Madden NFL 25 Video Interview with Some Early Gameplay Shown (GotGame)

[kingsofthevalley]

I dont know folks, weren't these same big hit animations in Madden/NCAA 13? Did those hits happen often?

[Sausage]

Re: Madden NFL 25 Video Interview with Some Early Gameplay Shown (GotGame)

I would like them to discuss whether player morphing and predetermined animations will override the physics and what is humanly possible. I know they won't, but maybe they have tuned it better.

[TreFacTor]

Re: Madden NFL 25 Video Interview with Some Early Gameplay Shown (GotGame)

I would like them to discuss whether player morphing and predetermined animations will override the physics and what is humanly possible. I know they won't, but maybe they have tuned it better.

This is what bothers most people about the McFadden run in the video. The stumble animation seems to override the fact that McFadden should fall. They need to make the stumble animation only occur if the player has one foot on the ground otherwise let him fall. Things like that occur in the NFL so let it play out. I'm certain no one would have complained...as a matter of fact they should have picked another clip altogether... who made the decision that was the best clip to showcase?

[Trick13]

Re: Madden NFL 25 Video Interview with Some Early Gameplay Shown (GotGame)

...who made the decision that was the best clip to showcase?

After reading the OS blog about "working in the ...industry", this doesn't surprise me at all, but your point is well taken.

I wonder if sometimes, even the guys on the dev crew, they watch the game on screen so much that they lose track of "reality" in terms of physics. I mean if all you see all week long at work is Madden running, then it is possible that your perspective, relative to actual NFL footage, gets jacked up.

If I were in charge of Madden's development, there would be lots of NFL footage running on screens all over the place, so that it would be a grounding effect and an easy thing to find examples of what they are shooting for...

[TreFacTor]

Re: Madden NFL 25 Video Interview with Some Early Gameplay Shown (GotGame)

After reading the OS blog about "working in the ...industry", this doesn't surprise me at all, but your point is well taken.

I wonder if sometimes, even the guys on the dev crew, they watch the game on screen so much that they lose track of "reality" in terms of physics. I mean if all you see all week long at work is Madden running, then it is possible that your perspective, relative to actual NFL footage, gets jacked up.

If I were in charge of Madden's development, there would be lots of NFL footage running on screens all over the place, so that it would be a grounding effect and an easy thing to find examples of what they are shooting for...

I don't remember what video I watched, but there was a pretty big guy in a motion capture suit and it appeared that they were attempting to mocap a hurdle move. The thing is the person wasn't hurdling a rolling object or even a moving one as would be the case in an NFL situation...it was a stationary block about 2 ft by 2 ft... this is where they need all the film they can get. I think they put too much faith in their animation library and it's reaching a point of hubris. They seem to mocap a few new animations and loose others because of disc space or maybe even memory limitations (IDK). Add to that the jerkiness of the animations when the players interact or otherwise branch in animation sequence and you have what we see here... for a company that's been making this game so long and alone on this gen you just expect more, at least I expect more, but maybe my expectation exceed their ability.

[The_Balm]

Re: Madden NFL 25 Video Interview with Some Early Gameplay Shown (GotGame)

They need a new animation system so bad and I really hope they have a new one in the works for next gen. The movement and interaction of players should have nothing to do with the animations, the animations should change and be generated for the circumstance not the other way around.

This would make the game look and play so much better, it would remove suction tackles, suction blocking and get rid of the really ugly overrides of the physics engine where a guy is going down but he gets tackled and the animation moves him up a foot for a split-second and then he gets put down into the ground, it really looks weird and makes all contact between players look really jerky.

[N51_rob]

Re: Madden NFL 25 Video Interview with Some Early Gameplay Shown (GotGame)

I dont know folks, weren't these same big hit animations in Madden/NCAA 13? Did those hits happen often?

That's not the problem. The problem is that EA is hyping that feature and EA never hypes a feature and then implements it subtlety. If they introduce and/or hype a feature it is done over the top. Remember hit-stick in madden 05? Ray Lewis almost caused a fumble on every tackle. How about precesion passing last year. Your QB could change a route and the WR would instantly know and change his route on the fly, while the defense was left running to nowhere.

So now EA is hyping some other new features like the stumble recover and as the Raider clip shows, you can recover from a stumble even when you have no feet on the ground and are falling forward. So for anyone to assume that EA will tone down, limit or minimize the effect of any new features would be IMO making a naive assumption.

[Trick13]

Re: Madden NFL 25 Video Interview with Some Early Gameplay Shown (GotGame)

I don't remember what video I watched

... for a company that's been making this game so long and alone on this gen you just expect more, at least I expect more, but maybe my expectation exceed their ability.

As far as "mo-cap" is concerned, I wonder why they still use it??? The show on ESPN - Sports Science - manages to calculate angles, centrifugal acceleration, velocities, downward force on cuts, and all kinds of other measurements just from regular "footage" - i saw one where they calculated a NBA shot in terms of force, angle of release and yada yada all from the broadcast camera.

Considering their deal with the NFL, would it not be fairly easy for EA to use game film and hire one of these super smart "geeks" (deep respect) to calculate these things and utilize them to "create" animations with the real world data???

[The_Balm]

Re: Madden NFL 25 Video Interview with Some Early Gameplay Shown (GotGame)

As far as "mo-cap" is concerned, I wonder why they still use it??? The show on ESPN - Sports Science - manages to calculate angles, centrifugal acceleration, velocities, downward force on cuts, and all kinds of other measurements just from regular "footage" - i saw one where they calculated a NBA shot in terms of force, angle of release and yada yada all from the broadcast camera.

