this because as I can see the whole experience actually is only a manual of a book the social media platform is a very big book but the manual I only can do a short version so half an hour is really short yeah you have to obviously you can't cover everything and so I thought it was a really good representation of all the little bits and parts of the culture, especially when you start to get into both the music scene and there's a whole film community that's in there too that you're featuring. And then also the exploration, you have the scenes where you have the virtual photographers who are taking photos of the worlds and featuring those. So a little bit of artistic creative exploration on these worlds, but creating in a gallery where you can kind of see

and appreciate the different types of worlds and architecture that's being featured. And so, yeah, just curious to hear any reflections on the different sub-communities that you're featuring from the film community, the photographers, and, yeah, any of the other ones that are featured in the community section. Yeah. Actually, there is something I want to share about that. I like, there is a switch, actually. After I see the Venice Immersive and the events in VRC, I decided to do things here. I never introduced to these guys I am a director and before that I am a director to do VR projects but as I said I want to find a new relationship the new relationship is not only about the title it's about the real relationship between us and for example in this project everyone involved as I know they are very happy to be part of this because as you can imagine they didn't do stuff for me they do this stuff with their passion and to do the stuff they want So they are not working for me.

Actually, somehow they even think I'm working for them. And I also, I think I work also for myself because as we talked, I want to find the possibilities of VR. Yeah, so if I don't do this this way, so I can like hire some guys and they do. But actually, if I do that way, maybe they are doing what I imagine is possible because I maybe restrict their imaginations. so and maybe we do something we we thought is like reasonable somehow but on the social weapons they already done that it's real and they didn't do like for others so everything is different and our relationship is also different and i think this is what i do with vamova actually is encourage more people to do these things so in this way people are more interested because they don't think, oh, I'm here to do some commission stuff. I only need to do what I'm good at or maybe what I'm more interested in, and we can still cooperate with others.

So, yeah, somehow, this kind of relationship stuff. So I like this kind of ways. And so for the VRChat players, I tell a story we share together. And the story maybe we have similar parts. everyone is still different but we are like for this part oh I feel it's me for that part I feel it me but the story to do something we have in common But the creation of zero diversity as we said So the result is different The past are similar. Because we actually, we are also at similar age, maybe 10 years. But yeah, we grew up with computers, actually. So the story for that part. So it's already similar to each other. And for me, like, as I said, I want to find some things special to VR. But how? how to find that part by my personal imagination. No, I need some real, real, like, field. So that's really, like, you want to say organic or somehow?

I don't know. But, yeah, it's grew up in VR, so it's more VR. So I think it fits in different perspectives, but it works fine as a result. And what have been some of the reactions of people that, you know, since it's a VR chat world and it's more publicly available on the platform now. So just curious to hear some of the reactions you've received so far. At first, it comes from the friends. Of course, friends involved in this project because I showed them before it was public. So I got feedback from them first. And they helped me to test. And also, many of them gave me the feedback, the results beyond their expectations. Like the last time, like reverse butcher, she didn't expect the result goes this way. So, yeah, people get surprised here. And for other friends, they know what I'm trying to do in VRChat. So, congrats, of course, because, yeah, in Venice,

it's very good for this program. But for these friends, they think it's already good enough. You have done this. You can share this with others. So, congrats to me. Only for that is enough, actually. and for maybe other guys I never know before I have heard something about it like I like some movies and games and some stories and people say you love it because it tells some story you want to see but you cannot by yourself so from other feedbacks it's somehow like that it's a story that runs not only me it runs to me, to him, to ours so yeah, some feedbacks oh, there's someone, he tells a story I want to see So next time when I want to invite my friends to VRChat, I will just show this therapy to him. And not exactly the same, but he do most of what I want to say. Yeah, I thought it was really quite powerful because we're kind of taking on a spatial journey through all these different worlds.

