Rhythm Revolution
Aero recording
Desktop Version
Pre-planning
In developing our concept and idea for this virtual environment, we thought back to Project 3 with the mannequin movements we made. We had made a movement video based on an iconic Just Dance track: “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction. Inspired by the early 2010’s and our childhood, the virtual environment we created incorporates elements such as color, animation, and background features that point to the style we grew up with and that of the game we and so many others know and love.
Thought-process
As previously mentioned, our environment is inspired by the Just Dance scene. Thus, we included a neon colored cityscape layered background as well as vehicles – a truck for our dancers, cars, and a motorcycle . Vibrant colors are so often used in the Just Dance backgrounds, as they are intended to keep audiences engaged and add a pop of color to their world, which is what we wanted to do in our virtual environment.
Because of this, we also chose characters that fit into this world; the characters we chose reflect those in many iconic Just Dance dances – full of color and energy. Their movements being various dancing styles is another aspect of the game’s elements which we incorporated in our own way. The goal was to choose and develop characters that reflect these characteristics of this game, and we think they pulled it together nicely. Combined with the hip hop style dance elements, our characters bring life to their city and portray the fun spirit of the characters often seen in the Just Dance game.
Our Aero Experience
As we began our work in Adobe Aero, we soon realized we had a lot to learn. Neither of us had used the platform before this and there were many features to tool around with and use to bring our ideas to life. We encountered issues specifically with importing fbx files (RT3D) downloaded from Mixamo into Aero as well as importing other background elements from sites like TurboSquid. Ultimately, we were able to use tutorials to develop our ideas. We combined several dance movements from Mixamo and were able to upload them to Aero, adding tap features to begin their dance animations. We also explored our options for backgrounds and objects and compiled an environment that we think best fits the trend of games like Just Dance. We are calling our product “Rhythm Revolution” because of its energetic dancing and vibrant character.
We first clicked on +Trigger to create the spark for the action and then added on another dance movement by clicking on +Action to create distinct choreographies. The process of choosing specific movements was fun. Initially, we tested the mannequin with the movement we created in Rokoko. However, we wanted clearer dancing with moves we were unable to perform. Thus, we looked through Mixamo for options and chose hip hop as our genre because it most closely matches Just Dance’s dancing.
Reflection
This project was truly a learning experience and it was really cool to experiment with a platform we hadn’t initially known anything about. Aero could definitely use some general improvements, however, we think it works pretty well considering it’s a beta model. The future of AR is bright and this is simply a small stepping stone to what the future holds.