MTV2 in October launched a new program that combines music and videogame technology. The Video Mods formula seems pretty straightforward: Take popular songs and have the rappers/singers/band members take on the personae of characters in popular videogames. This is possible thanks to "modding" (ie, modifying) technologies available in many gaming packages which let users create custom characters and environments. Modding was originally intended to let users interact with the games more, but some clever soul at MTV figured out that it could be applied to short music clips. It seems that most of the musical selections already have traditional videos (which are sometimes shown on a split screen as the video mod plays) but video mods adds a new way to showcase musical talent. The program is created with help from the game manufacturers and nVidia, which of course are thrilled by the opportunity to show off their own wares to MTV's youthful demographic.
How do they look? It has to be said that the video mod musicians seem a little stiff when they play guitars, drum, and sing -- the default motions in the game modding packages are not sophisticated enough to represent the thousands of human movements and expressions that are shown in real music videos. But where the video mods really take off are in the custom environments that the musicians perform in -- the characters can play on mountaintops, fly through the air, drop into creepy urban environments; which would be too expensive for most bands to shoot using traditional live and computer-generated methods.
It seems that Video Mods characters and environments will improve as gaming technology improves. One can see the "video mods" concept eventually being adapted to dramatic features, on a much cheaper platform than Pixar-style CGI animation.
Video mod sample:
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