I don’t believe that Korean rapper Psy’s infectious Gangnam Style is just a meme. To me, it’s just a really good pop song.
The Internet doesn’t seem to share that opinion, and it’s done everything in its power to parody and meme-ify the dancey tune.
Case in point: Check out Gangnam Style in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:
OK, that’s pretty great. But how did modder Abexomotron1 do it? I asked him and, boy, is it technical.
“I took the Gangnam dance-motion data, created with the Miku Miku Dance software by YouTube user MotionMaker Diva,” Abexomotron1 told GamesBeat. Abe, as he’s called for short, converted that data into a file he could adjust with the animation software 3DS Max.
“I then converted that file to work with the Havok Content Tools Plugin so that Skyrim could use it,” Abe said. Havok is a popular physics engine used in many games, including Skyrim. After that, he implemented the dance routine into an existing mod that he found on casualmods.net. After some adjustments to the length of the routine and the positioning of the camera, he had Gangnam Style in the streets of Whiterun.
Unfortunately, Abe can’t share this mod since he doesn’t own the dancing animation. That’s sad, since many of us believe that Gangnam Style belongs to all of us.