CG Plays Intergalactic Role

CULVER CITY, CA —Culver City/Vancouver-based visual effects house Zoic Studios accelerates an audacious intergalactic adventure for the teaser trailer of the new Industrial Toys mobile title Morning Star. The science-fiction shooter for iOS devices re-imagines the game genre on the latest Unreal Engine with advanced effects and graphics tailored to the most recent version of the game engine. Zoic director Levi Ahmu collaborated with Industrial Toys to craft the original motion graphics and storyline for the high-action cosmic teaser trailer.

Ahmu led the Zoic team to create a motion graphics world to entice viewers to hop on the intergalactic journey. After establishing a cohesive visual aesthetic for the monitor display motion graphics featured in the teaser, he began work on the elaborate CG shots.  In addition to the CG spaceship, an enhanced cinematic gameplay scene was created in CG to paint vivid character imagery that would stay with the viewer long after the 90-second trailer was over. Notes Ahmu, “The entire team at Industrial Toys was great to work with. They were extremely collaborative and really gave us the creative freedom to showcase the high caliber visuals of the game.”

Set 120 years in our future, Morning Star takes players aboard the MSRV-Joplin, a research vessel newly outfitted with military weaponry to explore a mysterious signal coming from within our Solar System. When inevitable disaster strikes, they’re transported across the cosmos to take part in an epic war that is not their own to undo a bunch of awfulness that goes down.

The pulse-racing trailer opens with the lively action of incoming intelligence on the screens at a mission control center. The activity accelerates before we cut to a status message, informing, “Reconnaissance Vessel MSRV Joplin dispatched to investigate.” We cut to a majestic spaceship soaring past Saturn, followed by a new update, “First contact with an alien power…” We cut to the now highly erratic control center screen, before the update is concluded with, “…went horribly wrong.” We then cut to an ominous view of a shadowy Earth, panning around before a firey orb viciously advances towards the unsuspecting planet.

After a brief moment of darkness, we are transitioned to the player’s viewpoint, seeing a gloved hand coming into focus on the floor. Fighting fatigued eyes, the character unsteadily stands up to survey surroundings only to be horrifically greeted by a grotesque creature launching forward, out for blood. We begin to intercut gameplay footage with the perilous plot introduction, reading, “Now mankind’s only hope for survival… is in your hands.” Gameplay footage continues before we cut to a final control center screen, reading “Morning Star protocol initiated.” The trailer closes with the Morning Star and Industrial Toys’ logos and the super, “Access granted to iOS devices. Spring 2013.”