Streamer.bot has been public 11 days and already hundreds of VR streamers use it. What gives?

The bot has not even been public for two weeks and you can't throw a fortune cookie in their discord without hitting a streamer that is a master of the mixed reality or avatar artforms. And these nerds also happen to be a masters of Streamer.bot already. How?

The long and short of it... being the best bot for VR streamers is what Streamer.bot was designed to do.

A little VR back story...

**TwitchCon 2019 San Diego ... Get ready for a lot of TwitchCon pics, y'all**

One could say it all started in the fall of '19 at TwitchCon in San Diego. Sure, SB developer and lover of VR (and all things nerdy, let's be honest) nate1280 had already known Lyfesaver74 for years. By then he had also spent nearly a year getting to know other community VR nerds like Whipstickgostop, Byakko83 and many more (pics are in the blog, y'all!) -- but meeting everyone in person elevated everything. It was the start of a community that would eventually become FeVR. The primary "testing bed" of Streamer.bot.

Knowing the kind of nerds that are needed for something like FeVR (and their friends) really explains how the feature-set for Streamer.bot became what it is... but that is for another blog. No, Streamer.bot was born when Nate decided to give a very dear friend of his a way for them to have their channel points "do things". Magical things! After that, well, $#!^ just kind of got out of hand. And fast.

Look, Ma! No Hands!

Nate the great and Aben (owner, Kluge Interactive) caught talking about their favorite OST Synth Riders maps

Having been fans & owners of VR in one way or another for years, Nate and Lyfesaver74 (seen below) had already been on a mission to improve VR streaming by developing a powerful TTS script for Streamlabs Chatbot. Being a proud member of CRAP (Cant Read And Play), Lyfe knew the struggles were real and the options it provided were much needed, not to mention fun. Adding SAPI5 voices and unlocking the 80+ OneCore voices from within Windows was only just the beginning. It was the introduction of a speaker.dll into a Python script to handle OneCore voices that really turbo charged development.

Even though having already been friends and coworkers for over half a decade, TwitchCon 19 was the first time Lyfesaver74 and nate1280 met. The moment this photo was taken, actually.

Being a solid bot for over 6 months and used throughout the community, Streamer.bot's "No Hands" approach was further extended by adding Voice Control and Nate developing a VoiceAttack plugin that allowed the two direct communication. Now you could easily speak to the bot and have it react to your voice commands.

Friends Become A Team

Whipstickgostop, web developer for both Streamer.bot and FeVR, hook up with Nate at the 'Con

We all became more than friends and that is the heart behind the bot. Nate building something he and friends can use. Whip doing a lot of website work for so many VR communities, along with Byakko83 (seen below) and so many others helping, not only in supporting FeVR, but Streamer.bot as well.

Byakko83 trying to prove he could rip that off the tank. He couldn't.

Streamer.bot made connections at TwitchCon '19 that are proving to be invaluable.
Top image, from left to top and back down to the right: Longtime friend Mathewap888, [FeVR] Whipstickgostop, [FeVR] Dni0, HelpingHans and the top of Byakko83's head over to the top of dedicated FeVR friend Austinator132's head and down to Rainbow_Zilla's awesome tats to Lyfesaver74 trying to help Hans find the bar they are all going to next.
Bottom image, from left to right we have Austinator and Mathew next to Streamer.bot's creator, nate1280 who has Rainbow_Zilla all huggled up on him.

That bar Hans and Lyfe were looking for was the location of a big VR event at TC '19 hosted by Kluge Interactive

Identifiable from left to right: Mathewap888, LlamaJuice, Aben, Strabo, the top of Din0's and the back of Whipstickgostop's heads while talking to Carize with MissMicheleJean not far away.

Kluge hosted an event that was streamed live where people took turns playing the Synth Riders song packs, eating apps and drinking booze. At the time, the headset of choice was a Vive and we broadcasted in mixed reality using LIV. Too busy kicking ass back at headquarters, LIV was not able to make an appearance but almost everyone in this room is an OG LIV user. Some of whom (Nate, for example) have gone on to work with LIV. In fact, no VR community is untouched by LIV in some way and almost everyone in this room speaks the language of "Compositors and Calibrations".

Streamer.bot's ability to run an action to switch LIV profiles for Lyfe's Challenge Cam was one of the first "must haves" the bot provided the VR community. Then it was off to the races.

Top left to right: Lyfesaver74, TougeVR, Art3misXR, nate1280 and LlamaJuice. Middle left to right: Dni0, Whipstickgostop, Rainbow_Zilla,Austinator132 and Aben on the bottom

This history might help to connect the dots and have some things start making sense...

For example, having VR streamers as the primary test bed did help, as VR streamers are no stranger to technology not working. If an alpha version of Streamer.bot ever crashed, and it sometimes did, we could roll back, restart and never skip a beat (or bloq). But VR streamers are born of that kind of hellfire and can take it in stride, tho not always with a smile. It also shines some light on why the bot went public without OBS media controls and hotkey support (quickly added as soon as it could be). What VR streamer is typing at a keyboard and playing media in OBS? Ooops. Our bad.

I hope this explains a few things, tells a story or two, and introduces you to our friends. You can find out more about Streamer.bot here at https://streamer.bot, more about FeVR at https://fevr.gg, more about LIV at https://liv.tv, more about Kluge Interactive at https://klugeinteractive.com/

Thank you, all!!