NBA Live 10 Blog: So Amazing
 

Game Designer, Ryan Santos, checks in with another NBA Live 10 blog.

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:popcorn:

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lol @ iminurbase

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I can't even get excited about football season this year because I want to play the basketball games so badly lol...

This healthy competition between NBA Live and 2K is great!

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I know how you feel. Madden came out today, but I really want to play live.:frown:

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very impressive!

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Dude theres Already a thread for this.

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Wow. That's all I can say. This game looks incredible. If the presentation is there I will be gone.

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Personally, I had no problems with 09's graphics, but seeing them now beside nba live 10, they look pathetic:google:. Great blog and I can't believe we get to see one more today.

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Loooks good, But I kinda feel the textures between Dwight Howards Face looked somewhat more realistic on the left side, BUT everything else looks better this year ...

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I love the variety of body types really shows the difference between players only problem i see is that Richard Hamilton looks a little too bulk besides that everything is great

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Someone wanna help me out here?

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OMG! It is insane how far the visuals have come in a calendar year. Wow, i just picked up live, but im definately jonesing for Live 10'!

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I dont understand this if i posted a thread like this when theres already a thread for it people would go crazy! If anybody else does this nobody cares. It seems like im the only one getting in trouble for it.

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It looks like Jab Step (NCAA Producer) was right the difference between 09 and 10 is night and day from presentation to gameplay. I cant wait to get my hands on that demo and see this baby in person lol.

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I like how they got D Howard's goatee spot on.

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Since the other thread got locked I'll post my first impressions here. If that's okay???

"All I can say is WOW. Everything he showed was crazy, that Lebron pic WOW. The diff' jersey tucks, Yao's unique body type, and Rudy Gay looked a lot better."

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are yoou sure you looked at that right?????

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Here you go GSW:

As we start to wrap up the game, it’s amazing to see just how far LIVE 10’s player visuals have come. Today I’ll be going over those improvements in more depth.

Like all sim sports games, we strive to achieve the most realistic looking player models. I’m fortunate enough to work with some of the most talented people in the biz. Because of that, NBA LIVE 10 has made a huge leap forward in terms of visual improvements regarding the players. Let’s start with the models.

Body Types

We went back to the drawing board this year and re-modeled all of our player body types from scratch. There was a big emphasis on more realistic proportions and better uniform fit. Below are images of players with some of the new body type models.



Getting the proportions right for each body type was key. You’ll notice above that all players differ in girth and muscularity.

Rip Hamilton - lean and cut
Rudy Gay - medium and cut
LeBron James - thick and muscular
Tim Duncan - thick and less defined
Shaquille O’Neal - very thick and less defined
Yao Ming - unique body type all together (notice the skinny arms but thick legs)

Sidenote : Rudy, we know you mentioned in an interview that your character in LIVE 09 didn’t look like you. The gaming community also pointed that out several times. We did you right this year man. Check out the comparison image below.



Not only did we differentiate player muscularity through the model, but through new normal maps too. A normal map is a texture that brings out the definition in the model through lighting, when the geometry isn’t dense enough to model it in. Below are comparison shots of the most defined normal map on LeBron.




Now don’t expect to see everybody in the league ripped to shreds. We have more normal maps to represent players who are less defined. By having options like setting muscularity, we further differentiate the players from each other.

Uniforms

Similar to the body type changes, uniforms were treated with the same amount of focus. Uniform models for each body type were adjusted to drape better on the players. The jersey and especially the shorts (which were lengthened as well) have more volume to help accentuate the cloth movement. Uniform textures were re-authored to bring out better looking wrinkles without over powering the cloth dynamics. If you look closely at the first player line up image again, you can see that there is even variation between the way jerseys are tucked.

Material properties for shiny uniforms were replicated much better this year. The Houston Away unis below show you how much we’ve tuned the textures, shaders and lighting to bring out the satin like sheen for this team. Every NBA team’s uniform colors were tuned to better match photo reference. Now Houston’s red doesn’t read as dull as last year.



