"Physics" And Upgraded AI In Madden 13 Via FIFA?

[Big FN Deal]

The reason I ("") physics in the thread title is because I don't want anyone pigeonholing it to mean an entire physics based system like BackBreaker. Instead I am referring to Madden 13 having a better representation of physics, like NHL and FIFA, regardless of the specific system utilized.

I read these OS threads and articles;

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...de-thread.html

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...cs-madden.html

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...post2039091830

http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/1...tual-property/

http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/Tools/Pr...px?CIID=280884

http://interviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/...-Interview/p1/

and found somethings I believe to be interesting.

Quote: Originally Posted by adembroski

There's a lot more to physics in football than other sports. We have to account for guys struggling out of contact, sustained contact rather than impacts. What we have to account for that other games don't- in most games, guys fall down. In our game, they're doing everything they can not to fall down. The physics models I've seen handle the first part well... the second part, not so much. That said, Phil Frazier has said in several interviews that this year's impact system in Madden is our first step toward physics as a long term goal. All I'm saying is we can't just take it from NHL or FIFA and have it work in Madden. The nature of contact in those games is entirely different from NFL Football.

Quote: Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings

Both Simon and I have answered this in a number of different threads over the past few months, but in short, it will be a LONG time until you see a FULL replacement of mocap. Recreating ALL of the movements of the human body through some sort of algorithm just isn't feasible or worthwhile yet. Strictly for collision though, procedural manipulation of pre-existing motion capture is definitely the way of the future (and present). That isn't necessarily all-inclusive to physics either...there is much that can be done with IK, animation layering, dynamic animation swapping, and other technologies outside of physics to get more variety. Meaning, the problems like "lacking animation variety" and "immersiveness" can totally be solved without going to as drastic a solution as "replace all collisions in the game with procedural ones, ensuring that your art team now has zero control over the look of the animations in your game". It's kind of a throw the baby out with the bath water approach...(which is the approach we took in 06 btw and everyone now probably knows it just isn't the best approach in yearly iterative sports titles). In short, using a combination of motion capture and other run-time manipulation will continue to give you the look that you must have when creating a simulation sports title - which is the look of professional athletes (and not of flailing dead bodies). I'm very curious as to whether NaturalMotion can deliver Backbreaker on their technology without running into that problem. I kind of hope they can, as that will be a great step in the industry towards a problem that has yet to be solved. Hope that gives you some good background on what we're thinking, at least within the Madden team.

Quote: Originally Posted by TheWatcher

I'm not sure of how many are aware of this, but the Madden Team tried to implement a real-time physics engine (Havok) before this generation started. They weren't able to make it work so it never made it into the final game. It seems like its failing was a major setback that probably had a negative impact on how this game got off the ground this gen. From what I remember, the problem was that while all of the collision outcomes were different, many of them didn't look like football at all or were way over the top. Even in BB you can see a lot of collisions that are more WWE than pro football. You can only tame it so much... the outcomes are still going to be unpredictable.

In Paul F. Roberts’ 2005 article, he presents an example of just how important such technological IP can be. Irish company Havok, developer of the Havok Physics Engine, has sold its tech to several successful game franchises, chief among them the Madden NFL franchise from EA Sports.

Jeremy Strauser [in Nov 2005 referring to Madden 2006]: "Ultimately we ended up re-writing our animation engine and physics engine from scratch. This is a great first step, it is very good and looks great – but we can take this even further in the future with real time physics engines. Real time physics is a huge undertaking on the grand scale needed for a football game, so we didn’t have time to get this type of system in this year’s game. While we are very happy with the animation and physics systems we have, we’re looking forward to even bigger and better things here in this generation of game engine"

[Aaron McHardy, gameplay producer of FIFA 12]“The new Player Impact Engine accounts for every single collision that’s happening on every single frame, and we process that information in real-time. We no longer take a best educated guess at what the outcome will be and try and find an appropriate animation to play. We actually let the two guys collide and let physics tell us what should happen with a little bit of intelligence as far as how the player’s muscle system works to drive their limbs towards where they want to go. Those things put together allow us to do it all in real-time, and it lets a certain amount of time pass where we can actually learn what the new momentum is as a result of the physical interaction between those two players and know that we’re getting an accurate outcome when we play the new animations over top.”

