Interview with LittleAO: Part 2
Part of the "VR is Alive!" Artist Spotlight Series
For this interview we are fortunate to have LittleAO (she/her) joining us to chat about her creations!
What inspires you to build and upload your creations for people to visit in social VR?
Well, I feel like, you know, well, I'm making little museums, but then I became addicted. Let's just be honest. I think after 50 worlds, there was a moment of clarity where I had to ask myself, how many of these do you need? And why are you still building? I mean, are you still having ideas? Really? And the answer is actually yes. I recently did a… I guess… it's a 14-foot cat that's vomiting candy. I mean, where else can you make that? You know, so I like making, like, impossible, funny things. And I usually hide a toilet in my worlds. It's kind of a little Dada art thing I like to do.
Like I mentioned before, I wanted to make sure that I left a legacy with my artwork being somewhere, because I'll never be in a museum. I'm not that. And I'm okay with that. But then we passed the point where it became an artistic medium for me and now I'm making these little art pieces more or less that people seem to enjoy. They're not for everybody. I'm definitely not a Black Cat. I'm not… I'm not popular in any way. But I find that the people that like my worlds really appreciate them. And then that just makes me happy that they're happy. One of the sweetest things for me to hear is when I'm hanging out with somebody and they go, “Oh my God, you made my home world!” And that just warms my heart to even think somebody would want to load up into their game in one of my worlds. So it really became an art medium after about world 50. And now I'm obsessed, like I'm making a bedroom in a forest right now. And I have these beautiful trees. And I just bought these new flowers. Yeah. Yeah, my bedroom in a forest is beautiful, but I've got some lighting issues right now.
Any advice for new builders?
So, I think about the resources, there's so much on Booth. And there's so many free worlds on Booth, so just download the software, get in there, watch a couple of tutorials, etc. But go get one of those worlds that are free and bust it open and see how it's built. See how they're built. Take spookyghostboo on Booth for example. I'm mentioning her since I really do love her stuff. She develops really clean files. She just recently closed her website down. She's going back to Booth, which I think is fantastic for the community in general. Yeah. She makes really clean files, very organized, and then you can see how it's done. And that’s… that's how I learned. I had to break someone else's to see how it's done. And I think that's the best way to go about it, but I definitely think everybody should do it. It is such a… I hate to say an outlet, but when I think about when I first started, I thought only big canvases. And now I'm doing, you know, 14-foot vomiting cats, you know, there's just a process.
I like to create up to three different worlds a week because that's what I do on the weekends. That's what I do in the evenings. Sh*t, honey! Sometimes I've woken up at four in the morning and been so inspired that I will actually build until I have to go to work at seven.
How do you follow through on ideas before you start building? Do you have any unfinished ideas that you have a list of?
Oh yeah. So there's, at this point, 93 worlds I’ve made, but for every world, there's probably three to four that were built for that world. Yeah. I just like to jump in and you, you have to load up files. Like your trees are a file and my tree file takes almost three hours to load in. So all that is a time suck. You load in trees, you load in all the stuff, and then you start playing around and I am very much like a watercolor painter. I just kind of paint around and see that sometimes it'll start with a sculpture. I use Medium, which is free in VR. And you, it's like sculpting with shaving cream and making really amazing little sculptures and then going off of that. But I will have an idea once in a while. And like the forest, the bedroom in a forest [world], I mean, it's just a concept and I like the idea because I want it to be raining as well. And there's an atmosphere I want. Also, I'm going to say I'm a little bit of a shopaholic and during COVID, I stopped shopping at actual stores. I don't want any more items inside my house, but digital items I pretty much allow myself to buy if I want them. So I've been shopping and everyone is reaping the rewards. It's fun. It's fun. Yeah.
How do you determine or reach a point where you're satisfied with what you've created?