And the way that the story ties into the journey, it feels like, you know, when you're watching a film, there's different cuts and cuts to different scenes. but instead of the cut you have the mechanic of these doors that are popping up at a certain point the doors aren't there always they only appear when you're ready to make the edit and so it's really nice that the user has the agency to control his own timing the pacing as they're exploring the world but also i'm talking to mike salmon i asked well is the sound global or local because there's also this dynamic where you could be with a group of people and if they rush forward you would start to miss part of the narrative it was a global audio but because it's local audio then you can have your own customized version of the audio and you can go at your own speed at your own pace and i just thought that going through each of these worlds just really nicely tied together with the story that you were telling and i found it really moving just to see that i mean i was kind of hoping that it was an actual character it was a true story

you know so there's a little bit of a letdown like ah i kind of want it to be like this is such a good this is all made up but you know so there is there is a little bit of that like wanting to have it be like an actual story but I feel like it was still satisfying to go on the journey and to see everything and be kind of caught up in the narrative yeah everything in this figure works locally everything so people have their and for my part like you said different things cutting together I make the time and space work together so every time when the portal opens it's the first timing to leave but actually the decision is made by the audience himself and it's this day there is something they still can see but actually there's another point when you see everything stops actually oh you know it's time to leave so there is a duration they can decide it and for each part the duration works for one or two minutes even so actually the fast experience

can be less than half an hour but for the whole experience, you can stay maybe really 40 or 50 minutes. And actually, I don't think people will go there. Some people will go there with friends, so not alone. So actually, the window also for them to chat, because we have the voiceover. So when the voice comes, people will listen to the voice. But if there is something I want to see, if there's too long, maybe I forgot. I forgot. I don't have the feeling to share with friends. So each window is the time to talk, to share. So at the beginning, I added that everything works in this world locally, but if you want to keep the same pace with your companions, please share the findings and the information with your friends, and if you do them together, you can keep in the same pace. So it's already decided by them. No, I thought that, I mean, I saw it with you, and I was pretty, whenever the door was opening, I think I was taking more of a quick editing pace because you had already seen it.

So it's not like I was going to, you know, that you were going to tell me anything that you didn't already know. But, yeah, I think that's a really interesting mechanic. In places like VRChat where agency of embodied movement through a space is so highly valued that, yeah, just having a little bit of an open-ended editing where the editing is sort of dictated by the user locomotion. local motion. So if you think about film, it's almost kind of like if you were to take a film, but add architecture and a bit of like theme park immersive theater parts where you're kind of going spatially through a space, but dictated by something that the users can kind of decide. So yeah, it's really fascinating to hear that mechanic. What I really love about the piece is that it does feel like this architectural film in a way that you're able to kind of cinematically tell a story, but do it through going from a world hop from world to world. Actually, I cannot tell the exact inspiration, but actually, in some games, and in real life, you will have this kind of friends. For example,

if you play a game, and your friends already know the game, and maybe is good at it, he will guide you. He will tell you something. But, like, he is a character, actually, at that time. He helps you and even introduces something to you. and it's a part of the experience. And in real life, this is maybe the first or second time I've been in a village in this city. And if a friend lives here, he'll introduce some restaurant or something to me. So in this experience, we will share information with each other. And in social via platform, actually it's different with other multiplayer games, because for other via multiplayer games, the players almost have it the first time. But on social VR, you know, you always guide my friends. And some friends, they will share things to you. I never guide people in Vimbabwe. So I'm a curator, but I didn't guide the experience. But you know the world hopping groups and adventure teams?

They will have the guide. And, for example, this time I didn't have the chance to prepare Japanese and Chinese and other languages, only English. But maybe in Japanese, they will have another guide. They can do English and Japanese real-time stuff. So he will be the guide. So everyone can be the curator or the guide for the experience. So it's a very open experience, actually. And it's already there. You know, right? It's not free because it really does these things. When you say it's already there, what's already there? The, like, volunteer guide. Oh, right, right. Right, so people who are just volunteering to be the translator or the tour guide. Yeah. Because you could theoretically turn down the world volume and have just people narrate it live. Have you thought about having a live dose sensor going through and basically giving the information? I never thought about that, actually. Because I treat social VR as some kind of internet. For example, if we imagine it as an exhibition, in real life the exhibition works locally.

