Volume 3 Chapter 31: Are You Going to Do a 3D Live?
“How should I say this… Although Huadu really has a lot of entertainment, and the living facilities are much better than in small cities, with many choices… hmm… but for someone like me, who doesn’t care about colorful city life and finds it troublesome, honestly it’s all about the same.”
“Ah, then why did you…”
Lin Lin stopped halfway. Ah… bad choice of words. It almost sounded like she was telling Sister Wenmei to just leave if she couldn’t make it here.
“Yeah, if I went back to my hometown, my livestream career probably wouldn’t be affected much. It would just slowly decline like it is now. And after going back, I wouldn’t have to work part-time every day like this. It’s just…”
Du Wenmei lowered her head helplessly and said sadly,
“I… I came to Huadu because I wanted to apply for a girl group here… I wanted to debut and become an idol. My parents strongly opposed it. I was very childish at that time and just left home. Later, I failed the audition. It would have been too embarrassing to go back home, so… I stayed here and became a virtual streamer. Half-skilled… I…”
As she spoke, her eyes started to turn red. Lin Lin quickly waved her hands, realizing she had brought up an unpleasant topic.
“Okay, okay… Sister Wenmei, don’t say anymore. I understand.” Lin Lin hurriedly comforted her. “It’s fine. I believe you will definitely stand firmly in Huadu in the future. Really. There’s a lot of room to grow here!”
Du Wenmei nodded. Of course, she couldn’t fully believe a student’s encouragement. After all, Xiao Lin still didn’t understand society or work very well. How could she completely understand her worries?
But hearing the girl comfort her still made her feel warm inside.
A friend…
This small group she had started at first just because her popularity was falling… who would have thought that one day it would become a warm harbor for her in this city where she had little sense of belonging?
Since that was the case, she shouldn’t let her friend feel sad too.
Du Wenmei forced a smile, shook her head, and asked, “Let’s talk about you, Xiao Lin. Why did you ask me out this time~?”
“Ah, me… well…”
Lin Lin scratched her head. Oh no, Sister Wenmei’s emotional moment made her almost forget why she asked her out today.
Why did she invite her again?
Oh, right…
On one hand, she wanted to stay in touch since she had finally made a friend. On the other hand, she really did have something to ask.
“Actually, I could have asked this online, but I thought it would be easier to explain face to face.” Lin Lin took another sip of coffee and said with some difficulty, “Recently, I have an interesting livestream idea, but I don’t know how to handle it. I feel a bit conflicted.”
“Huh? I don’t quite understand. What do you want to stream? If you want to stream something, just do it. As long as you don’t break any rules.”
Du Wenmei looked confused. Lin Lin was indeed speaking in a very indirect way. She waved her hands awkwardly and said,
“Actually… the content I want to stream is related to martial arts.”
“……”
“Sister Wenmei? Sister Wenmei?” Lin Lin waved her hand in front of Sister Wenmei’s face, which looked completely frozen in shock. “Say something?”
“Cough, cough…”
After coming back to her senses, Du Wenmei quickly shook her head and said to Lin Lin,
“Xiao Lin… where did you even get such a strange idea?”
Ah…
Lin Lin didn’t know how to answer. It wasn’t her idea at all, the system forced her to do it.
That’s right. Because she really couldn’t figure out how to stream martial arts, she had no choice but to ask Sister Wenmei, who had much more experience.
But of course, she couldn’t say that. She had to make up a reason.
“Well… um… I just think martial arts are pretty interesting. Look, a virtual streamer who does martial arts, doesn’t that sound eye-catching?”
“Hmm…”
Sister Wenmei was not impressed by Lin Lin’s random excuse at all. She calmly shook her head and said,
“It would be eye-catching, yes. But I’m afraid no one would watch.”
“W-Why?”
Lin Lin looked confused. Du Wenmei smiled and explained:
“First of all, how many people in our audience are martial arts fans? It’s already rare to find people who like watching martial arts movies. And you want to livestream martial arts training? Watching it for a short time might be fine, but if it’s too long, it becomes boring. Also, when you move your body a lot, your attention gets divided. It’s hard to interact with viewers.”
“Hmm…”
Lin Lin nodded. But after thinking about it, she felt that whether people watched or not didn’t matter too much. She just needed to complete the task. Even if it was just for fun, it would be fine.
So…
“But I still want to try… um…”
“Oh? Xiao Lin, you’re surprisingly stubborn.”
Sister Wenmei looked a bit surprised. After thinking for a moment, she shook her head again.
“You might as well do fitness streaming, lead people to exercise together. You could at least follow some trends. But… actually, no. The main problem is, Xiao Lin, we are virtual streamers!”
She tapped the table and emphasized seriously:
“A Live2D model can’t make such complicated movements! How can you stream so many physical actions? Forget it. Just play games and treat that as exercise. Even fitness bands have an e-sports mode now…”
“Uh…”
Lin Lin nodded. That really was the core problem.
A Live2D model simply couldn’t handle such big movements. Even though her model had better flexibility because of the system, it still probably couldn’t support martial arts streaming.
Seeing the girl fall silent, Du Wenmei felt curious. Did she really want to do martial arts streaming that badly?
Hmm…
“If you really insist…” Du Wenmei thought for a moment and then said, “Then you would probably need to do a 3D live stream. You’d need 3D motion capture technology.”
“Huh? So there’s still a chance?!”
Lin Lin’s eyes immediately lit up. She grabbed Sister Wenmei’s hand and asked excitedly,
“What do I do? What do I do?”
“Well, you would need some professional equipment and technology. You’d also need to create a 3D model. Anyway, it’s quite complicated. The equipment is expensive, and the venue has requirements too. Of course, if you don’t do it often, you could rent the equipment.”
“Hmm…”
Lin Lin started to think seriously.