Considering their deal with the NFL, would it not be fairly easy for EA to use game film and hire one of these super smart "geeks" (deep respect) to calculate these things and utilize them to "create" animations with the real world data???

This would be great, but this is the team that has the "ratings czar" who crunches everybody into the top third of the scale, but that's another topic. I would love more real-world data for animations and/or ratings.

[TreFacTor]

Re: Madden NFL 25 Video Interview with Some Early Gameplay Shown (GotGame)

As far as "mo-cap" is concerned, I wonder why they still use it??? The show on ESPN - Sports Science - manages to calculate angles, centrifugal acceleration, velocities, downward force on cuts, and all kinds of other measurements just from regular "footage" - i saw one where they calculated a NBA shot in terms of force, angle of release and yada yada all from the broadcast camera.

Considering their deal with the NFL, would it not be fairly easy for EA to use game film and hire one of these super smart "geeks" (deep respect) to calculate these things and utilize them to "create" animations with the real world data???

They are supposed to already have all of that information and more. There was an article about it in december about just that....but we all know EA's not going to do anything with it.

http://www.polygon.com/2012/12/28/3811280/nfl-player-movement-data-madden-ratings

Of all the things mentioned so far about Madden 25, I haven't heard anything that would convince me they are using the information and tape they have to it's full advantage. It's darn sure not represented in the run free video. The devs need to stop making football moments happen and make a simulation football game.

[Trick13]

Re: Madden NFL 25 Video Interview with Some Early Gameplay Shown (GotGame)

They are supposed to already have all of that information and more. There was an article about it in december about just that....but we all know EA's not going to do anything with it.

http://www.polygon.com/2012/12/28/3811280/nfl-player-movement-data-madden-ratings

Of all the things mentioned so far about Madden 25, I haven't heard anything that would convince me they are using the information and tape they have to it's full advantage. It's darn sure not represented in the run free video.

That article speaks to ratings, which I am sure could be taken from that "tech", but I am more interested in them using the Sports Science data analysis to create "animations" and retool "player movement" with actual physics as the basis. Not saying they should not use that to flesh out ratings, but I was more or less looking at the SS show and thinking that somebody, somewhere should be using that to build animations that are more accurate at "replicating" human movement.

And maybe animation is not the right word, but I think everybody knows what I mean...

[comen]

They use the term "funability". Every time I hear that a little piece of me dies inside. I'll just keep praying for realism.

It is crazy how this game is light years away from where it could be!! I remember being a 13 year old kid(1991) and my favorite thing in the world was NFL football and that christmas I got a nintendo with a copy of Super Tecmo Bowl and boy was I in heaven! Real NFL football with real stats, it was pure ecstasy! While playing the game hours on end, night n day, I would dream of what a football game could become. From being able to play someone else on a different tv, to stats galore, playing seasons from any year with full rosters, and many others!! Then for years after that, I thought NFL football video games were doomed! It took about 10yrs for a game (Madden/ps2) to really get me back in. Well that only lasted about 4-5yrs and now its coming up on another 10yrs I have been without a NFL football game! 20 wasted yrs of my life lol. I really thought by now that we would have the most immersive, unbelievable, loose my job, wife and kids NFL football game but sadly back in 91. I was dreaming! I still dream of a day but boy does it seem sooo far away! Im also thinking time travel will be invented before we all get the game of our dreams and then maybe one of us can go back in time and make it so no one company can own the exclusive NFL license or we can start our own company and build the Dream Game!!

[comen]

After reading the OS blog about "working in the ...industry", this doesn't surprise me at all, but your point is well taken.

I wonder if sometimes, even the guys on the dev crew, they watch the game on screen so much that they lose track of "reality" in terms of physics. I mean if all you see all week long at work is Madden running, then it is possible that your perspective, relative to actual NFL footage, gets jacked up.

If I were in charge of Madden's development, there would be lots of NFL footage running on screens all over the place, so that it would be a grounding effect and an easy thing to find examples of what they are shooting for...

Very good point! There are so many great ides on these boards! Its a wonder why they all cant be implemented into this game. Its like talking to a wall, haha!

[Buckeyes007]

yeah for me NCAA just seems to be the better game this year. I like seeing Madden and NCAA both being good. But it looks like NCAA 14 will be way better than Madden 14 this year. Add that NCAA 14 cares about it's hardcore fan base. Madden has always been focused on the casuel gamers instead of it's hardcore fan base. NCAA on the other hand focus on it's hardcore fan base and it's casuel fan base. I have always like the NCAA team better.

[Only1LT]

Re: Madden NFL 25 Video Interview with Some Early Gameplay Shown (GotGame)

Good ideas on animations.

I really do not get what is the issue with EA Sports and their Mo-Cap tech. It's like the more money they spend on it, the worse it gets. It really isn't that hard.

Videogames have digitized film for decades. The original Mortal Kombat is nothing but actors, acting out moves, and then it is digitized into a 16bit environment. The Movements were realistic. Missing many frames, but that was due to the limitations of the technology.

There is a plethora of NFL footage. Walt Disney back in the fifties was drawing animated images over live action actors on the film cells, to capture realistic movement. Is it really that difficult to take actual footage of an NFL running back and translate that to an animated environment? Is Walt Disney really that much smarter than every other human being on the planet?

I just can't.