So many visitors are from the same place. And it opens like 8 or 10 hours a day. So the time and space all limited the experience. But we already do it online. It works for whole world, different time zones. So the real-time performance will go back to the limitations. So I try to make it origin on the online part experience. So it's self-guide, actually. Yeah, time zones can be a real pain because I think you had to stay up until like 1 a.m. to show it to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it. And many interesting community on VRChat, maybe I didn't join them too much because of the time. So I would not do this. I'm not saying it's not good, but this is a very personal choice or decision. Well, I really love the end credits scene because it feels like another museum exhibition where you have each of these 20 worlds,

You credit the creator who is involved. You also maybe have a little object to refer back to that world. But rather than seeing what you normally see on VR projects is you're sitting still in a void space, and maybe you have the credits are, like, scrolling by or cut to black. But this, you have more of a space that has these little booths that provide an opportunity to put up a little demonstration for each of these worlds with all the metadata and all the information. But also there's a portal that's there that you can go directly into those worlds. But you are basically walking down this hallway of ten walls on one side and ten walls on the other. And so you see all 20 of these projects. And then when you get to end, you get all of the other credits for the production of the piece. But, yeah, I just thought that was a really elegant way of crediting all these different worlds that are being featured. But, yeah, also creating more of a spatial experience of the credits. because normally in a film, they will show it for a few seconds and it will go to the next kind of slide. But here you have the ability to just kind of linger

and check out stuff and read and really kind of pay attention. So it feels like a really nice spatial crediting system that you figured out there. I think, yeah, at first it's special. And I think this is some kind of thing I want to find because there is never limitation or restriction. You cannot do credits in VR experience. So actually, we can do this all the time, but we didn't maybe start this before because we imagined that according to a film, like something. Yeah, we have the experience already there. So when we think about this, we will do all similar things or something like this. But actually, they always have other choice. So I think this is some kind of this thing I want to find. And of course, for this part, I didn't expect before actually. So it's also because other reasons. It's a surprise for me, too. So for the stories, the turning part, because this is where we see, the voice see, I'm not a single person.

I'm not any exact person. I am a composing character. So, oh, you want to see there's many other guys. So I want there to be more than the original credits part. You mean like the avatars of the creators, or what do you mean? I mean, the character before this part, if the visitor didn't see any introduce about this world, maybe, like you, they were saying, oh, maybe this is one real person. But this is where the voice says I'm not anyone. I am from, like, dozens of creators. Right, right. Yeah, like the composite characters are actually lots of different characters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I want this moment to be, like, more interesting to serve for the story part. Oh, yeah, it would be nice to have an avatar for the composite character, but then break it out with the shader motion and just have all the individual avatars of the people that we're creating just be represented, and then they could all be standing next to their booths as representatives for each of the worlds that they're a part of creating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe we can try this.

Yeah, it can be more. Actually, it can be more. So this is only one small, maybe half step before we do that. But this time, yeah, I think it's a new try, and we can do much better if we have others. yeah and there's a scene that's in my mind just blipped out remind me some of the last like three or four scenes okay so the final is create stage so the first one is still drawing but drawing in VR so it's like sculpture like drawing stuff and it callback to the sister on the PC right it looks like a tilt brush type of painting and there a story that there a painting of sisters and then it kind of goes into a callback but now you see the full spatial version of that. And the second one is the virtual home, because many creators do words they do for himself, for herself. So the home is something maybe they start. And the third one is AI stuff, because AI is something we want to talk about.

And the first one is 3DGS. Yeah, so maybe you could. Yeah, yeah, so the AI, I was thinking about the 3D Gaussian splats, but also the AI. So, yeah, I know there's a very popular, Nico is a creator who I think had some AI worlds that were featured at Rain Dance. But also, yeah, there's these larger questions around what's the role of artists and AI. I just finished and wrapped up an interview kind of having little debates about AI a little bit. But, yeah, I think you were reckoning as to whether or not it could be moral or ethical or just a lot of questions that you have around AI. So, yeah, I just love to hear any reflections on some of the different open questions you have around artificial intelligence and what it means for humanity and creativity. Oh, I'm not sure this is suitable to be public, what I'm going to say. So maybe I might, if you can edit some part of this.

