I learned Live2d in a single day.
And you can do.
Why would I want to learn Live2d in 24 hours?
Well, that's because the other day when I went to rig my brand new Vtuber
model, I opened up my Live2d program and saw this.
So now I only have 24 hours left to rig my brand new model.
But isn't Live2d hard?
Doesn't it take months to do a full body rig?
That's why I'm paying thousands of dollars for professionals to rig my VTuber
model instead, right?
Well, I used to think that too, until I got a message from Coloso (today’s
sponsor) asking if I like to take their Live2d course for free.
It's only 13 hours long in runtime being taught by Kutata.
A Live2d modeling professional,
which means that I should be able to learn Live2d in 24 hours or less.
So with that being said, how hard can Live2d really be?
So the first thing I had to do was set up my PSD,
and right after watching Kutata’s first video in this Live2d course.
I realized that my PSD was not set up for rigging.
Basically, I had to reorganize and rename my layers and do some minor cutting.
But thankfully, Kutata provided me with two examples for basic and advanced
layer cutting for your PSD.
I decided to download the basic one because I didn't
want to spend too much time focusing on a highly detailed model
and just getting the minimum amount done took me 3 hours to do so.
Thankfully, my artist was kind enough to send me an updated version of my PSD,
which helped me work on it a lot faster, but I didn't realize how important and
time consuming it is just to have to set up and cut the art properly.
Like, man, this 24 hour challenge is not going as planned,
and I haven't even loaded the program yet.
Now you might be wondering,
Mari, why’s it such a big deal if you lose the pro trial of cubism?
And that's because the free version of Live2d cubism
really limits your ability in what you can do for rigging.
Besides, I've always wanted to learn Live2D
Because you can do some really cool things with it.
And I have some crazy video ideas for different types of content
that would be a lot easier for me to do if I knew how to rig VTuber models. Duh.
Also, I had this pro trial for 42 days and I didn't do anything with it.
I literally felt like I wasted a lot of time
and this seemed like a fun challenge to finally start learning.
Now I'm not a complete beginner
for Live2d.
I have attempted to learn live2D before and I wasn't the happiest
with the results.
So this is my second time
trying to actually learn the program and I'm not going to give up this time.
Once I finally got my PSD sorted
and loaded everything into Live2D, it was time for me to start rigging.
(Haha JK).
Why would I actually do any Live2d rigging in this Live2d rigging
challenge video, right?
It was actually time for me to start working on my art meshes.
Now, originally I was going to automesh everything to save time,
but after watching some of Kutata’s videos, I learned some really cool
techniques and shortcuts on making my own custom mesh for my model.
Making my own custom made for certain parts was going to come in handy later
on, as you'll see in the video. Plus, I don't know.
There's just something therapeutic watching my VTuber get slowly
swallowed into the void of just *Mari zones out* Anyways,
this also took longer than I was expecting because I had to take some time
studying the example file and taking notes to help better understand the concept of
Live2d modeling. I know, right? Studying.
I actually studied in this challenge for you.?
Like. Yes, I did. You know.
Did you know that when you connect three dots, you get a triangle,
the smallest geometric unit
that your computer can read, and when you put them all together,
you get this and then you can do things like this?!
Anyways, it took me about 2 hours to finish this part,
which means I'm already 5 hours into this challenge
and I haven't even started rigging my model yet.
Why do I take so much time
to have everything before I actually started rigging?
Well, because remember how I said
making my own custom art mesh was going to come in handy later on?
Well, I realized midway through during this challenge
that not separating your model correctly can cause stuff like this to happen.
That's right.
Welcome to Live2d rigging Hell. Hell
implement.
I taught you how you got to article.
Don't come to school eat political catwalk all the time.
One joke furniture and it was me that gained a lot of standing.
And since what we all So, rigging the eyes should be the easiest right?
Well, my eye looks a lot different than his, so
it took me a little longer to get my eyes to look left and right of course.
