500 Animations Lost Due to a Coding Issue?

[eldogg]

what were these 50 animations and how could something like this slip past?

[J.R. Locke]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA

Nowhere close to 500. I'd say 50 animations total that you will likely never see. It's usually not that they're "lost"...it's moreso that they don't play at nearly the same percentage as others (i.e. you may see one catch 10 times before you see another one in it's place).

Not to be too negative but the lack of different animations have been part of the boring nature of EA football games. I hope these means next year the different contextual animations will be more refined.

[Synkopated]

I hope to God that Madden 09 is missing 300 or so animations because to be honest the lack of them makes the game to predictable and repetitive.

[Segagendude]

It sure would be sweet to see something different with every catch made and every run for daylight!!!! Seems like an impossible task though.*sigh*

[ImagiNationFreak]

^Yes I'm sure something like that is impossible. I don't think we will ever see anything like that in a video game.

[RogueHominid]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA

Probably not. It's more of an angle/speed matching thing.

In the spirit of making Madden even better than it is now, having animations trigger not just on the basis of speed and angles, but also on who the players in question are would be worth exploring. This is something that other games do, and in my opinion, it helps accentuate players' individuality. It makes a real difference when player X simply can't do the exact same things player Y can do (and vice versa) no matter how hard you try.

This may already be part of the formula, and if it is, please disregard. If not, it's just food for thought, as I know you guys are looking for every way possible to make a storied franchise even better.

[Ian_Cummings]

Quote: Originally Posted by Trojan Man

In the spirit of making Madden even better than it is now, having animations trigger not just on the basis of speed and angles, but also on who the players in question are would be worth exploring. This is something that other games do, and in my opinion, it helps accentuate players' individuality. It makes a real difference when player X simply can't do the exact same things player Y can do (and vice versa) no matter how hard you try. This may already be part of the formula, and if it is, please disregard. If not, it's just food for thought, as I know you guys are looking for every way possible to make a storied franchise even better.

No, it's a good suggestion. We do already do this in many cases around the game, from catches to tackles to broken tackles.

[Ian_Cummings]

Quote: Originally Posted by ImagiNationFreak

^Yes I'm sure something like that is impossible. I don't think we will ever see anything like that in a video game.

I actually see that in the not-so-distant future. I don't necessarily see it for this year, but actually quite soon. All the EA games now have the technology to swap out animations as soon as they are played and replaced with another one. The problem is that these consoles don't really have enough memory to store huge amounts of variety of the exact same situational animation. The only way to do this on the current consoles is cache stuff off (not in memory) and swap it in when you can (going out of playcall maybe?) - though currently operations like these will cause a lot of hitches and stuff. It's not impossible, but it needs a little more tech research.

I'll give you an example: typically for something like say a press/release animation, there are maybe 20-30 animations in there total covering all the possibilities of zone, man, inside, outside, win, lose, etc. Each year we'll add more variety like a slip and fall or a different look or whatever, but that base idea never changes. But in the future, ideally we'd have like 200 chuck animations, and as soon as one plays, it moves to the 'back of the line'. Then, the game finds the next one that matched those same parameters and moves it in to take it place whenever it needs to get called again. What that would end up producing hypothetically is a ton of situational animations that you will have never seen before for at least a few games. For the animations that you are less likely to see all the time, like maybe a toe drag catch animation or a diving tackle, those may seem fresh for 20 or 30 games.

It's an exciting possibility - and I personally can't wait for it either.