Madden NFL 10: Updated Running Animation

[siznit]

Yea. A nine man gain tackle really wouldn't happen with little momentum of a ball carrier when they are already being tackled by one person.

[mrprice33]

Quote: Originally Posted by NFLHITMAN

" You would not put new rims, tint, paint, neon light and more on a car when the Engine itself does not work " Fix the engine 1st than make it pretty!

isn't adding pro-tak an engine addition? the running animations serve no functional purpose in the game.

and it's not just the up to 9 man gang tackling, it's the steering of animations, layering, blending, etc etc. it is the biggest addition to madden this year, and if they didn't do it, but instead had nice running animations, i'd be disappointed.

[NFLHITMAN]

Quote: Originally Posted by siznit

Yea. A nine man gain tackle really wouldn't happen with little momentum of a ball carrier when they are already being tackled by one person.

Not trying to rain on anyones parade but the videos I have seen of the gang tackling reminds me of this instead of NFL football....



Pro-Tak IMO looks more like a rugby scrum than a NFL Gang tackle.

[unisol_us]

I don't really think that 9 man gang tackling is a need at all


Dude where did he say 9 man gang tackles???? I read fixing the tackling system 2 yrs in the making! Gang tackling is a bi product of the new tackling system so that must mean there is a bunch of under the hood stuff that went on to improve animations in general.

You should really talk about facts and not your twisted idea of the facts.

[SoxFan01605]

Quote: Originally Posted by NFLHITMAN

I understand your thoughts and opinion but how many threads on OS over the years has been about Running Animations? Compare that to anything else on this forum or any other forum for that matter when it comes to game development and I bet there is a 5-1 ratio with running animations being the 5. This is obviously is a huge issue with gamers that play any game and especially when we all play Madden. Like I said " I have Madden 10 already paid for because I see the improvements and like them" I just wish as many others that the Running Animations are the #1 priority over every thing else in the game. " You would not put new rims, tint, paint, neon light and more on a car when the Engine itself does not work " Fix the engine 1st than make it pretty!

Well, that's subjective (which is my only point...because we basically agree on the other stuff). There have been numerous threads on AI, pursuit angles, OL/DL interaction, WR/DB jostling, QB play, Defensive play recognition, etc. ALL of these things have been addressed to a degree, and all of them require proper animation to represent them effectively. That, IMO, makes them a priority.

The point being that only so much can get fixed and you have to have a balance. You can fix all the animations you want. If the game is boring and the players act like idiots on the field, it doesn't matter. In reality, animations of any kind are secondary in that respect.

Your analogy is a bit flawed to. The "engine" in this case would be the gameplay and logic...neither of which are animation related. Animations are only a visual representation of that logic, so animation would fall closer to the "rims, paintjob, etc'" category (we can call it more of a performance booster like turbo, if you wish...lol).

Truthfully, Madden is a functional, albeit, unimpressive "vehicle". So making it look prettier while slowly upgrading it's performance as much as possible in a given period falls well in-line with a common sense approach to upgrading your "car."

Also, to stray from the analogies for a bit...lol...it's important to remember that they have to balance the in-depth fixes with more generalized stuff the main base can follow. It's an unfortunate balance (for us anyway), but necessary nonetheless.

None of that is to say I don't understand your frustration...I share it. I don't even know if I'm purchasing it this year. I'm I too share some of the same concerns as plenty of people here. I'm hopeful, but we'll see.

At this point though, I think it's important to remember just how much "engine" got work compared to how much needed it. On the surface (since it's impossible to say for sure without playing) it appears to be a fair percentage. That's my only point.

Quote: Originally Posted by NFLHITMAN

I don't really think that 9 man gang tackling is a need at all

In and of itself, no. It's inclusion is necessary to the realistic representation of the newly implemented logic though, which by association makes it important.

As I said above. Animation is a visual representation of the logic at play. It would be awfully shortsighted to not include animations for the logic you spent so much time implementing.

[Alacr1ty]

Nflhitman, I get what you are trying to say, but at this point in the game its to late to fix the animations. The game is either done/near done, and they are more than likely focusing on tuning/fixing bugs. Ian updated his twitter with a comment about the animations are one of the top things for 11.

So right now you are just beating a deadhorse about animations. The animations are much improved over 09 for sure, unfortunately they do not have time to fix animations.

is there anything at all that madden 10 has done right this year? Is it all negative? are you not happy with the problems they have fixed? or the fact that Ian has taken what the community wants into consideration? Is none of that good enough?

[kmart2180]

Quote: Originally Posted by NFLHITMAN

This post is right from the guy who does the animations on Madden 10. Quote: Originally Posted by Anim8or I would love some more feedback on this from you guys. (Animation Director of Madden (Simon) Here BTW). The stiffest cycles I went through personally and touched up myself over the last month or so (which was after this video was captured I believe, and the sprinter run cycles were the ones I gave the most love to with some back and forth with Ian Cummings). FIFA locomotion is amazing, coming from FIFA they spend more time on locomotion than anything else, it's pretty much what FIFA is and they do it better than any game in the world ever has. I am planning/hoping to take their entire locomotion engine next year (it was on the table this year but I felt prioritizing gang tackles would be much more of a game changer and the animation and technical work associated with going from 3 to 9 man gang tackling was pretty immense). Running changes would be purely visual and i really wanted to finish the tackle engine design (2 years in the making) and we wanted much better blocking plus presentation focus was a huge thing from the community. However, we have loads of cycles we could tune up visually, it's certainly not too late for that. I would like to know of other games that do it better visually as comparison for visual style in the cycles themselves that you guys are talking about, some youtube videos would be a huge help (of games with better run cycles). Even pointing out the moments in our trailer where you think they look bad... To me the WR and DB at the end look great running together and since our loco system got a complete overhaul last year with a lot of positive response we focused on other areas this year (can't redo loco every year...), but maybe I have just be staring at this stuff for too long... More feedback (clips of games that do it better, or pointing out where in our video it looks particularly bad would help us narrow down what you guys are directly talking about here). I am posting the Anim8tors original post and in no way am I attacking this man. I am just pointing out that it was a decision on 9 man gang tackling or running animations and they chose 9 man gang tackling instead.

If you dont think gang tackle's /better offensive blocking/ qb pocket forming /ability to steer blocks/tackles is better than a simply run animation than I would have to question how much you like football. I'd give up run animation's in a heart beat for what Pro Tak is doing for Madden 10. (Its not even close).

Think about all sports games ever. There has never been a game with these great run animations so I dont understand all the "They shoulda did run animations before anything". In my opinion OL/DL was the biggest gripe last year over anything else. And although not perfect, Pro tak is making that part of the game much better.

PRO TAK > run animations - Im fine with them waiting for Madden 11 to spend the time with Locomotion/Run animations. Cause I appreciate all that Pro Tak has done for the game.

[unisol_us]

Quote: Originally Posted by NFLHITMAN

Not trying to rain on anyones parade but the videos I have seen of the gang tackling reminds me of this instead of NFL football.... Pro-Tak IMO looks more like a rugby scrum than a NFL Gang tackle.

Again Pro-Tak is much more than this ridiculous photo you put up here. Not sure why you fill your posts with so much negativity when you are only talking about a small part of the Pro-Tak tech.

And yea no one has even played the stupid game yet so how the heck does anyone know if the game is going to suc* or not??