【BeatSaber Official | Zen Mode】Free Bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd

Enjoy!
Some deep details about the lightshow!
- Was done in 4 days.
- About 130,000 light events
- Because of the limited time, I decided to put most effort in the first half of the song instead of the second half. This is because the notes carry the latter half of the chart (they hold the player's attention more), and so for the solo I focused on strong peripheral effects, yet for the slower first half I focused on emphasizing the legendary status the song has.
-The song is notorious in other rhythm games where the first half can be boring and the second half is the standout. I know I can't impact this, but what I can do is make the first half more memorable within our game, hence the singing and guitar jammin' rock god in the back!
- Did you notice the rock god's blinking? And closing his eyes for those epic vocal and guitar moments? :D
- The sectional movements for the rock god are completely manually controlled/animated. Every single rotation and movement is keyframed for all 17 individual pieces.
- I'm a sucker for putting pitch matched lights in, did you spot them all in this lightshow? they are everywhere! The 'laser pointer' effect (red lights on the mountains) particularly took a long time.
- The first time the red lasers show up, they are each following a square movement pattern from a 'birds eye view'. It give's this cool compression effect i was happy with.
- The groovin' spikes went through several revisions to give them that rubber/bouncy look.
- A lot of the red/orange colouring (and purple/blue respectively) in the solo are specifically remembered and assigned to the lead and rhythm guitars respectively, trying to give off this small vibe that it's 2 lightshows playing at once, weaving into each other. With more time I would have made this design choice much more impactful.
- The laser 'explosions' in the intense last part of the solo and the purple spike guitar solo half way through are matched to the wall dodge moments so that the walls never block the lightshow, but instead show up between walls in the peripheral view of the player :)
- The amount of strings that light up in the first half of the song (the strumming acoustic guitar), is matched to the volume output of the song's waveform. Higher peak = more strings light up. (Manually done).
- My favorite part is the Laser Cross that forms at 6:14, and then when the screens break apart at 6:38. It was an effect I had in my mind when we were designing the environment, and was super happy it came to fruition.
- The rock god's sectional limbs being used for lights on the side of the final guitar section (from 7:24) is an attempt to imitate a train of all things (because of the sound of the drums). You can see the equalizer at the bottom of the screen in the lightshow during this section where it looks like a little 'train' is moving across. CHOO CHOO
- I specifically held off using the 'wing lasers' so i could exclusively use them at 4:45 to make them stand out more/be more memorable against the song theme.
If you read all this, let us know what you think, and if you have any questions, don't hesitate! :)

[@PnfrlEnm]

I can't imagine pulling something like this off in only 4 days. I love reading through exactly your reasoning behind little subtle things, no one ever notices things like that but they don't realize just how much it can add to the experience. Sometimes I wonder if any of you over at Beat Games have actual stage lighting experience or something, cause Beat Saber genuinely makes me want to get into that.

[@Freeek]

Glad you like it!

[@spice1387]

Watching this one SINGLE environment flow with different objects made me think there were three environments and the fact that they all had there time to shine is what makes this 10 times better than edm mixtape, Idk if beat games is going to do something this good with the next pack but it will be interesting to what is next

[@1monsoon5]

Gosh, watching this lightshow on its own opened my eyes to so many subtle effects I didn't notice at first- I adore this even more than I already did- I think my favorite part is the finale of the guitar solo w/ the eyes in the dark. It feels like you're in the bird's nest and gives off so much final boss energy, especially appropriate as this is the part where many end up losing their arms X) I can't wait to see what's next Freeek! I love to see how much your maps evolve over time ^^

[@LiamDW05]

So the dude at the back is called "Rock God".... I love that 😂 Anyways I absolutely love what you done with this song!! I genuinely don't believe that it took you 4 days to map Free Bird! Oh yeah and I LOVE how animated this environment is!! Fantastic job to the whole Beat Saber team 👏 👏👏

[@Freeek]

Haha, there's no official name, Was just what I called it on this upload :P Glad you like it :)

[@MrVandrel]

OMG dude, i had no idea beat saber was capable of this level of lighting and effects, uve truly outdone urself. 11/10

[@Freeek]

Designed and help implement it, we revealed it beginning of this year. Can see more details here if you'd like :) > kzbin.info/www/bejne/hYTIlH15ordngtE&t

[@drillusagi]

I love Rock god have mic/pick on right hand, singing, playing guitar, then fly high! At zen mode I saw Rock god rest at ease high above :D Lightning in slow part is so beautiful.

[@Gothiccxs]

It gave me Guitar Hero vibes and It felt so nostalgic and fun to watch as I played.

[@ItsTraviiiii]

Amazing work as always! Loved this map and the lightshow

[@Freeek]

Glad you enjoy it! :)

[@bennetsmoddedminecraft914]

Idk why people are sleeping on this coolness

[@Rumble_Bee]

i love the dancin arm thingys

[@socktt5534]

That's a rather free bird right there 😳😳

[@TechPlasma]

Absolutely amazing. Y'all absolutely killed it with this music pack! I would like to say that I play the songs on my computers large monitor speakers, and I can barely hear the vocals for "Seven Nation Army" and "The Pretender" my monitors are balanced but for some reason those two levels have overwhelming bass.

[@johnmannp7158]

Absolutely amazing work you guys put in this game!

[@sleepless9003]

I wish I still had my vr headset 😭 the environment looks so nice

[@zander2284]

Those lasers are in invisible. I don’t know where they come from, and the face at the top is like a bird flying. It comes down in front of me when I am playing

[@Freeek]

Not sure what you're saying here, but I think it's positive and you like it? :D

[@zander2284]

It is awesome!!! I think I will get this level🤓

[@batachadesu]

These horns at 5:49😂😂😂

[@lspectroniztar]

I beat this on Expert+. My video even showed up in Recommended when I was watching this. Also, does the official crew know about the custom levels thing? And Noodle Extenstions?

[@QuentinValemboisValem]

How do you manage to create such thing, is it procedural animation or everything done in animation sequence like in a Timeline ?

[@Freeek]

It's done in our Official Beatmap Editor we designed and released earlier this year. You can see how lighting is done in a livestream we did a while back > kzbin.info/www/bejne/hYTIlH15ordngtE&t . To answer your question, it's more like an animation sequence on a vertical timeline per ligament/light.

[@QuentinValemboisValem]

@@Freeek Super interesting what a beautiful tool. Thank you !

[@shielz_]

4:54 :)

[@alphaYT__]

How did you make the limbs spin? I’ve been trying to figure that out in the editor but can’t seem to get them to work

[@mscoaster]

Very curious about this: When originally designing the environment, were the 5 strings on the guitar highway a reference to Guitar Hero?

[@Freeek]

I'd love to say yes, but it's far more simple. We have notes that can arrive in 1 of 4 lanes. To make 4 lanes, there needs to be 5 lines. :)

[@mscoaster]

Oh I can see it now, that's actually really cool! Can't wait to see what all comes up next in the future!

[@dominick6230]

P r o m o S M 💦

[@Azzyzazz]

This video was a random recommendation, i play Beat Saber but haven't in a while so i was out of the loop. I thought this was like, a hobbyist's modded Free Bird song and enviro, with the sheer amount of effort put in i thought by default it was made over the course of months by a really, really dedicated modder. 4 days? Official soundtrack? Jesus CHIRST. I am loving that Beat Saber is flourishing like this