I think there is a point, yeah. One, as an artist, perfection is just a concept. You're never going to get it perfect. It's just… also I do it for me and I know everyone else is along the ride with me, but if I don't make myself happy, you know, it's to a point where I'm not embarrassed to be public about something and then I'll be okay. I don't ever feel like things, I don't want to say I don't finish things because that's not necessarily the case, but… wait… scratch it off. I know exactly what happens. I know exactly what happens! I run out of space. You only have a hundred megabytes and after that I'm done. I can't add anymore and that’s game over. So really what happens is I run out of space.
I've been trying to make smaller worlds that are more optimized so that I can put more [interactivity] and add more items and stuff, but I get so drawn into the big building, making something gigantic and then it just takes up more space and megabytes. And I replace things on the reg. That's why I will never be popular either. There are a few worlds of mine that are… I have like this bakery that seems to be, you know, hip-hopping and happening.
And then I have my little cloud cafe that seems... Those I try to keep standard, but the others, you only get one new world a week, but I like to create up to three different worlds a week because that's what I do on the weekends. That's what I do in the evenings. Sh*t, honey! Sometimes I've woken up at four in the morning and been so inspired that I will actually build until I have to go to work at seven. I don't know. I know that's where you're like, I was building until four last night in the morning and it broke. I can't even use it. I've got compiling issues and errors that I can't fix. So I have to scrap it and do it again, and this time figure out what's causing the compiling errors and not bring that item in.
This is related to the new world. Do you have any new worlds that you're building right now that you can tell us about? And do you know when it's going to be ready?
Oh yeah. The forest in the bedroom will be probably tomorrow {add the published date here}. It'll be in labs tomorrow {published date}. Pretty much every week, I do a new world. And sometimes I'm not sure exactly until I'm doing it. But since Halloween is coming, Spookality is happening. Yeah. And I try every year. I've only gotten in like twice, maybe once. But I really enjoy Halloween. So I imagine I'll be doing some Halloween worlds. And then some Christmas worlds, some snowy Christmas worlds. So since we're hitting the holidays, I imagine much like an artist, just whatever the environment is happening on the outside tends to make its way on the inside. So, I'm sure some holiday worlds.
How can we stay updated on what you’re making? Are there any other external places where you'd want us to follow you?
Well, my Discord is LittleAO. But I don't have a Patreon. I don't do Patreon or anything because it's not necessarily... I think when you start making it how you make a living, it becomes something else. I enjoy the sandbox effect where it's just Play-Doh and fun.
You said earlier that you had a lighting issue you're trying to solve? I think that'd be good to explain for new world builders.
Yeah. So there's two kinds of lighting for these worlds and Unity has its own internal lighting system that you have to bake in. For a Quest to run well and stuff, everything should be baked into your textures. Like, these shadows don't exist. They're actually baked into the texture. So Bakery is a phenomenal tool. It is usually $60, but Christmas is coming and they always have that on sale. If you make worlds, it's going to cut a 45-minute bake down to a 15-minute bake. I mean, it really... I would say at least half the time you're spending on baking your lights. And when you bake lights, you will move a light and then you've got to bake it to see if it's doing what it needs to do, if it looks like it needs to look. Bakery allows you to iterate way faster. And as soon as I got that tool, that's when I was like, I'm not stopping ever. I'm making forever. And if that tool doesn't work, I hate life. I can't make a world. I'm upset. Things are not right with the world. So Bakery is just... It's $60. Wait until the holiday. But if you're serious about making worlds, yeah, it's the tool, the must-have tool. It allows the lighting to be soft. And any of the worlds that have really beautiful lighting, one hundred percent they have used Bakery.
So, right now I took a model that has the internal Unity lighting system going on in it. I have to take all those lights out. And you can really only have one realtime light for a Quest. You can get away with two, but don’t. Just do one. It's... Anyways, there's something happening in this world where I can tell there's a real light somewhere. And I think it's on these... Yeah, it's either that or my UVs are not baked into my meshes. So you have to bake UV meshes and stuff. Yeah. But Bakery, I give it five stars. If people are in VR, I feel like they should give it a shot. If they've got a good computer, definitely try this out. I have high hopes that VRChat will be even easier to build on as we go along.