Accessories

A pass was done on all player accessories to get them looking authentic. New accessories were added, like Dwight’s adidas Tech Fit arm sleeve he premiered during the NBA Finals.



Accessory fit was an issue in the past. Not anymore….gone are the gigantic leg sleeves from LIVE 09 :) Below is an image of Shawn Marion from LIVE 09 beside his LIVE 10 version.



You can clearly see how much of an impact these changes do to make his likeness come to life. Even accessories like socks were redone. The image below illustrates the difference from last year. Notice how we even simulated the way the socks look over a taped ankle. A ridge appears where the tape stops.



Lighting & Shaders

A lot of effort was put into our improving our player lighting and shaders. Our talented rendering programmers made some significant changes to the player skin and cloth shaders. The character artists tuned each skin tone to give us more even texture maps. Working with our Lead Rendering programmer, Lead Lighter (same lead lighter from Fight Night Round 4) and Art Director, the lighting was tuned to give us stunning results. The skin is brought to life and reads significantly more like realistic skin. Below is a side by side comparison of our cover boy, Dwight Howard.



With the added advancements to our lighting, shaders and textures, our player models are getting even closer to photo realism.

Well, that wraps up my blog today on player visuals. There’s a ton of info to soak up so I hope you take the time read through this blog and study the images. Player authenticity goes a long way in supporting the presentation of the game. All these visual enhancements help to separate the players on the court. This in turn enhances the gaming experience. For instance, the faster you can get a read on who the players are, the better you can analyze a game situation and get the ball to the right man. We’re really delivering the full package this year with visuals, presentation, and of course gameplay. I can’t for you guys to get your hands on the NBA LIVE 10 demo this September.

Peace,
Ryan

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What a (tremendous) difference a year makes. :waytogo:

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my man Jano... good lookin out!

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My god, this game looks amazing. You can see ankle tape through their socks? Bananas.

Those LeBron muscle shots are nutty... looks as good or better than the FN models, which have really impressed me all the way back to FNR3.

So glad the creepy "teardrop" on the left side of everyone's face is gone (see Dwight pic) -- that made for a very strange look.

Again, WOW!

EDIT: LOL @ the Marion pic from Live 09... dude was wearing a special orthotic boot or something haha. Looks worlds better this year.

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can someone post the link for the video on youtube?

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No prob mayne

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Amazing work and great blog. You can really tell the work the devs put into this game in only a 1 year cycle.

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I hope the next blog lives up dis 1's standards

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I love how every court is different....

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man that LeBron pic is a damn face melter.

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I'm sure it will be Ki.Manz because its about gameplay, so you know they are going to want to pack in a lot of info for the biggest area they needed to improve in.

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LOL @ The Skeletor/Rudy Gay comparison picture.. man if i was Rudy Gay and yall had me lookin like that i woulda banned the game.

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Imagine what the game will look like next year.:)

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No HOMO, but take a look a Dwight's shoulder in each pic... They even got his shoulders right...Yo Live 10 has the Kid buggin!!!

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Haha yeah.

I love Yao's tree trunk legs too -- nice touch giving him a different model than basically everyone else since he's the only guy who is even close to that size/build.

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I wonder if they have Anthony Morrow and Brandon Jennings Mohawk in the game

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Gat damn, we still have a Mike Wang gameplay blog coming today... whoo! Almost forgot about that since I was so hyped over this one ha...

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I still feel the old one has texture that looks more realistic, and the right one (NBA 10) Looks somewhat plasticy ... Look at the hairline also, You can actually see how it connects, which looks very real, But the right one looks more like Dwight in the face

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I know right. The Live team is doing their damn thing. EA owes us for Live 07 though :lol:

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If they do GSW I wonder if we will be able to use it for created players also.

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I KNOW RIGHT!!!

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Thnks to my incredible excitement for NBA Live 10. Idk if I am getting Madden NFL this yr. :-\ if I do, def at a later date. I am focused right now, not really thinking NFL lol.