# Gud VTubing: XR Animator + VROOM

In this document I'm going to explain how you can setup an extremely sophisticated VTubing Rig that costs you almost nothing but brings incredible results to the table. The setup consists of two main components. The final result can be recorded or streamed into Meet, Zoom, Teams, etc.

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::: info
While XR Animator receives and computes tracking from your webcam feed to stream it via the VMC protocol, VROOM visualizes your avatar with that data in beautifully inside all sorts of 3D environments.
:::

## Prepare your Windows PC

You don't need much to make this happen. The software is available for free but I highly recommend you to support the developers especially the indie devs [@butz_yung](https://twitter.com/butz_yung) and [@ojousa_ma_yo](https://twitter.com/ojousa_ma_yo) who are the creators of the blocks that this tutorials focuses on.

1. Get yourself a regular webcam
2. Download and install [OBS Studio](https://obsproject.com/)
3. Download [XRAnimator from Github](https://github.com/ButzYung/SystemAnimatorOnline/releases) and extract it to your computer
4. Download [VROOM from booth](https://ojousamaya.booth.pm/items/3949561) and extract it to your drive

## Launch and configure the Stack

1. Launch XR Animator by starting the electron.exe from the electron subfolder. You might see your desktop thru the XR Animator stack



2. Drag and drop the VRM file of your choice into the XR Animator window and click the start button to launch the application with your avatar.


3. Now you should see your avatar in the XR Animator window. From here you will setup various components. But lets spin up VROOM aswell before we continue on that end.


4. Start VROOM. Make sure to allow network access when Windows Defender pops up. The Tracking of XR Animator will be streamed into VROOM so we need that communication. You can change the language to English in the bottom right.


5. Click "LoadVRM" in the bottom menu. You should now see your avatar. At this point you cannot manipulate the camera except for scrolling in and out but we'll get there later.


I'd recommend you to click the "ScreenSize" button in the bottom menu and lower the resolution to 1280x720 to increase the overall performance a bit.


6. Go back to XR Animator. It's time to start and connect the avatar animations + tracking interface. Double click the VMC button in the menu. A popup appears which states that the VMC protocol is off. Hit the "1" key on your keyboard to activate it. Then hit "4" to close the popup.


7. Go back into VROOM. Click Settings and type the port number mentioned in the XR Animator. By default that should be "39539" and confirm by clicking OK now your avatar animations will be streamed into VROOM.


8. Go back into XR Animator. It's time to activate your webcam. To do this you need to double click the "Webcam/Video input" button in the menu. Hit the "1" key to confirm with yes or "2" if you want to flip the webcam video feed horizontally.



In the next step hit the key that represents your webcam. In my case that is "2" or "3" depending on me wanting to use the integrated camera of my notebook or the external one. I go for the external one and hit "2" once that is done you should see your webcam feed.


9. Time to activate the tracking. To do that you double click the "Motion Capture" button in the menu. Select "5" in the popup that appears to enable holistic full body tracking.


It takes 20-30 seconds to fully boot up on my Thinkpad. Try to keep your facial expressions neutral while the calibration is happening. The appearance of the tracking model in the bottom right corner confirms that everything runs. Time to hop back into VROOM.


10. The final thing that we'll now do inside XR Animator is configuring the pose of your avatar - this will also center which is important. Double Click the "Pose" button in the menu.


You get a large array of options here which is great. I suggest you to start with "2" or "4" which is a standing position that continues to track the upper half of your body while the body and legs are dynamic.


You will probably explore "9" or other seated positions later on. Lets stick with a standing one for now but if you run VROOM and XR Animator side by side you will see that everything you configure is reflected to VROOM in real time which is amazing.

Note: You can always reset the position of your avatar by going back into "Pose" in XR Animator and hit one of the number keys again. If you want to close that popup press X.

11. In VROOM you will see that all your movements are already being applied to your avatar but the camera is off. Time to change that. First click Room to open the level selection. For this tutorial I will go for the garage studio.


12. Now it is time to configure the camera. To do this you have to pull up the second menu by hitting the "space" key. Click the camera icon to open the camera settings. The camera flights are cool but select "Manual" in the first row for now to have some more control.

- Hold the right mouse button to turn the camera
- Hold the mousewheel button to strafe the camera


You can also toggle screen effects and camera related stuff like depth of field in that menu. Lots of stuff to play with along the road but lets continue with the next step from here.

:::info
You toggle the second menu with "space" while the original one can be toggled with "esc" - When you actually stream you'll toggle both of them off.
:::

13. The final configuration before we can start: Position your avatar inside the VROOM level. The default spawn point in the levels might not be exactly what you want. You can use keys on your keyboard
- Use W + A + S + D to move your avatar horizontally
- Use C + Z to move your avatar up and down
- Use Q + E to turn your avatar horizontally

By combining these avatar positioning inputs and the mouse-based camera reposition controls can quickly get the shot that you want.


In the bottom menu you have a small resize button that allows you to reduce and increase the size of your avatar. Additionally to that I tabbed back into XR Animator and switched to pose "9" so that the avatar can sit on the center speaker of the stage. Disablo both menus and lets start the stream.

14. Launch OBS Studio. Import VROOM by clicking the "+" button in the sources menu and select "Game Capture". In the popup you set the mode to "Capture specific window" and select the "VROOM.exe" window.



15. Now its time to bring in your main application. I want to stream my browser - more specifically a hyperfy tab in that browser. Again you click the "+" button in the sources menu. This time you select "Window Capture" as this works great for browser windows - for a native video game I'd choose game capture but lets continue with window capture for now.



Now Hyperfy is recorded in full screen (as I run it as a full screen browser window) but it blocks the VROOM feed. To fix that you drag and drop the VROOM source above the Hyperfy source. You can also position the VROOM feed wherever you want and change size. Make so that the lock icon right next to the source name is "unlocked" otherwise it remains fixed.


16. Now its time to apply a mask inside OBS to "cut out" a shape of your choice from the VROOM video. This can be a square, a circle or a [vertical frame that I found on reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitch/comments/inulkp/how_to_get_that_clean_rounded_shadowed_webcam/) and will use in this tutorial. Just [download the image](https://i.imgur.com/btBqMnK.png) to your computer and get back into OBS.


Back in OBS you right click the VROOM source and select "Filters" in the popup that comes up you click "+" in the bottom left and select "Image Mask/Blend" which allows you to apply your vertical mask. For Type you set "Alpha Mask (Color Channel)" and then you click browse and select your file. Click close to apply the filter.



17. Now find the final position for your vertical frame that embeds your VROOM Vtubing instance via OBS. And then you jump back into VROOM and re-center the camera (by pressing and holding the mouse wheel button) in a way that the vertical cutout displays your avatar properly in the cut out.


Now you can lock both sources and hit "Start Recording" if you want to record a video or "Start Virtual Camera" in case you want to stream this videofeed into Google Meet, Zoom, Teams, etc. there are plenty of tutorials that explain how that works.


18. Have fun and spread good vibes. We'll see more professional VTubing software in the future but this particular setup offers an incredible range of features at almost no cost.