Street Moves Q&A With nDreams
by BONZO, HSM team writer and artist
We’ve seen the developer teaser video for the Street Moves characters, and many questions popped up as a result — because they really break away from the norm. Yes, even in Home there is a normality of things, and nDreams tends to do things very differently; it is that approach to Home development that has secured their place in the hearts of the fans. So their unique approach to the demand for more dances sparked HSM to inquire into the development of these new outfits, and Joe Dale, Digital Product Manager for nDreams, was generous enough to give us his time to answer a few questions.
Cell Shaded Jet Set
What inspired you to veer away from realistic avatars?
At nDreams we like to do things a little differently. I think that shows in other items and spaces that we have created up to this point. We have had a look at products currently available in home and saw a gap and that would stand out from the crowd. It’s certainly going to be interesting to see how Street Moves is received in Home due to the interesting designs.
Were the design aesthetics of the characters based on graffiti art, or on some other pop culture inspiration?
There were numerous points of inspiration including graffiti art but others including the games Jet Set Radio Future and Naruto. Also inspiration was taken from the artists Lois Van Baarle, Alessandro Barbucci and Jamie Hewlett.
The dances are smooth and more realistic than anything we have seen, ironically on very cartoon like characters. Are the dance animations motion captured?
I donned my motion capture suit and strutted my stuff so what you actually see in Home is me. So to answer the question, all the dance moves you see for all the volumes have been motion captured. One part of that answer might not be true…
Can you disclose how many characters in total are planned to be introduced? How many volumes are in the pipeline?
We have four volumes planned which are being released weekly from 22nd August, each volume will have four new characters with their own dance move as well as a companion.
Volume one is set to include some speakers, stereo and a disco ball; will you introduce other furniture props?
To correct you on this question, volume one is not being released alongside the speakers, stereo and the Shimmer Sphere — that’s a world exclusive for you there! These are other products that are being finalised internally and will be released within the next few weeks. We wanted to get them in the initial announcement trailer to see if people noticed them and what reaction we got back.
Does the stereo play music?
I neither confirm nor deny that vicious rumor…
Will upcoming characters also include break dancing moves or will you introduce other forms of dancing?
I’m afraid I’m going to do the typical developer thing and plead the Fifth to a degree. We do have other styles coming up but what they are I don’t want to get into. Before the release of each volume we will have an introducing video much like we have for volume one that will show you the character and their individual dance move.
How many dances are available per character?
Each character has the one dance move attached to the full body outfit.
You introduced the Ansada fone apartment, the only space thus far to be cell shaded; going with the cartoon look with Street Moves, why weren’t they cell shaded as well?
There’s no particular reason to not do them cell shaded but as I mentioned in response to your first question we like to try and do things differently and not just produce similar content. When the initial designs were created and seen within Home we thought they looked fantastic and they didn’t need anything else doing to them.
Mo cap suit (Not Joe Dale in picture)
Is there a technical issue with cell shading Home avatars?
I’m not a technical person — I can hardly use Excel — but I have been reliably informed that there aren’t any real problems with cell shading avatars but the lighting can be a bit tricky at times.
Will there be an nDreams personal space that fits into the aesthetic look of these characters?
There aren’t any plans to do this, but who knows; if the Street Moves characters are well supported by the Home community then I’m sure it’s something that we could be open to.
Have you considered roller blade dancers, on par with Jet Set radio style avatars?
I’ll have to bring it back to the “being original / different” answer. While we have taken inspiration from Jet Set Radio with Street Moves to just take the that idea and copy it wouldn’t really fit with what nDreams likes to do when developing new items.
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That nDreams likes to do things a little different is quite an understatement. The design aesthetic of the Street Dancers is a new introduction to the Home environment, the inspiration is evident but the characters remain undefinable and strictly something very nDreams. If you were impressed by the dance moves as they are very fluid and realistic looking, that is a result of the motion capture approach to the animation, because it takes direct data from live motion in a mo-cap suit rather than perceptual animated motion.
Art by Lois Van Baarle, Alessandro Barbucci and Jamie Hewlett Respectively
Four volumes each volume with four dancers, that is a lot of characters to chose from, and a huge variety for both males and females, and the best part is they aren’t alone. With a companion it makes these avatars even more of a must have. Volume One has a animated boombox companion. The inclusion of furniture items coming in the near future, some of which you can preview on the video, including an awesome approach to a disco ball with the Shimmer Sphere will expands their aesthetic further.
One key comment to focus on from the responses, in regard to a personal space: developers get very creative at times and think outside the box presenting us with a variety of content. The community support on specific content determines whether we see more of it or not. Street Moves look awesome, they are unique and very different from the normal standards of Home, and it is easy to see the influences behind them specially if you are a fan of Jamie Hewlett, the artistic genius behind the Gorillaz aesthetic. However it is the community which decides how that content expands, and evolves. Hopefully, the Home community will be as impressed as we have been by the creative design of these characters and with our support we will see an expansion of their aesthetic beyond the dancers and into something much bigger for us, the Home user, and for nDreams.
August 23rd, 2012 by BONZO | 4 comments
BONZO is an editor and artist for HomeStation Magazine.
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Nice interview Bonzo. I saw these last night and I loved the way they moved, though it isn’t something in line with my tastes, I haven’t bought a single one of these dancing full body characters, just not me.
These ones are very realistic in their moves though, best I have seen.
The dance are NOT continuous, though I was hoping they were; making my money worth. But no.
Off topic… Alessandro Barbucci created a series of comics (now available as trades/graphic novels) called Sky Doll. Story and art was spectacular.
YES awesome work, the middle section of the Artist reference work image has some stuff from Sky Doll.