Interview with SirSaxy: Part 1
Part of the "VR is Alive!" Artist Spotlight Series
For this interview we are fortunate to have SirSaxy (he/him) joining us to chat about his creations and performances in social VR as a musician!
First I want to let you introduce yourself.
I guess the social VR kind of started in 2019 for me. I've been into emerging tech for a while. My background is in computer science and so I've always dabbled in like things like Google Glass and all kinds of stuff from the development side of it just as part of my career. But then when I got into social VR, it was probably around like 2019-ish and then I just—instead of being more on the “what can this tech do?” side of things—kind of decided to jump in as a user for once. With the Quest 1, I think I had it for maybe half a year before I actually started to use it for games and stuff. And then that's when we started getting into AltspaceVR and some of the social media groups and finding people. So I really just got into it just by chance of just jumping in and seeing what it could do really.
Can you tell me about your introduction to and/or earliest memory of social VR?
I would say my earliest memory was in AltspaceVR but it was more so like jumping into AltspaceVR just to watch the SpaceX launch. Stuff like that. Like just, oh what's going on, are there people in VR doing it, that kind of thing. But I didn't get into like really doing a lot of social events myself on a regular, more consistent basis until more black folks and people around that kind of culture started to do more culture-centric events.
I have to say this, visiting your Mardi Gras world back in February 2021 was my very first social VR moment where I met more of the Black Altspacers group and the Metaculture VR group. It was an awesome time for me that even in a pandemic I could still socialize in a representative group and I thank you for contributing to that moment. Can you say more about building for representation in virtual spaces and building for Black people, building for us?
I think this is an interesting thing that transcends just one group, I should say kind of, but you can see it in the VR spaces. It’s a principle that I see outside VR as well, which is that if you build something from yourself, then it doesn't necessarily mean it's just for your people, but it resonates with them. It appears to be the same thing in social VR, but like functionally it's a little bit different. And the reason I make that distinction is because, you know, I didn't seek out necessarily to build a lot of virtual spaces just for black people, I built things that I identify with. So the places that I've performed in the past or experiences that I've had, a lot of the venues that I built for like performances and things like that were reminiscent of the experiences, the sights, the sounds, the aesthetics of places that I performed, like when I was in Philadelphia or when we did the AltspaceVR house party and like the HBCU stuff, that was my time at Alabama A&M.
So like a lot of these are experiences that I've had that are black experiences, but they'll resonate with other black folks too, because they've had those same sorts of experiences. Yeah, so that's kind of like where how I built came from and what I sought to build, it was more so to capture and share the experiences that I had, just the ones that stood out to me in the past.
Do you have any favorite genres, games, music, or movies that also influence what you make here in social VR?
Man, I guess you could say like all of the 90s romantic comedy movies, like House Party and like all those kinds of things, because the one thing they say a lot about millennials is that we're very nostalgic of the 90s. And so I think a lot of that comes from those sorts of feelings and scenes, just being able to jump into that moment that you would see in a movie or on TV or like in a show. And then I guess the other side, as far as like games, I wouldn't say there were many other than sci-fi, because I really like science fantasy and sci-fi stuff, Star Trek, that kind of thing. And so being able to have experiences that make you think beyond what we have in front of us, it's almost like being able to live out the possibilities and explore what could be. That's the kind of thing that, I guess that's the other side of it, like the Afro Ascension world that I created. That was sort of what that was, imagine ‘if’ and then sort of building that out. I mean, I sat on that idea for like over a year. I had it in my head that I wanted to do something that was like Afro-centric, but still like Afro-futurist and sort of blended stuff.
How much time would you say that you dedicate to certain projects and completing them?
It depends on what I'm doing. It's basically until I feel like it fits more than I had in my head. That's pretty much what it comes down to. And then like that could be anywhere from, like I said, that one idea I had for over a year before I sort of, I guess the word you would use is like it coalesces in my brain and then I feel like, okay, now I can build it. But there were pieces of it that I knew what I wanted it to feel like, but I didn't know what pieces would make it feel that way. If that makes sense. So until I kind of manifested that vision in my head to the point where I could see the different pieces of it and then start building it, I kind of count that as part of the building process. Like I'll have something I want to build, but then there may be this period of time where I have to keep thinking about it until I kind of know what I want to do. And then there are some times where it's already in my head and I just need to sit down and dedicate time to it. Those I can pretty much do in like a few days if I find the right assets and things like that to put together.
Would you say once you're done with the world, you're done? Or would you like to always come back to tweak worlds or what's your process with that?
I'm generally done. I don't necessarily work on stuff after I'm done with it, but I may re-work it, if that makes sense. For example, the Freestyle Power Hour space, the basement one, that was like a redo of or reimagining of the feeling of the garage that we had. But I wanted to take that same feeling and apply that to like what if the space was like some kind of underground disco kind of thing. So in that way, like I was done with the garage, but then I had another idea of what I could do with it. So it kind of turned into a separate project, but that just is, you know, how the inspiration hits me. And I just go and start working on it at that point rather than like just kind of redoing things over and over again. Now I might do little Easter eggs after that, I might decorate it for that particular time of year or something like that.
What part of the creative process do you like the most? As in, what sort of thing is your favorite aspect, such as modeling, animating, being in Unity, etc. Any software tools in particular that you like that made life easier for you, that you’d like to share with the audience?
I don't really like modeling because I'm not that good at it. And I don't really do much animation either because it's very tedious. So I guess I would say like just the compiling of elements in Unity to try to like make it make sense. And then I guess if there's another sub piece of that, I really like the light baking stuff.
