Just Sing
Developer : INIS
Publisher : Ubisoft
Project Roles : UI design and video treatment concepts, UI team manager, content design, VS mode game design.
Developer : INIS
Publisher : Ubisoft
Project Roles : UI design and video treatment concepts, UI team manager, content design, VS mode game design.
A casual app on the surface with a lot "under the hood".
This family friendly, casual project required a large amount of UI, pre production and in game concept work.
Initially, the game was designed to work with the Xbox One Kinect camera exclusively, utilizing body-mapped shape masking and detailed post-process shader effects, but was later redesigned to work with a companion app on smartphones.
Initially, the game was designed to work with the Xbox One Kinect camera exclusively, utilizing body-mapped shape masking and detailed post-process shader effects, but was later redesigned to work with a companion app on smartphones.
Concept U-Turn
The switch from Kinect to companion app was mainly due to the decision by Microsoft to make the Xbox One kinect camera an option as opposed to a requirement.
This required a total redesign of all visual concepts, and the removal of all the kinect based tech due to the extreme data transfer bandwidth limitations from the app to the game hardware and vice versa, Screen aspect ratio also needed a drastic redesign, due to the recorded footage having to run on a 16:9 ratio HDTV and also be seen in a vertical aspect on smartphones. |
Pre-production and pipeline
Song theme filter selection via companion app
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All pre production and thematic concepts for video overlay treatments were mocked up by myself in Photoshop, 3D, Aftereffects and occasionally HTML5 based interactive prototypes for the authoring team to use as reference during the Unity authoring phase.
The song themes themes ranged from simple, family and child friendly, easily recognizable "meme" type themes, to much more complicated "mood based" content based upon the numerous genres available. Reducing the vast song database to a fixed amount of compatible themes based on lyric, mood crossed with style was an arduous task in itself, and I spent many hours trying researching all genres of current music videos to distill the elements of recognizable music video tropes into a limited set of thematic groups. This pipeline allowed much faster client and management approval before any commitment was made on the app developent side, plus the removal of any design ambiguity, allowing the authoring team to execute rapidly with little to no retakes. Additional illustration work to create a more cohesive look was supplied by traditional in - house illustration staff, as well as utilizing the animation team to create or expand on my ideas for the more "cartoony" themes. |
I also managed the day to day activities of the UI design and authoring teams as well as creating numerous presentation videos for Ubisoft corporate events, plus designed the play flow and game mechanics of the Versus mode.
UI slideshow
VS Mode : A 2 player, interactive singing battle game
Vs mode required a system to visually indicate an enhancement to the video overlay for the player performing best, and a detrimental effect for the other player.
Numerous iterations were required to ensure the losing player wasn't feeling ridiculed or discouraged, although we retained the fun element of recording your own pre battle "taunt" video before you played against your rival.
Various easy to understand methods of obscuring and dissolving the losing players videofeed were mocked up in Aftereffects, such as dissolving in bubbles, or crumbling geometric shapes.
The best candidates were then passed as video examples with technical suggestions for implementation to the Authoring team.
Numerous iterations were required to ensure the losing player wasn't feeling ridiculed or discouraged, although we retained the fun element of recording your own pre battle "taunt" video before you played against your rival.
Various easy to understand methods of obscuring and dissolving the losing players videofeed were mocked up in Aftereffects, such as dissolving in bubbles, or crumbling geometric shapes.
The best candidates were then passed as video examples with technical suggestions for implementation to the Authoring team.