Not impressed with the Personalized animations....

[Knight165]

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.

I think you're kind of proving SCEA's point on this.
YOU are not the one(if you are SOMETIMES skipping them by pressing X) contributing to them not developing these things ...it's probably the LARGE majority that aren't sometimes, but always skipping them.

I don't think SCEA's focus is on forcing people to like something, but rather to focus on expanding on the things that people already do like.

I myself...LOVE the cutscenes and broadcast style cuts(the walk-ups do nothing for me personally though) and would love to see them built upon.

I think they will always work on them to some extent....just not as much as some would like.

M.K.
Knight165

[Hockeynut99]

Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....

I wish I could X button real baseball.

[dazzelle]

Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....

(the walk-ups do nothing for me personally though)

I enjoyed them when we had SoTS.damn you sony.

[HypoLuxa13]

Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....

I wish I could X button real baseball.

Heh, this made me chuckle.

I also wish there were sliders in real baseball to adjust the volume of each announcer. I'd actually be able to stand watching White Sox games if I could silence Hawk Harrelson but still hear Steve Stone.

[Ghost Of The Year]

Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....

I wish I could X button real baseball.

Manfred's working on it.

[CubFan23]

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...

Just know this....

<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/17685476@N07/16887474792" title="chuck by CubFan_23, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8747/16887474792_c1f3816c81.jpg" width="500" height="432" alt="chuck"></a>

[MetsFan16]

Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....

I wish in the future we have the ability to apply any homerun swing to any stance

[actionhank]

Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....

I just want to chime in and say that coming largely from the EA NHL side of things, seeing developers and programmers this involved with the community in general is awesome.

You used to get a few videos from EA showing gameplay, explaining changes, showing new features. Last year they pretty much dropped all of that and started just released glorified trailers for the game.

Seeing the Show team spend hours playing the game, taking questions, showing off things they worked on that they are really passionate about, and even answering questions on things on a non-official forum is just awesome. A lot of game companies could learn from how they handle things in terms of gameplay, and fan appreciation.

[yung_nipz]

Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....

I just want to chime in and say that coming largely from the EA NHL side of things, seeing developers and programmers this involved with the community in general is awesome.

You used to get a few videos from EA showing gameplay, explaining changes, showing new features. Last year they pretty much dropped all of that and started just released glorified trailers for the game.

Seeing the Show team spend hours playing the game, taking questions, showing off things they worked on that they are really passionate about, and even answering questions on things on a non-official forum is just awesome. A lot of game companies could learn from how they handle things in terms of gameplay, and fan appreciation.

I agree. Coming straight from 2k, this PR approach is awesome. The 2k developers hide behind the community managers, who are incomplete, lack knowledge of their own game, and are often rude or combative to their customers. I love that the developers of the show appear on stream frequently, and are active in their communities.

[ericjwm]

Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....

Hi ericjwm-

Good to hear from you. You have been on these forums about as long as I have, and while I don't generally like my team's hard work classified as a "joke"...I do value your opinion. I asked Millennium to re-open this thread, so that I could comment (Thanks Millennium!)

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.

Hey Chris,

Thank you for the explanatory post.. wondered where you had gone man. Your efforts & the rest of the animation teams initial work with the full at-bat sequences are one of the shining stars that really set this series apart from the beginning. I was hoping to speak with you guys first hand at one of the Community Days & had to decline that 1st yr for certain reason beyond control.

I kinda figured what you explained would be the reasoning and I do skip through a lot of the animation stuff myself when playing(not always though).. but I started using manage mode more often over the past few yrs & that's where it's truly great to appreciate the games ability to bridge the gap to almost reality. Brian Ma is partly to blame for this, as the game can almost handle itself as if it's the real thing.

Once again, really awesome to hear & get a response from you Chris! I apologize for the wording in my starting post way back when. Hope to see you guys continue the path you're on and glad to hear strike out animations for batters will get some attention soon. Was still hoping you were going to say that next yrs game is the complete batter animation overhaul.. but don't forget personalized animations still have a SERIOUS place in this new generation (even if some plyers don't quite realize it yet) & keeping an eye out for at least a few full sequences nxt tyme.. plz don't forget this:wink:.

That's about all we could ask for until some new breaking technology comes around that allows duplication of each individual batters movements to game with less work & time.

Peace has now been made thanks to a fully committed Sony Team in San Diego and Millennium.
Btw, my last name is Makepeace(no joke, it's even in the game).. so I above all else love when that happens.

- Eric

[ericjwm]

Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....

Was reading through some of the past posts in this thread.
Relax, no rapid x and enjoy 15 sounds good. Fact is the animations for specific players help provide that illusion of realism & not repetition. Whether you want that or not the game feels artificial without it. You can't tell me that in a big clutch situation you wouldn't take in the moment & watch that batter come to life & go through their signature animations in between pitches?.. when no frustration is setting in that is

[ericjwm]

Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....

Anyone disagree with my last post?

[Shakedowncapo]

Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....

Can't believe I missed this thread. Chris has always had a great attitude, even when he gets called to attention. The years where we felt they slacked on batting stances were a hell of a lot more heated than this thread.

[ericjwm]

Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....

Yeah I'm not a villain, like most have been lead to believe. Chris & the animation team have made this series in the past for people that appreciate extreme realism in presentation/detail.. I'm merely trying to awaken it again!

[rjackson]

Re: Not impressed with the Personalized animations....

I think Chris made the right decisions by his explanation and I am one that focuses on gameplay first and foremost but maybe doing a few of the more exaggeratedly different personalizations wouldn't be a bad idea for next year - sort of a compromise and still efficient. I'm just talking like extreme walk-ups such as Morse's cobra stance thingy or the really well-known like Jeter's hand up in the air (good example despite him being retired). There wouldn't be that many to do but it might add a lot. I could be way off base, too. These guys know what they are doing and I don't!