As for software recommendations, that's hard for me to say because I don't have an expansive knowledge of tools. I just use things that kind of make sense in the time. So like I'll do mainly just Unity and then building, bringing assets to put something together. I would say like for me, my advice isn't so much tool related, but more so just experience and kind of like the feel of a space. I focus a lot on lighting because the lighting gives spaces a certain type of mood. And that's the kind of thing that I feel really impacts how people feel when they jump into one of my worlds. They feel, you know, the essence. They feel the ambiance. They feel the mood and the kind of energy of a space and lighting, in my opinion, has a lot to do with that. So my advice isn't so much like this is how you do something. It's more like this: leverage light baking for the mood of your spaces.
Are there any parts of the virtual creation process that you think could be better?
Building specifically, I would say just uploading. Like we mentioned with Engage, how extremely convoluted their process is. I mean, we're talking like GitHub repos and sending emails and all kinds of things. With AltspaceVR, it was so streamlined. I know they did that over a number of years with feedback of the community as well. But, you know, getting to a point where you can push a button to upload something. And unlike VRChat, where you have to have, you know, community labs and all that stuff. Like you just push a button, upload it, and then go. The workflow is really what I would like these platforms to focus on. I think that workflow means something in the VR world. Workflow is, you know, it's unprecedented because you're talking about being able to create something. But then your testing is more so putting on a headset and then jumping in.
There are a lot of different components, a lot of different devices involved. It would be nice if these developers really focused on the experience of the creation and the building process. But then I would say in addition to that, focusing on the tools for those who are trying to do experiences that go beyond just jumping into a space and like being there. I like interactions that are bringing in like the outside world too. So, you know, I do a lot of performances and stuff like that. Having the tools that would allow me to easily bring in a stream or bring in audio. Even when it comes to how the audio sounds in the space. Those are the kinds of things that if I could have a workflow that incorporates all that stuff, it would greatly increase what I would be interested in doing. And then it would increase my, I would say, my desire to create more experiences in VR.
When it comes to my VR experience, I need to have the ability for my spaces to be living and for people to live in those spaces. Not just somewhere where people show up, go look at it and it's like, “oh, this is pretty”
I'm curious about what you've noticed and what you see the future being for Black Altspacers and really Black social VR users as a whole in social VR after AltspaceVR. What you would want to see and what's happening now?
So for me, I guess I'm one of those people that AltspaceVR was probably very central to my social VR experience just because of what my role, if you want to call it that, was in that social VR space, which was more like event production and like performances and that kind of stuff. It’s one of those things that’s like peanut butter and jelly for me, so to speak. When it comes to my VR experience, I need to have the ability for my spaces to be living and for people to live in those spaces. Not just somewhere where people show up, go look at it and it's like, “oh, this is pretty”, but I want things to occur in there. That's really what drives what I create, is the idea that there will be something that happens in this space at some point.
Now, all that said, what has prevented me, I would say, from being very involved after AltspaceVR in VRChat or Horizon Worlds or whatever is that their tools may be there, but the work that would be required to implement those things and learn them. If there was a straightforward way to do that and I didn't have to dedicate a ton of time and effort to kind of basically building an avenue to do that kind of stuff for myself, then I'd probably be more interested in it. But the thing about AltspaceVR is, even though I spent two years or so building my whole workflow, at every step of the way, there was a way to do it. Even if it wasn't super consistent or high quality, I could still make it happen. And so like I mentioned with the VRChat community labs thing, I could create my spaces in AltspaceVR and then I could run and have a show going within minutes. That kind of thing, I don't see that being the case with these other platforms. So for me, it's not been something that I found anything, any other space that really does what I want to do, like I could do it in AltspaceVR. And given that what I did in social VR was very much those living spaces where things would occur in there, it would probably take some platform really focusing on those sorts of experiences. Because when you think about the DJs and musicians and all that kind of stuff, a lot of times what it would take for us to be able to do what we do in these VR spaces, that kind of tool is going to be an afterthought many times. It just is what it is right now.
And so for me, that's been sort of the... I won't say I’ve been at odds with, but that's been the opposite side of the spectrum from what I do in real life, which is also poor form. Things that I do in real life are also pulling. If social VR is going to have a high learning curve with a lot of resistance, barriers and hurdles to being able to do performances, then naturally with somebody like myself it's just so much easier to do it in real life. Micah J and I just did a thing in Atlanta this past weekend. And there's also money, you get paid to do that kind of stuff. So it's like the benefits don't necessarily outweigh the benefits that you have in real life right now. And I think that's probably one of the biggest issues. If it's worth my while to perform, or at the very least, if it's not a huge burden to do it, then I'd be way more likely to.
I can't speak for what the future holds. I think if we ever get to a point where someone who has the funding to build a platform has the foresight to focus on the needs of the content creators of social VR, then I feel like you'll truly have a great platform at that point. Because now you're not relying on the developers, you're not relying on people who are running the company to come up with everything that folks will come into the platform for. You actually rely on the community to develop that. And with that, I think we can take a note from YouTube and some of these social media platforms. I don't see that model being leveraged when it comes to content creation for VR. I don't see them compensating creators. I don't see them providing content creation tools. All of those things we've learned already are necessary for, at the very least, an audience. All those things are very necessary for you to bring in content creators who then are going to bring your audience in. Until somebody really respects that, I think we'll continue to get this novelty thing that has been the norm for as long as I remember. Where, yeah, it's VR, it's cool, it's this thing for those people, but it's not for everybody. So yeah, that's my thoughts in general.
Read part two of our interview with SirSaxy here.
SirSaxy gets it! Love his Welcome To The Metaverse "theme" song. He touches on some top priorities for VR development that content creators need to establish VR as a go-to entertainment destination.