Dance Central superfan David Nguyen has detailed the story behind his hiring by developer Harmonix to help to create the 16-bit pixel art credits in the end sequence of Dance Central 3.
Writing in a blog post on Destructoid, Nguyen states he came to the attention of Dance Central 3 project director Matt Boch following his creation of cross-over images between Dance Central and Pokemon, designed in a 16-bit style. Nguyen was asked by Boch if he would be interested in working on a project for Harmonix, later getting him to sign an NDA and promising further information at a later date.
Nguyen — who studied animation at Vancouver's Emily Carr University of Art and Design — was finally phoned by Broch and asked to create animated sprites of Dance Central 3 characters in a 16-bit style. Harmonix artist Matt Perlot sent Nguyen early concept art of each dance crew, and would offer critiques of his work prior to it being brought to the game.
"In fact, Rasa and Lima's animations were completely [Perlot's] ideas," writes Nguyen, referring to two of Dance central 3's in-game characters. "I only had their character models in a T-pose to work with, so I couldn't gauge their personalities through voice or actions. I actually think they ended up being my favorites to work on!"
Nguyen currently hopes to enter into the indie development scene where this style of pixel-based art is seeing a resurgence. His graduate film, Insert Credit, is currently doing the festival circuit.