One of EA’s impressive competitive edges is how liberally they share their various engine technologies between developers, by way of a central technology development team. Aaron talked to us about where the other games, such as Battlefield 3, fit into the puzzle. “So Battlefield is now using the ANT [Animation Toolkit] technology and I think that a lot of people attribute that to FIFA, but ANT is a shared technology at EA; it’s for all of our animation technology. We should give a lot of credit because there have been pioneers before us who have contributed. Games like Fight Night and NHL have tried physics-based collision systems before and we got to learn from their efforts and then tailor our system to take their stuff and incorporate that into what we do.” “Battlefield and a few other games at EA have also adopted FIFA locomotion technology, which is a part of ANT, and that is what Battlefield 3 is really getting a lot of gains from this year. This is the system that we use for our players to run around the pitch that really is conscious of momentum and player weight and turning rates and all of this stuff, and momentum is a key fundamental part for our locomotion engine. And that’s what Battlefield has incorporated into their game”


I posted all that for context to the point that I wouldn't be surprised to see a more physics based system in Madden 13, similar to FIFA's Player Impact Engine and the read and react system mentioned in NCAA 13's playbook being based on FIFA's Pro Player Intelligence, the same way Madden 12's DPP seems to be based on FIFA 11's Personality Plus. I really think FIFA and EA Canada are the "canary in the coal mine" for EA football at this point, since they seem to be contributing the most "revolution" to EA gaming technology.

Do you think Madden 13 will implement better representation of physics and why?

[SA1NT401]

Don't bank on it. I believe that would be too complicated for the staff to accomplish.


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[Big FN Deal]

Quote: Originally Posted by SA1NT401

Don't bank on it. I believe that would be too complicated for the staff to accomplish. --- I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?zrhogd

So why don't you believe this is an on going process with Madden? The point of all that info I posted was to show the evolution of representing physics in Madden. It seems to have always been a goal of EA from the very first nex-gen Madden but the implementation went through some issues.

With FIFA, NHL and even NBA Elite having laid the groundwork, it doesn't seem to be a stretch that M13 will feature some version of these systems.

[roadman]

One can only hope.

I think I read somewhere last year that a total physics based system was sometime in the near future.

They were as vague as I was.

[Big FN Deal]

I agree that was stated about a "total" physics based system, I am referring to a piecemeal approach, that EA seems to be applying. I wonder is anyone reading the info I posted in the OP or are they just feeling like it's too long a read. lol

I was actually going to make a much shorter and simpler OP originally but the more I searched, the more stuff I found. People should notice the similarities in FIFA 11's Personality Plus and Madden 12's DPP because I think they may be relevant going forward. I know DPP was professed to be Mike Young's brainchild and that might still be the case somehow but that stuff about ANT really stood out to me. If anyone reads the details about FIFA 12's Player Impact Engine, it would seem to have some perfect elements to be labeled as "Read and React" for EA football games.

I know there was a thread about the Vision system in FIFA seeming like a nice addition for Madden and that is part of FIFA's Player Impact Engine. I actually feel like I have posted quite a potential expose' about EA football but not too many seem to agree. lol

[roadman]

Quote: Originally Posted by Big FN Deal

I agree that was stated about a "total" physics based system, I am referring to a piecemeal approach, that EA seems to be applying. I wonder is anyone reading the info I posted in the OP or are they just feeling like it's too long a read. lol I was actually going to make a much shorter and simpler OP originally but the more I searched, the more stuff I found. People should notice the similarities in FIFA 11's Personality Plus and Madden 12's DPP because I think they may be relevant going forward. I know DPP was professed to be Mike Young's brainchild and that might still be the case somehow but that stuff about ANT really stood out to me. If anyone reads the details about FIFA 12's Player Impact Engine, it would seem to have some perfect elements to be labeled as "Read and React" for EA football games. I know there was a thread about the Vision system in FIFA seeming like a nice addition for Madden and that is part of FIFA's Player Impact Engine. I actually feel like I have posted quite a potential expose' about EA football but not too many seem to agree. lol

Don't worry, I read your post, just because I didn't quote much of it, doesn't mean I didn't read it.(admittedly, a lot to digest)

Quite frankly, I really don't know if EA will implement a piecemeal approach with physics in subsequent Maddens. Honestly, it's difficult for me to tie together he said this and look what this game is doing.

So, I can't tell you one way or the other if Madden 13 will incorporate a better representation of physics.

I'm more of a wait and see person instead of trying to guess what's behind door number 1.

[GiantBlue76]

No not really. I fully expect Madden 13 to be more of the same. It will have some small incremental improvements, there will be some more animations that will start repeating themselves after 3 or 4 games, players will still warp into position, linebackers will make one handed leaping catches on slant routes and NFL rules will still be missing. Call me a pessimist? Nah, not really. How about a realist?

[Gmen56]

So what your trying to say adembroski is that Madden 13 will have the same lame boring physic's engine and pretty much play the same as the previous Madden's?? hmm.. Great! Well thats good to know.. Kinda what we all are expecting anyways.. oh well, another year gone by..