Harmonix is having a wild time at Electronic Entertainment Expo this week, with hundreds of attendees checking out its forthcoming sequel Rock Band 4, sitting behind a number of plastic instruments and strumming, drumming or singing along to favorites. However, an even bigger innovation is coming from the company very soon, as a new program called Music VR could change the way users listen to music – by helping them visualize it.
Of course, Harmonix is no stranger to utilizing a spectacular visual style surrounding a musical experience, as evidenced by previous releases in the Rock Band series (namely the artistic The Beatles Rock Band) and the forthcoming Amplitude for PlayStation 4. But Music VR takes a step into an even more virtual experience, utilizing Sony’s Project Morpheus to create worlds on the fly based on music.
Jon Carter, designer for Harmonix, recently detailed the project in a recent post on PlayStation Blog, explaining just how much it innovates utilizing a virtual headset. “It takes any song you give it and generates a unique, musically-driven event sequence,” he explained. “The resulting experiences range from subtly magical to outright psychedelic, depending on the world you select. Sometimes fireflies show up to compliment a relaxing melody, and sometimes stars descend to engulf you in synesthetic spirals of color. It’s definitely weird. And as the title’s creative lead, I couldn’t be happier about that.
“We have a long history of making music games, but how much would we have to relearn to make quality VR ” he continued. “Additionally, we recognized that with Morpheus, Sony was about to provide one of the most thoroughly immersive platforms in the history of technology, and we couldn’t wait to use that immersion as an aid for musical appreciation. I mean, when was the last time you sat down and just listened to a record I’ve heard that people did that back in the 70’s, but if you’re like me and most people I know, you most often consume music as an activity enhancer – livening up your commute, making exercise less horrible, etc. Just sitting still and listening tends to make us 21st century multi-taskers kind of restless and distractible. But music provides so much worth focusing on and appreciating!”
The game was previously demoed with a different virtual headset at the company’s booth at PAX East in Boston a couple of months prior, with outstanding results – even with the surrounding hype of the then-announced Rock Band 4.
“Traditional, old-school music visualizers are many and varied, but all of them were limited to a 2D screen and the use of real-time audio spectrum analysis,” said Carter. “With Harmonix Music VR, we have control over every aspect of your surroundings, using our internally-developed, amazingly effective song analysis voodoo. We still use real-time data, but we can also look at the entire song, break it into sections, identify specific drum hits, and even categorize the feel of song sections to drive the visual and environmental transformations.”
A release date hasn’t been given on the project, but it could arrive when Sony’s Morpheus hits retail – and that’s good news for anyone who’s tried to recreate “Margaritaville” in a virtual world.
The trailer can be found below.