NCAA Football 11 Blog: Locomotion, 7 Screenshots and Video (EA Sports)

[kindella2]

Looking better and better. I like both the info and vids.

[BooShay]

Miami gunna be fun to play with this year

[michfan16]

nice

[BigFan77]

Quote: Originally Posted by Valdarez

Exactly, in past versions the shoulder was locked in place which is a lot of what led the long running animations towards looking robotic. The running animations definitely look better from the side view. I hadn't even planned on buying NCAA 2011 used this year as NCAA 2010 was so utterly bad. I'll wait for reviews, and if the locomotion is working well, and the DB's are playing inside/outside coverage properly, and the passing archs / speeds are corrected, then I'll upgrade it to a hesitant used buy. On a side note, I wonder how they are able to make the animations look smooth during the video? When I play on the console, there's a rendering problem resulting in missing frames unless you play it very slow during a replay at which point it is smooth as all get out. Any ideas on this guys? Think it's a build machine, hence more power & no loss in rendering?

Valdarez,

I’m the Art Director on NCAA11 and new to the forums.

The animations were captured straight from the console. There’s no magic there. You’ll be able to see the game like this on your console as well.

The game captures are not hacked in any way. We feel the game is looking outstanding and are showing the game in its true form.

On another the note. The Arkansas face mask is correct in game. I’ll post some screen shots later this week showing the correction as well as all available facemasks for this cycle.

Jean Adams

[da ThRONe]

Quote: Originally Posted by BigFan77

Valdarez, I’m the Art Director on NCAA11 and new to the forums. The animations were captured straight from the console. There’s no magic there. You’ll be able to see the game like this on your console as well. The game captures are not hacked in any way. We feel the game is looking outstanding and are showing the game in its true form. On another the note. The Arkansas face mask is correct in game. I’ll post some screen shots later this week showing the correction as well as all available facemasks for this cycle. Jean Adams

I'm interested in seeing all the facemask for the game this year. I'm sure its probably going to cause a riot though when they dont show the "Percy Harvin" facemask.

[BtothejizA]

Yes! Taking my advice and copying Madden like old times.

[Valdarez]

Quote: Originally Posted by BigFan77

Valdarez, I’m the Art Director on NCAA11 and new to the forums. The animations were captured straight from the console. There’s no magic there. You’ll be able to see the game like this on your console as well. The game captures are not hacked in any way. We feel the game is looking outstanding and are showing the game in its true form. On another the note. The Arkansas face mask is correct in game. I’ll post some screen shots later this week showing the correction as well as all available facemasks for this cycle. Jean Adams

After years of EA developers claiming they don't see anything wrong with the rendering, you'll have to forgive me if I don't believe it until I see it.

I played APF2K8 for years, and it had very smooth animations, and it was always jarring coming back to NCAA or Madden and seeing the 'jittery' effect to the animations in the EA Sports games. I was actually surprised when I put the running animations video together at how smooth the NCAA/Madden animations were when played in slow motion via the instant replay feature. This conversation became very confusing, because EA would always say the replays were only 30 FPS and the game itself was 60 FPS, yet the game constantly looked worse when in motion from a fluidity standpoint when compared to the instant replay in slow motion.

1) Prior to the new locomotion system, did you notice rendering problems? Many fans typically referred to it as a 'jittery' look to the animations.
2) Did the new locomotion system fix the jittery problem with rendering? Was the rendering system upgraded? Another fix? Or will the rendering be the same as prior versions?
3) Side Note - Has the foot plant / body touch points relative to the field been solved? The videos tend to give the impression it has been solved (huge fix/change there IMHO).

[TreyIM2]

I can't get enough of this vid. Musta watched it over 20 times since yesterday. Loving the leans, "the flailing off hand", which is something I directly posted to EA for Madden improvements after Madden 10 came out last year, and just all around more organic looking animations of ball carriers.

Looking at this vid, I do NOT think I'm looking at an EA Sports football game, FOR ONCE! Nice BUT what concerns me is the slipping defender animation. Not sure if my memory is on point but wasn't that over used in NCAA 10? I don't have my NCAA 10 anymore and I could be wrong but that seems to stick out in my memory. I hope they keep that to a minimum, this year.

I also like what I read about how momentum will work in context of the controller. This sounds like we're going to have to re-learn, a bit, how we play NCAA Football. I LIKE THAT!! I remember when Madden 2001 came out for the PS2 and how they implemented momentum, then. Needed work but it was a step in the right direction. Now that EA has better consoles to work with, momentum should REALLY be on point, now...or at least in NCAA/Madden 12. Lol.

Oh, I'm also wondering how well this will fit in with the "Pro-Tak 2.0" they will be using in NCAA 11 because Pro-Tak in Madden 10, more times than not, looked akward although I LOVED the fact that they at least FINALLY implemented REAL gang tackling. The new momentum tech should really make the "new" Pro-Tak function well...so I hope.

I was already amped for this game prior to this announcement and vid and NOW, I don't know what to do with myself....except go play Madden 10 while waiting for my clothes to dry....or even download the NCAA 10 demo, AGAIN, and just get into that college atmosphere train of thought.