In Japan, the market for 3D models and other VR/metaverse assets has steadily flourished. Within VRChat, it’s fairly common for users to purchase avatars from platforms like booth.pm and then customize them to their liking—sometimes as simply as changing colors, and other times by adding clothing, accessories, or other elements. The market itself is quite approachable: some avatars are used by thousands, or even tens of thousands, of people, while others cater to much more niche tastes. Either way, there’s something for almost everyone.
Originally, the focus was largely on avatars themselves. Over the years, however, we’ve seen a noticeable shift toward clothing and accessories. Looking at booths in recent Vket events, roughly 40%—if not close to half—of the offerings now fall into those categories. Tools such as ModularAvatar and Mochifitter have made applying and adjusting these items easier than ever, lowering the barrier even further. More broadly, many Japanese users don’t seem to find working with Unity particularly daunting, and that comfort level has helped form the foundation of the ecosystem we see today.
While comedy and roleplay certainly appear from time to time, many people treat their avatars as genuine representations of their identity. This doesn’t mean that identity is fixed—some users switch between multiple avatars—but there is often a strong sense of attachment. The avatar functions not merely as a surrogate in a virtual space, but as something that defines how they present themselves within that world.
This emphasis on originality, combined with a general avoidance of ripped game assets or avatars based on existing IPs (at least compared to trends outside Japan), appears to have played a significant role in shaping this distinctive Japanese VR culture.
It's going to wander into entirely different problems (one with a much more uncanny valley), but i'm curious to see how the field develops when facial animation systems start being able to parallel people's faces more.
And if the answer is no, how far away might it be?
(I'd be curious to play with it myself if such a thing exists and is publicly available, but the main reason I'd like to know is to keep an eye on how soon we might see faked video calls joining faked voice phone calls in the toolbox of financial scammers.)
My guess as to why is that full 3D must have been extraneous cognitive load to viewers - xkcd wouldn't have been as popular as it is now if it had been drawn somehow by Rembrandt himself. It owes its success to Randall Munroe's minimalist art style. That kinds of things.
Plus, ultimately, the anime aesthetic is a 2d thing. It's a lot harder to make a 3d model look good in a 2d art style, as a ton of anime over the years have shown.
Its three years old so things have slightly matured.