Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/6960
February 2010 34 n n n n Gaming of control, which required a lot of additional time spent on each character and song by the artists," explains Matheson. "e implementa tion of these additional controls were invaluable in achieving the level of success I believe we had in bringing these 3D avatars to life as animated Beatles that lived stylistically somewhere between the older cartoon depictions [in the earlier con cepts] and [the final] depictions, which might comfortably lean against the protective railing overlooking the Uncanny Valley." According to Lesser, no one virtual Beatle received more attention than another. How ever, Ringo's drum animations and body movements proved more difficult to pin down because the artists wanted to show his particular style while keeping the drummer technology intact. "ere is a complicated underlying system of controls that makes Ringo do his thing, so we were constantly fighting against the inher ent roboticness of such a system and the needs of showing Ringo to be the relaxed, loose player he was," says Matheson. John, Paul, and George, meanwhile, each had their own particular way of playing guitar or bass, as well as singing, which required careful tuning on the part of the Harmonix crew. On Location e Beatles: Rock Band takes players to many locales, from concert stages to fantasy dream scapes, all modeled in 3ds Max and textured in Adobe's Photoshop. Using the available refer e nce material, the artists accurately recreated the historical venues to enable players to feel as if they are actually there. "We stylized them a bit to make them feel grandiose when shown on a small television screen," admits Lesser. e historical venues—like the clothing and the instruments—represented part of e Beatles history, and thus had to be me t iculously recreated to give the game an air of authenticity. For example, the set of e Ed Sullivan Show was resurrected digitally from photos and videos. Other historical venues in the game include e Cavern Club, Shea Sta dium, Budokan, Abbey Road Studios, and the rooftop at Apple headquarters. Surprisingly, the contrived dreamscapes, on the other hand, proved more challenging, according to Matheson. Unlike the historical venues, which supported multiple songs and were fairly in line with venues in Harmonix's past releases, these settings were not based on reality—in fact, far from it. "We had to flex totally different muscles for those," Matheson says. ese fantastic sets, filled with vivid colors, stylized lighting, and geometric forms, were used especially during the later years, when the band stopped touring and had been camped out in recording studios. "So we did this thing which is new for the Rock Band games, where we bring the band into these imaginary dreamscapes, which are fantasy locations based around the lyrical content or vibe of the song," describes Randall. For instance, the sequence for Octopus's Garden contains an underwater reef setting. e most complex, says Mathe son, was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/ With a Little Help from My Friends because the artists were working on two songs at once and had to seamlessly move the whole stage, in cluding the characters, at the switchover. "We were moving between different spaces and switching outfits. All this required a new authoring system that would allow artists to control what is seen at any point within a song," says Matheson. e imagery for these sequences was created in 3ds Max, though some of it has a 2.5D look for more of a kaleidoscope effect. e anima tion was done in Milo with new animation tools built inengine. "We created a whole new generation of animation system within Milo that is very much like other modern anima tion systems, with complex curve editors and triggering systems—things that were new to our engine and modern in the regard to what you would see in Max or Maya or After Ef fects," Lesser says. Rock On With e Beatles, Harmonix had to consider the rich and deep history of the people, places, and songs associated with the four rockers that had to be faithfully and respectfully brought into the digital world. In order to do that, the Harmonix team spent as much time making a game with four musicians as it did with many rock stars in the Rock Band series of games. While the initial team was small, the num bers soon swelled as the work amped up, ex p anding to an impressive 200person crew at the high point of the production. In the end, the game was welcomed by fans and critics alike. Perhaps more impres sive is the fact that Paul McCartney utilized game footage at various performances. (In fact, this is how the game first leaked to the w orld … in Sir Paul's live concert.) Further more, the game's release coincided with that of the new, remastered CD versions of e Beatles albums, showing that indeed the mu sic and aura of this band are as relevant and exciting today as they were decades ago. Only today, fans can accompany the stars on a vir tual stage and enjoy the music in a way that was unheard of when e Beatles first took the stage so many years ago. n Karen Moltenbrey is chief editor of Computer Graphics World. In addition to historical venues, the game contains fantasy backgrounds contrived by Harmonix to augment the lyrics or mood of a particular song. These backdrops were built in 3ds Max, while the animation was done within the Milo game engine using new tools created by Harmonix.