But actually I got some help from a friend this time, and he don't want me to tell his name. And he helped me because I'm inviting Nico. You know Nico this time. And Nico has a world created, like, the world name is like AEI somehow exhibition stuff and was also in Venice last year maybe best of words and also in Rindance and many people in VRT they visit the world and so it's somehow a popular one and this time I invited him and we talked about this and we share very similar as I know we share some similar idea about AEI and the creator or something stuff and I got some like text and the contents from him, and I added it to the final narration part. And when we do test stuff, another friend suggested me to be more gentle when we talk about AI and the creators.

Maybe because of different countries or different things. Anyway, he told me not everyone treats AI as the same attitude. so like some guy tell me not everyone see VR chat as I see so I realized oh this is something I have my perspective but not everyone agrees that and also he we talked about it because this project is totally from the community so everyone is like real person, we are alive you can feel passion, feel something and AI creates some stuff and this whole stuff doesn't appear actually you only like imagine by yourself so it's very like conflict if the idea or the opinion is too aggressive or something so i didn't thought about this before but for my personal experience maybe i didn't use ai too much but as i use it it helps me something or somehow like at least it can

save some time to do the search engine stuff. Yeah. And if you do it with like the image or voice or somehow, actually yeah, there's something I can say. This time what you heard for the narration part is my voice but it's AI. Oh, interesting. I didn't realize that. Yeah, I spent all the whole voiceovers. Yeah. Yeah, I spent like hours to read something to AI, some AI because English is not my first language. So I'm not sure I will do the pronunciation or maybe the heavy part for the voice. I'm not sure. So I know I will adjust many after that. Maybe I will get some feedback from friends. So I'm not sure I will have the patience to do this all by myself. So I use AI. And actually, each sentence you heard was choose from like dozens of same sentence, but different version.

And I choose the final one. When you say choose, you mean it was prompted from AI or what do you mean choosing? You mean the audio rendering? Like the, because you have the text, do you mean it's different takes of the same text? But the results are different. Gotcha, yeah. So you're looking at different readings of the same text. Different emotions sometimes. The AI is randomly sometimes. Yeah, no, when I did an interview with Dr. Morrow, I wanted to give him a voice, and so I did a similar thing where I created, it was actually more granular because there would be longer takes where sometimes I would take the beginning, middle, or end and then kind of stitch it all together. So, yeah, very familiar with that process. And the Gaussian Splat page, you start to talk a little bit around what's real, what's reality, because there's these captures of these Gaussian Splats. And so, yeah, just curious to hear any other reflections on how VR is asking us these deeper questions about the nature of reality itself. Yeah, actually, the story, yeah, you know, I read the story.

So I really have something you want to say. So that is some part I will be involved. And this is the final thing of the experience. So at first I wanted to go back and add the title of this, go back to the experience. The experience could be like the creator's experience or the composer's character's experience. But I also want to say sometimes maybe we think too much about what is a good content, the interaction, the view or something. But there is something we cannot maybe describe so like processively. But we say, oh, this belongs to experience. So what is experience? I want to think about that. But suddenly it goes to a very simple version. So what were a child to say something new or something? And maybe they will have a very pure or maybe the more like base concept about that. So I want to somehow to encourage or to guide the people to think about their childhood something.

