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Kluge Interactive, the XR studio behind Synth Riders, transitioned from flat storyboards to VR storyboarding, streamlining their workflow for the “Endless Café” stage released with the 80s Mixtape Music Pack. ShapesXR improved collaboration and reduced pre-production time for the entire team.
Kluge Interactive is an XR development studio creating both original IP (like Synth Riders and the upcoming Final Fury) and working on custom projects. The team of 80+ professionals is spread across 16 different countries bridging a wide variety of perspectives and expertise… and with that obviously come communications challenges. Whether we’re collaborating across departments or very different time zone, the team needed to build and share a common creative vision for a key IP that would elevate and boost the Synth Riders brand on the store.
Before discovering ShapesXR, the team used to create flat storyboards and 3d block-outs in Unity resulting in an iterative process that was slow and disjointed. Once we found ShapesXR we took advantage of of the ability to storyboard in VR within ShapesXR. A great example is the “Endless Café” stage that we built for the 80s Mixtape Music Pack. How do we convey this 80’s 80s-themed flashback through iconic songs from the era? Welcome to the endless 80s cafe! Thanks to ShapesXR we were able to see how the experience unfolds in a single, flowing 3D storyboard and a more streamlined workflow. We were finally able to cut down a lot of the back and forth in pre-production (and production) thanks to ShapesXR!
“ShapesXR really does facilitate both working remotely and fostering a creative town hall and for those reasons, it’s easy for me to recommend it to creative teams out there." - Daniel García, Chief Operating Officer at Kluge Interactive
It all starts with a working session with the design team and our Executive Creative Director Aben to ensure the team is aligned on the core direction of the project. After the initial alignment, Jaime Nunez-Lopez the Associate Creative Director lays out some concepts into a cohesive artistic vision. At that point the wider team could join a design review to consider current, new ideas and technical challenges. We then put together a production plan with milestones and deliveries. Having ShapesXR serve as the hub early on speeds up every step of the process.
In addition to what was mentioned above, ShapesXR makes it easier to communicate with the executive board, pitching ideas as well as any design work within the production process. They never used ShapesXR before and within a minute or so they were navigating through the virtual storyboard build in ShapesXR. Instead of numerous long meetings, I was able to quickly share the exact vision of what we’re creating for this visual stage. The whole team can really understand how the final product will look and feel before any development even starts.
Beyond establishing the initial vision, ShapesXR has helped us from start-to-finish. We have been able to locate problems, tweak and iterate upon projects a lot quicker thanks to the shared visibility provided by ShapesXR. Anybody can experience the flow of the song and when certain visual elements should become visible. Like, “when should the flamingos appear in the sequence? And how does it match to the beatmap and feel for the overall Stage?”. The tool’s simplicity for creating general assets… and the easy-to-learn nature of the tool get people in-storyboards within minutes. That is easily ShapeXR’s greatest strength for us. ShapesXR has quickly become an essential part of the team's creative pipeline. It’s easily taken significant time off of our development with its ability to integrate visuals, and ideas, and get the entire team on the same page effortlessly.
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