With the rise of Hatsune Miku, i thought this was a somewhat interesting topic…
First things first, if you haven’t heard of Hatsune Miku, or the whole vocaloid thing, a) where have you been the past few months?! …..and b) go listen now, lol, i thought these 2 original Miku songs were really good (don’t like Rin/Len’s songs a much):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4jkxXyCBgs <<a nice piano melody in the background music
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm1920032
Anyway, the main point of this was to ramble on about virtual idols…
Could a virtual idol ever replace a real idol?
With the Vocaloid software that’s a big step towards creating a virtual idol, the vocals, and songs. But what’s beyond that? A concert? Well there have already been Vocaloid events, but a full concert, that’d be a bit tricky, how would it work, a 3D idolm@ster style video on the screen? Yes, that’s a start, but it’s still just a dancing computer model on a screen, no match for a real idol. How about projecting that 3D model somehow in 3D on stage, does such technology exist? Smoke and light maybe? I guess it’d be possible in the future.
Right, so we’ve got our basic idol, vocals, a song, a 3D model being projected in 3D on stage. Still not quite there, and this is where it starts to get tricky. Sure you can program her to move around and dance or whatever, but this is the crucial part, how do you make a virtual idol interact with a crowd? How do you make her react to shouts from the crowd, show more enthusiasm when the crows does, show emotion? How can a virtual idol do any of that? Of course yes you can program it to react to specific shouts, become more enthusiastic as the crowd gets louder, but that’s all very superficial, it’s still no replacement for a real idol.
The only way i can see a virtual idol working well is one of two things:
- Someone needs to create a perfect AI, one that is capable of human emotion, and learning, and this seems a very long way off.
- Or, the virtual idol is just a a way for someone to become an idol without having their real identity found out. i.e. that person handles all of the idol’s movements on stage (through motion capture or otherwise), the way that person reacts, or what she says determines what the idol says on stage. This could quite feasibly work, and the virtual idol would have that real human feel to it that nothing but a real person can give. Of course then there’s always the possibility of that idol you’ve been worshipping for the past few years turning out to be a 60 year old perverted guy lol. But would it matter to you knowing who the person behind the virtual idol was? Who knows, i guess it depends on the individual.
So, can a virtual idol replace a real idol? Some might already say Miku already qualifies as a virtual idol what with all her popularity, but she still doesn’t have those qualities that makes an idol an idol… human emotions and personality. I think eventually there may be proper virtual idols, but they’ll definitely never replace real ones. After all… those handshaking events would be somewhat difficult, lol.
Having said all that, Hatsune Miku merchandise will be high on my shopping list for while i’m in Japan, lol, i so wish i could get that hugging pillow. ^^;
