EA NBA Player visuals - kazushige0001's Blog

kazushige0001's Blog

EA NBA Player visuals

Posted on September 29, 2010 at 01:52 AM.

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Why I thought about this...

A year ago I edited some images from NBA Live 10. At the time, I was trying to understand why the player visuals seemed off. Some of the players seemed somewhat okay, but it seemed like there was some awkwardness and glossiness that has been referenced by others. One of the problems that I had was that it seemed like most of the players were on the bulky side. On the other hand, NBA Elite seemed like a complete reaction to Live 10. Sometimes players seemed a little thin and awkward and a little flat in appearance.

What's the point?

Since the game has been pushed back I figure this would help and perhaps I'd be able to explain some ideas and show a comparison based upon Live 10. There will be a set of before and after images based upon some corrections I did. These images are from NBA Live 10, but honestly I find they still apply because I toned back the glossiness and I really feel without the shiny look the lighting and color is pretty good from that game.

I've read and heard on more than one occasion that many people don't understand why visuals should matter much at all. I understand to the extent that visuals shouldn't be a cover up for a lack of content. At the same time, in basketball, player visuals are very important. Being able to quickly identify players on the court could mean passing to the right or wrong player in any given situation. Those mistakes can forfeit possessions and lead to turnovers.

Proportion, Body Types and Joints

The image below is from the NBA Live 10 series of body types. I figured they are a great examples because they are types most common in the NBA and they are also the ones that if they aren't differentiated correctly can really make identifying a player difficult. I tried to really define the players and push the smallest body types using smaller midsections and thinner limbs. The second body type was altered by keeping the torso wider, but also adding to the limbs a little more muscle to keep them distinct. The third was just a correction of some awkward joints (Lebron).

I believe this diagram still applies to Elite 11 because the figures skew a little too thin now. A great example to me was Paul Pierce. He isn't thin or super athletic looking in real life and in the game it made him harder to differentiate because of his build.

The proportions and joints were also kind of funky. It feels like some of the joints are set too high and some of the parts of the body have awkward anatomy especially the shoulders. I honestly believe weird looking connection points and strange looking joints are really a major problem with both Live 10 and Elite 11. In certain situations, the idea of adding animations to remove awkwardness is a "red herring." The problem isn't always movement, but what is moving. Have you seen a teenager going through an awkward stage of growth that just seems to make every movement seem weird? A lot of that is proportion (a Manute Bol complex, if you will).

Conclusion

I hope these images can be helpful because I really do like the Live series of games. I think they would look great with their own brand of visuals that would be distinctive yet realistic enough to become almost invisible. I believe the best artwork is the stuff you don't see, but that looks right enough that you can focus on the game. I intentionally left out diagrams of proportion issues and where they can be fix not to make this over technical, but I hope the images still convey the point.

Attached Images

Comments

# 1 bmgoff11 @ Sep 29

i like the rip pic rudy looks better but lebron doesnt look different to me i think his shoulders are different but all in all they look good,

# 2 kazushige0001 @ Sep 29

Thanks. I believe the Lebron had a pretty good build. In the original I felt that he looked the most like himself, but I had a hard time being able to discern a lot of difference between the other two. I imagine when they model these things for games it gets complicated. It took something thinking just to come up with these corrections. If this was some sort of fantasy video game you could create really obvious big, big guys, but with somewhat realistic humans it gets subtle.