Actually, I had to look up a lot of 90’s anime references to get
the general aesthetics right for my model, but I learned this cool little time
saving tip that Kutata showed me and I have saved a lot of time
by not having to rework each left and right side.
Now there are episodes I watched later on in this class
that showed me more advanced techniques on rigging these elements.
But I'm trying to get this done within 24 hours before my trial expires.
And I wanted to get my eye and mouth rigging done as fast as possible
because the next thing I had to rig that I really wasn't looking forward
to, where the face angles.
Now how could that possibly be?
Oh, I
struggled so much on this part because I am so smooth brained.
You would think that rigging your face
to look left and right would be simple, right?
Wrong.
It is literally the most difficult thing to rig correctly.
I only had 17 hours left in this challenge.
That's almost a halfway mark and I obviously know I can't have these
super cool, edgy, high end turn angles
for my model because that does take a lot of time and effort.
But even just doing a simple left and right turn took me almost 3 hours.
You know, looking at all of this, I think my biggest problem
I was having during this challenge was that I'm a literal perfectionist
and I keep trying to make everything look good the first time.
But then when I would go check out my model,
it felt like I was treading into the uncanny valley.
I don't know.
This took me so long and I was getting really frustrated and hungry.
So I decided to take a break to get some boba,
and I watched more of Kutata’s videos and took more notes.
And all of a sudden I heard him saying this-
At first I didn't really understand what this meant.
But as I went on throughout this challenge,
I realize how much of a foreshadowing this was because it ended up
becoming the biggest lesson
I learned in this entire class, which is stop being a perfectionist.
Like it's okay to want to make something look good, right?
But that doesn’t mean it has to be perfect.
And when you think about how much time
I spent working on this part, you know, getting angry and upset at myself
because I'm a complete beginner and Live2d.
It made me realize that I need to stop focusing so much
on the minor details and actually look at the bigger picture.
Because when I export to the model, just to test everything out in VTube Studio,
you know, to make sure nothing was broken, the model actually looked really cool
and I didn't even work on any physics for it yet.
So they kind of brighten up my mood a bit.
Want to keep going and working on this challenge,
try to get some full body movement and physics done before the 24 hour mark.
Also, you know, it's never really good to be sitting at your desk
for extended periods of time, right?
It can really affect your productivity and health.
And I think that started happening to me because at one point I literally just kept
rewinding every couple of minutes of Kutata’s video
just to see how he specifically rigged certain parts.
And thankfully, after so many corrections, and rewinding Kutata’s video
over and over again.
I was finally done rigging the face angles and stuff for my VTuber model.
So what's next?
Finally,
something that didn't take me an hour long.
Honestly, the body was pretty straightforward
because I didn't have a lot of movement
to my body because- Okay, so get this, you know how so many Live2d riggers
swear on Twitter that you need to separate the leg into three different parts.
To get nice leg movement?
Well as it turns out, you don’t need to do all of that.
So I just copied what Kutata’s model looked like it only took me
about 30 minutes to finish making all of the body movements I wanted.
So now, that means it’s time for physics!
Now you can do a lot of cool things of physics, but honestly,
who cares about any of that?
Because we all know the most important thing that everyone cares about,
and that is how Boing boing, Your VTuber’s Boing Boings are.
If you know what I'm saying.
So if I just focus on that, then I'll get this challenge
done- And well, as it turns out, you can't really do a much with booba
if you don't have much booba to work with.
So I guess I'll just go work on normal physics stuff now.
And at this point,
after I finished some basic physics, I started getting really tired,
you know, probably from all the lack of nutrition,
from only consuming Boba several hours ago.
So I went to go make noms and ended the challenge at 13 hours
because I needed my beauty sleep, as cat girls do.
And the results? Well, you tell me how it looks.
I think I did a pretty
great job doing a basic rig myself in less than 24 hours.
It's not the same quality as my current model, of course,
but this was a really great chance for me to learn the fundamentals of Live2d
and enhance my current knowledge of the program.
