Animations being tweaked as we speak

[Nature_Boy]

Thanks for the update.

[RogueHominid]

Great work, Ian. I appreciate the integrity this thread shows, and the hard work that goes into getting this right. Madden will be much better off for fixing these aesthetic issues.

[SmokeCapone]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA

Now that we've weathered the bitterness storm and are now back to riding the wave of constructive-ness (I don't think that's a word), I thought I'd update everyone to the progress of our animation improvements after the feedback in the trailer. Simon is going back through basically all of our locomotion to find the 'problem' run cycles and he'll be spending the next couple of days tweaking and replacing animations. We'll update everyone in a couple of days with progress. The pass animations are also being swept through for the 'bent knee' issue. I sent these screencaps over to the gameplay/animation team this morning and they are running through the pass animations to fix them. I'll update progress on that as it happens as well. Attachment 14685 On a side note, I knew the changes we were making as a team would gbe cool (in regards to our community involvement), but I never dreamed it could be this awesome - fixing stuff on the fly right alongside the community. I've said it before and I'll say it again - we're basically all making this game together which is quite amazing when you sit back and think of it. I am loving it! P.S. thread prediction #1: someone will come in and say "OMG EA, you can't tell the animations are bad without us pointing them out? U SUCK 2k RULZ BLAH BLAH BLAH". Who will be the bitter guy to not be appreciative of actually having their input change a game in development?

One thing I think you guys should also get a grip on is the runing animations as a WHOLE. I wish I had some sort of video footage showing how these clowns online take there Safety and manually control them and bring them to the LOS. Once at the LOS they either start making them run around in circles until the ball is hiked, once the ball is hiked and they're in a position that leaves there spot on the field vulnerable, these guys are capable of getting back as if nothing has never happened and they were never sitting at the LOS.

Fix this, this should be a QBs dream especially when you have a WR that could attack that type of weakness but instead it rewards these guys because it seems like the field is too small and not enough depth to it and the speed in which these guys take off with during or afting making such ridiculous movements is just unfathomable ( i guess thats a word ).

This type of behavior needs to stop and its overly abused especially when they bring the safety up to the LOS and are playing zone defense, so they're back pedaling to begin with while my WRs are making a full sprint and at times have a step or 2 on the defender and yet these guys still make plays with all this going on pre-snap.

[polamalu82]

Great news!! Glad to see these things getting addressed so quickly. I think the running animations and passing animations are the only things I can see SO FAR that are holding this game from being solid. Great work!

[Smoke316]

great to here Ian.. its only April and things are being tweaked ..the final product should be as close to perfection as u can get

[MelMan1486]

This is very good news. If you can "tweak" these right it will just make the game that much better.

[Bgamer90]

Quote: Originally Posted by MelMan1486

This is very good news. If you can "tweak" these right it will just make the game that much better.

Yep. I'm loving the effort that Ian and the rest of the new crew is putting into the game.

It frusturates me when haters say that they are saying these things just for good PR (which I'm pretty sure someone will in here if they haven't already).

[wsu_gb23]

do you guys use mo-cap to capture animations? It seems like animations should run smoothly if they are mo-capped.

shouldn't the animations be the first thing worked on for Madden? Without smooth, natural looking animations the game will never look realistic.

I'm glad to see that you guys are taking our input seriously and getting it into Madden 10. It just seems like you guys (EA) could have saved yourself some last-minute stress by implementing proper animations long ago.