with over 2 million active broadcasters on the streaming platform twitch, codemiko broke boundaries with a more innovative way to engage with her audience. while the concept of the ‘virtual streamer’ has recently been on the rise, the streamer has elevated the animated concept into a sophisticated digital project. the creator often shifts between her two personas — the digital ‘codemiko’ together with the developer behind the character known as ‘the technician.’ the project was created using the unreal engine software and controlled with an xsens motion capture suit. the suit alone might cost upwards of $30,000. together with streaming, the creator is behind the entire process of devving, engineering, and rigging — mapping miko’s body to fluently mirror the technician’s movements.
images by codemiko
the technician behind project codemiko has designed the character to be ‘quasi interactive.’ this means that viewers can alter the character’s physical characteristics and the surroundings by engaging in chat. the interactive nature of the stream is even subtly noted as the live chat is displayed as a text graphic across codemiko’s digital sweater. while the character was entirely modeled and developed by the technician, many of the environmental features are sourced from the unreal engine software market and later customized. under continuous development, the technician often exhibits the mirrored split screen on stream, wearing her xsens motion capture suit to demonstrate her latest new updates and interactive features as demonstrated in her tweets below.
WANNA SEE SOME TECH?!! This is Miko being mocapped live by technician with facial tracking! pic.twitter.com/a3A5gLWANv
— Miko (@thecodemiko) November 29, 2020
Tech Tweet! Miko’s phone gets a direct stream from the IRL phone meaning everything that happens in the IRL phone gets reflected on Miko’s phone. pic.twitter.com/e9CN8XHYph
— Miko (@thecodemiko) November 30, 2020