Now that this challenge is finally over and I had more time to finish watching
and studying the rest of the class material, I can safely say that a lot of
tutorials on Live2d that I've watched on YouTube are kind of mid.
Like, don't get me wrong,
they're all made by amazing Live2d modelers, but
I really struggle learning a lot about Live2d for years
because every tutorial I watch either lacked consistency,
proper subtitling, or they weren't very beginner friendly.
Like a lot of the stuff you see here on YouTube is very nuanced
and unless if you’re very familiar with the program.
Then a lot of the things that I tried
learning just didn't make sense to my smooth brain.
I think learning from others is so useful for improving your own creations.
However, if you're a smooth brain like me,
then you probably struggle learning from others.
If it's not explained well enough.
And I don't know,
I feel like I actually learned a lot more about life today
and making vertebrate models in this 13 hour class
than the last two years I spent watching YouTube tutorials.
Plus, it feels kind of nice to learn from someone who's an actual professional
in the field.
I often find myself struggling to stay motivated starting new projects
like this because I'm not a professional all like
I don't always know where to start things and I don't know.
I just feel like I'm always getting lost with so much information
being flooded into my brain.
Like, my head empty, okay?
I'm really thankful for Colosso for sponsoring today's video
and letting me take this Live2d class because now I feel a lot more confident
in my abilities to take on big projects like this.
I'm really proud of myself
for getting this much work done on my VTuber model within 24 hours.
It isn’t high quality, but who doesn't like little scuff in their VTuber?
So if you made it this far into the video then congrats.
You get a cookie.
And if you'd like to take the same class as me,
then you can click on the link to the course down below and you can use
code ‘MariYume’ to receive $30 off of your first order.
Also, even if you aren't interested in Live2d, Colosso has a ton
of other courses for all different kinds of subjects like illustration,
3D modeling, pixel art, character concept creation, you name it.
I remember when I first found out about Colosso from an artist
YouTube channel named Ergojosh, and I've tried a few other illustration
courses before, you know, unsponsored of course
and they were really well-made courses by very reputable artists.
So of course, when Colosso asked to work with me on this project, I instantly said
yes because I knew it was going to be high quality content and I love my content.
Now, usually this would be the part of the video
where I would say leave me a comment down below
on any questions you might have about the course or Live2d,
but I actually want to answer some common questions
I think some of you watching might have because some of you like to spam the exact
same question over and over again, and it makes me feel like I'm talking
to a virtual wall.
Oh, wait- Are these classes a subscription?
No, these are not subscription based.
You pay for the entire class and receive all the video and class files
associated with it. How user friendly is interface?
It's very friendly.
At first I kind of struggled to get my videos to load properly,
but once I downloaded their video player software, it work just fine to me
so I don't have any issues using the website.
And lastly, is it worth it?
Well, I can't tell you if it's worth it or not,
since at the end of the day it's your money and your choice.
But let me put it to you in this perspective that might help
answer this question for you.
You can always make more money, but you can never make more time.
Time is going to be the most valuable currency you spend in life.
And do you really want to spend the precious time you have left
feeling frustrated, burned out and dissatisfied with your current work?
I know I didn’t,
and even though I got this course for free,
you better believe I would have bought this the moment
when live because there is no way I would have gotten this challenge completed
just by sifting through YouTube videos hoping to find the right tutorial.
Like look at this.
I actually did it.
I completed the challenge.
I really didn't think I was going to be able to do it, but
this class really helped me a lot and understanding the concepts of Live2d
and why certain techniques work with VTuber models and like I said,
if you like to take the same class as me,
then you can click on the link to the course down below and you can use
code “MariYume” to receive $30 off your first class.
And with that I'd like to say once again thank you to Colossal
for sponsoring this video.
And if you like these kind of Live2d
rigging challenge videos, then I don't know, subscribe or something baka.
Thanks for watching
and feel free to check out my other VTuber videos on my channel.
Oyasumi.