And this story starts from child. So that part tells about this. And when I was a child, I could not tell something like real virtual. It's a very concept, very complex concept for a child. What is real? I read so many stories on book. Are they real? I don't know. But I just enjoy the story. I enjoy the cartoon, the anime. But is it real? I don't know. It tells something I want to know. Maybe it's good for education or something, but it's hard to tell real or virtual something. And for the virtual experience, what we have now, yeah it's a very similar feeling for me so it's not so logical but yeah the go back to the child is something i want to close that and we talk about the vr chat we know there's other like documentary stuff we met in virtual reality or something so the relationship the emotions they are it's real just happening in another place but it's not fake right so what is virtual real is

something just really want to like maybe think about it a little bit and maybe think about it if i am a child so somehow so it goes to the final part yeah no i've had uh lots of debates around presence is place illusion plausibility illusion virtual body ownership illusion the co-presence illusion so basically everything's illusionary but yeah i think we have very real experiences so I've been taking more of a process philosophy inspired, like these relationships and experiences are very much real. Even if they're virtually mediated, we still have real emotions, agency, connections to our body, connections to the virtual environments, but also social connections and thoughts that we have that are all real. So, yeah, I very much agree, and I really appreciated that ending. I think that's probably why it landed so much for me as we go back to the origin point and the attic, but then also to the closing credits. so yeah I guess as we start to wrap up I'd love to hear what you think the ultimate potential of virtual reality and this type of

spatial and immersive storytelling and what it might be able to enable I still think VR is like talented young person and it leads to grow and so do I and so do these creators so I want to grow up with it and the way we find ourselves someday and maybe we will recognize, oh, one day we will talk about, oh, this is VR. And like some guy talk about me, it's not someone's son, someone's something. So it just sounds like I belong to another relationship. But when you talk about himself or himself, it's like, oh, he grows up. Or something we can describe directly to it. So, yeah, I want VR groups and so do I, yeah. Nice, and is there anything else that's left and said that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community? Any final thoughts? Yeah, actually I prepared something.

Not exactly for this part, but actually I wanted to talk more about affordance. Actually, we talked about affordance last time. It talks about, actually this is something I learned from an athlete when I want to do research for VR. and there's an example it's like a key so when you have a key you know the very simple concept you can unlock something it could be a door it could be a lock but actually it has different meanings so it's some kind of power or right you can use the room you can use something but this is what we talk about because it can be like detailed and it can be abstract but one day if you have a package maybe you just have a package and you don't have a life to cut it, the key works. It can open the package. It doesn't belong to what it was designed. The concept is designed by humans, but it works. So I think maybe, for example, this project, back to the experience,

for VR players, it can be shared memory. For newcomers, it's some kind of introduction. For me, it's an experimental project. I want to find how we can tell stories on VR and maybe for other audiences, They have different answers. And I see this like some kind of affordance. And I think VR, if it is the key, it can open more than one door. It can be even not too open at all. Yeah. Beautiful. Awesome. Well, Justin, thanks so much for joining me here on the podcast. I really enjoyed the back to experience in a way that it's, for me, a really nice architectural, almost cinematic journey where you're kind of wandering through these different worlds and learning and hearing about the different aspects of virtual culture where it manages to be biographical in one sense, but because it's a composite character, it ends up ultimately being revealed that this is more of an anthropological documentation of a virtual culture and VR chat in a way that, yeah,

is really a nicely told narrative that is able to make me think around new ways of being able to talk about the culture of what's happening on a large scale by personalize it from an individual experience, but creating this kind of golden path where they happen to be involved in all the really interesting things in VRChat. And yeah, it ends up being like a really quite entertaining adventure, but also reflection on what's happening in VRChat. So it feels like a little bit of a love letter to the VRChat community. So yeah, just thanks so much for joining me here in the podcast to help break it all down. Thank you. So, yeah, so glad that we have, and so glad I met you in real life. Yeah, that's great. Awesome. Keep up the great work. I love what Vmove is doing. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to the Voices of VR podcast. And I just want to say that I'm really trying to live into the transformation economy, meaning I want to give away all this information for free, make it publicly accessible for not only you, but the entire community. And if you find value in that, then please do consider supporting me on Patreon.

You know, I'm on this journey of trying to reach my 1,000 true fans. And if I have just $5 a month from that 1,000, I'll be in a much more solid and stable financial position. So really need your help to be able to get to that point. So if you enjoy what I'm doing here at the Voices of VR podcast, then please do consider supporting me at patreon.com slash Voices of VR. Thanks for listening. Thank you.