Imagine: Moviestar

Imagine: Movie Star was another entry in the Powerhead music game stable. In this one, the rhythm gameplay took the context of the player being a movie star, going to premieres, fashion shows, high-profile dates, etc. During each level, cut-scene style stories would play in real time along with the music, interspersed with sections of music gameplay. The game also contained our most fully fleshed out clothing outfitter to date, letting the player choose their articles of clothing and re-texture them using a variety of methods, including colors, stripes, patterns, and even drawing their own outfits.

This was my first project that really required a Lead Artist role. From the beginning I was crafting from scratch, the visual idea of the whole game would be. Documentation, planning and coordination were necessary. I was in constant communication with an in-house artists and an external 3D modeling house to create all assets. The schedule and and budget was very small and I had to essentially design a new license. In fact on the game design end, the gameply had to be reduced down to its most simplest form - reusing our rhythm game tech and outfit customizer tech with some enhancements. The rest of the game was all designed to be eye candy. Animations, models, UI and environments were all imagined to portray a sense of highlife and the movie stardom.

I was in charge of narrowing down the visual style of the game and finding and making concept reference of that would be used as the basis of clothing, environment and UI designs. Once the template ideas were settled on, I communicated/collaborated everything to the rest of the teamso they could create the final parcels.

A huge part of the game were the video based cut-scenes. A custom clothed live 3D model character of your choosing would be "blended" into short vignettes where your character is being interviewed, chased by paparazzi, etc. This required a storyboard which my in-house animator followed closely. By the end of the project, all of the pieces fell mostly into place and considering it was my first hard core lead role and the crazy short schedule and crunch time, I think I set expectations well and delivered the agreed upon end result.

Imagine: Moviestar was developed by Powerhead Games and published by Ubisoft.