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Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....
In for Skeleton Talk.
Shouldn't be much of a wait, The Order is like 5 hours long.Comment
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Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....
I will say this, the Twitch streams gave me a whole new appreciation for all of the SCEA team that busts their *** to make this such a great game. ...and did I mention the Rays Columbia blue alternates are in ? YES YES YES
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Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....
I think the average for The Order is more in the 8 to 10 range. And personally I would take a little less pretty to not letterbox the game.Last edited by Dolenz; 03-18-2015, 04:31 PM.Comment
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Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....
I just appreciate having a baseball game to play. I know nothing about game development, but I'm sure it's not an easy task, considering your studio is not as big as others.Just a quick note (I am on vacation, after all!), but my post was not meant as an attack on ericjwm at all. I hope it did not come off like that. I certainly respect ericjwm's opinion. He has been passionate about the personalized animations in the game for a long time! I was just trying to point out the decisions we have to make every day when making the game.
I am a "gamer" as well, and I see all kinds of things in games where I think "Why can't they just...or why don't they just...." For instance, I really like Far Cry 4...but why the heck isn't there a "Toggle off all icons" on the map, so I can just toggle on what I am looking for..Drives me nuts!
And in Destiny...why can't I....oh, nevermind. 
Anyway, we, as developers want EVERYTHING in the game, and it would be great if there was an unlimited amount of time and resources...unfortunately there is not.
I will be back later to address the skeleton questions in the thread, but I'd rather go finish The Order.I'm not the master of anything, but a student of everything.Comment
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Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....
I have voiced my opinion on this forum, alot of what i say is critical of the game and devs, but this game is definitely not a joke, its the only game i buy every year, with tweeks to some sliders this is the best baseball game..... ever.Comment
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Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....
I'd just like to add that even the likes of Naught Dog, king animators if you will, have trouble with animations and they take a LONG time to get right. Animation in gaming is one of the toughest areas to make look realistic. As the dev said it was taking them quite the time to do it right.
I agree with the way things are being done here atm. In the future I would certainly like a couple of the long motion animations for important players and such to be added. But what they have is great and much better than years past.Comment
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Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....
Speaking of this topic, here is an insightful post from Chris (who is lead animator) at SDS...
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Regarding the personalized batting animations...As you know, years ago we did exactly what you are talking about, ie we had personalized walkup, take-pitch, miss, etc animations for some of the big name players, including Nomar. These sequences took a long time to gather reference footage, motion capture and a very long time to edit. Batting animations are, by far, the most difficult animations in the game.
The issue we ran into was this: We spent so much time working on the sequences for a few batters, that we did not have much time left over to do stances for all the other players in the game. We literally would get bogged down getting through these sequences that other areas of the game suffered. There were also times when a player would change his stance such that it would invalidate all the work done to match the rest of his sequence.
So we looked at the data that tells us how people play the game, and we discovered that the vast majority (and I mean the overwhelmingly vast, vast, vast majority) of players "X" through the walkups, and the between pitch animations to get to the next pitch. We also has lots of comments like, "Why isn't so and so players stance in the game?"
So now, as the Lead Animator, I am faced with this dilemma: Do I have my team work on 20 or so full sequences, that the majority (remember: vast, vast) will simply "X" through at the expense of other areas of the game, or do we limit the number of personalized animations in a batter's sequence. Much to your chagrin, I chose to limit the animations in the sequence to Stance, "practice swing," stride and HR. Those are the animations people tend to focus on when determining if a player in the game looks like their real-life counterpart. This also allows us to get through 5x as many stances each year.
Obviously how a players swings the bat can be quite personal as well, but that is not as simple as capturing 1 swing animation per batter. If it was, we would do it. Our swings are made up of 9 animations for the strike zone (inside low, inside mid, inside high, mid-low, mid-mid... you get the idea), so again 9 swings per player, not including way inside and way outside. So just use a generic swing, and capture a personalized hit and run!!! Great idea, except that we have to have hit and runs from all the different swings...you can't have a player swinging at a ball that is low and away, and using a generic hit and run, for obvious reasons.
Please note, a couple of years ago, we expanded the number of personalized animations in the pitcher's sequence...up from 7 animations to 12. New and re-done pitchers now have personalized step-ups, nods, pitch resets, etc...instead of them all using generic versions of these animations, as they did in the past.
Finally, I am not saying that we will never get back to doing full sequences for some players. I know you (and the small minority of players who do not X through post pitch animations) would love to see them. It will have to be handled on a case by case basis, for now. What I will commit to is increasing the variety of take-pitch, miss, foul ball, strike-out, and walkup animations for next year. As with everything in game development, it boils down to time, resources and priority.
Thanks for the feedback and thanks for reading-
Chris
ps. I have made note of the 2 handed issue people are seeing with Justin Upton, and I will look into it.
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Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....
Chris - may I make recommendation, or something to consider I should say....
As player specific animations become more prevalent in the game, maybe a year or 5 down the road....Can you add a presentation option that does not allow a player to skip the scenes?
I tend to press X when I am losing or even when I am in a groove, but sometimes I wish I would not have pressed X.
So similar to quick game where it skips the cutscenes, maybe we can have something that is the complete opposite?
Just an idea...Comment
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Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....
If part of the reason why something is not being developed is because people are not going to sit around and appreciate it, then find a way for people to appreciate it....by giving them an option.
It is not a question of self control, it is something most people do unintentionally. As Chris mentioned, most people skip over the cut scenes, I am one of them. However, I do not skip them because I do not care, in fact I love seeing batter walk up and anything that makes the game look like a TV broadcast, but sometimes I press X by mistake.
I know this potentially opens up the game to be looked at closer, and have people asking for more variety, but if its truly a priority to add more cut scenes, and player specific walkups, celebrations, and animations...what I recommended ensures more people will not waste the effort when we eventually get to that point.Last edited by El_MaYiMbE; 03-20-2015, 04:46 PM.Comment
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