Twitch's Emmy, Webby, and Peabody Award-winning sci-fi series Artificial is kicking off Season 4 today. As usual, the team is stepping up the innovation to make the series even more groundbreaking and entertainingly interactive.
Artificial creator Bernie Su has stepped things up every season using new technology to allow the audience to become more involved and up the interactivity of the AI-focused show. For example, season 3 introduced Life Score, a groundbreaking and adaptive music application from the creator of Siri that creates unique and real-time soundtracks based on how the audience is interacting in the chat, thus allowing for a score that matches the tone of the adventure as it advances.
With the fourth season, Artificial: Factions, premiering today, things are ramping up again by utilizing motion capture technology to virtually animate two live AIs. This will split the audience into two separate groups (or factions) as actors use the mo-cap technology live so that the AIs can interact with the viewers in real-time.
The trailer above reveals what things will look like in Artificial: Factions with a short preview of the two new AI characters, Ember and Kai. Each of the AIs will be connected to characters from the previous episodes, with Dante Basco's (Hook, Avatar: The Last Airbender) Xander and Stephen Chang's (Captain Marvel, The Last of Us Part II) Sebastian splitting the audience into two separate factions.
We wanted to get more details and clarification about how the motion capture technology will work, so we spoke with the brains behind the show; three-time Emmy Award-winning creator, director, producer, and writer Bernie Su (The Lizzie Bennett Diaries, Emma Approved).
We've included the audio version of our chat, followed by this portion of the transcript. Meanwhile, those looking for a fully immersive experience can find the full video interview at the bottom!
"We do have human actors performing the motion capture live. They'll be wearing different sensors on them. It's kind of TBD as to how many sensors they'll be wearing. We're playing with different things. One of the tricky things about this format is because it's live and running in real-time; staying in a suit for three hours is pretty hot for our talent members performing.
So we're trying to do what's best for the show and for the talent and kind of find that balance. So we're testing out different systems. As far as we've seen, the motion capture is amazing. You know, we're not doing backflips and martial arts scenes. So we don't necessarily need full-body capture here for every detail. We're doing the hands and fingers and lips and eyes and head and body movement and stuff like that. So all of that is working really, really well. It's powered by this company called Obskur, a very great partner that we have this year, and we're really excited to reveal them to you guys and have you all watch and interact with these virtual characters."
"I think there's a balance there, and there's also a question of resources. So there was not necessarily an edict from anyone saying that we had to use motion-capture virtual characters this season. It is a rising area on Twitch, on influencer culture, on VTuber culture, and everything like that. It's definitely a rising thing. And so it felt like a very natural place for the show to go because we've been running with live-action people like Tiffany Chu, who was with us for three seasons.
And it just felt like a natural elevation of storytelling format. So as VTuber culture has risen in the internet culture, we haven't really seen, at least from my understanding, we haven't seen an example of it where it's interfaced into a story and a scripted narrative. So embracing that challenge has been something that we've been very "Rah! Go get it!" about. And that's something that came about because of, the simplest way I can say, and we played it out. If we had done this interview four months ago, I would not have been able to say that we were or were not going to go with virtual characters. And it's just something that we decided on that we're going to go for it. So I feel that it is a great separator of our show versus traditional live-action and just blending us into something that feels very Twitchy."
What do you guys think of Bernie's comments? Are you interested in an interactive viewing experience with live AIs? Regardless of your thoughts, be sure to check out the full video interview below and as always, share your thoughts in the usual spot!
The inimitable director, writer, producer, and innovative creator Bernie Su stopped by to promote Artificial Season 4 - Artificial: Factions - which sees the audience steer two motion capture created virtual AI's, ultimately splitting the viewers down the middle and forcing fans to pick a side.
Bernie walks us through the ways each prior season stepped up the interactivity, and he helps talk us through all the ways he's managed to outdo himself in the newest installments of the series. He talks about how LifeScore will continue to be used to make the music interactive and reactive to the tone the audience sets in the chat.
We also learn that Artificial: Factions will see the return of characters played by Dante Basco, Stephen A. Chang, Jennifer Field, and more, as well as the chances of encountering others from past seasons. Bernie broke down the new currency method which will allow twitch streamers to team up and combine the points they gain from viewing the show to influence how their faction's AI will function and respond, even going so far as to providing upgrades such as "fire hands".
Obviously, we dug in to find out how extensive the motion capture is and how the businessmen played by Basco and Chang will face off in the new episodes. We learned about the virtual AI and what the intent is behind each of them and how they are represented as well as how they represent different members of the viewing audience.
Artificial: Factions premieres today. September 9th, at 5 pm PST on Twitch.