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| Rock Band™ |
Curious Pictures Kicks Out the Jams for Mixed media production company provides key frame animation, motion capture for season’s hottest new game title New York, NY – Dec. 19, 2007 – Slated to be one of the top-selling videogames for the 2007 holiday season, Rock Band™ lets players live out their rock and roll dreams. Harmonix, the videogame development company behind Rock Band™, tapped New York-based entertainment company Curious Pictures to provide motion capture and key frame animation for the game.
To create the animation of the game players, Kofsky and the team at Harmonix, led by art director Ryan Lessor and producer Jason Kendall, cast a wide net for musicians on which to model the animated performances. Each band member of the in-game band has to perform in a variety of rock genres for each instrument, as well as vocals, Kofsky adds—which meant that his animation team went on a massive, bi-coastal search for authentic rockers to don mo-cap suits and perform before the mo-cap cameras. “There’s a range of musical styles represented in the game, from heavy metal to punk rock to classic rock,” says Kofsky. “We did extensive casting for musicians in those genres, so that we could capture the most authentic performances for the game.” The musicians donned motion capture suits at the Curious Pictures studios in Manhattan and performed to the Rock Band™ soundtrack, giving the intensity of live performance to the in-game environment. After capturing these gigs, Curious collaborated with Harmonix to finesse the footage and provide key frame animation, which was then fed into Harmonix’s game engine to produce the final product seen in the game. Rock Band™ comes pre-loaded with songs and additional content available for download for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions. “It’s an awesome game,” says Kofsky. “By the end of it, you’ll know how to play every instrument in the band.” Curious Pictures Rock Band™ credits:
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Rock Band™ lets players perform as lead guitar, bass guitar, drums and lead singer. Players use a game peripheral that mimics their real-life counterparts in the game environment, where they can rock out to tunes from such legendary artists as The Who, David Bowie, Bon Jovi, Nirvana and the Strokes, accumulating points along the way. Curious captured over five hours of performance footage to represent the in-game musicians. “We worked very closely with Harmonix every step of the way,” says Lewis Kofsky, director of computer graphics and visual effects at Curious. “Harmonix created an amazing game that allows players to customize their band members; we just provided all the motion that makes those characters rock out.” 
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