- Procedural: This means results are changed by the hardware during gameplay - in essence an animation can be changed as it plays back instead of having to be pre-canned
- Ragdoll: When physics are used to take over posing a 3D character, usually with a system that behaves like a crash test dummy, or a dummy with springs attached called "Powered Ragdoll".
IntroFirst off I want to say hello, this is my first blog as the animation director for the Madden and NCAA football titles so I wanted to offer up a brief bio/intro so you guys can know where I am coming from.
I started my career in film working as a special effect animator and technical animator, moving on to lead animation and rigging on films including "X-Men2". I moved to games about 5 and a half years ago, but still do action sequence and fight choreography pre-visualization for films once in a while (most recently on "Transformers" and "Jumper").
In 2003 I moved with my family to Vancouver to work as a Senior Animator for the FIFA franchise. After 2 years I was promoted to Animation Director and worked on a few other titles at EA-Canada, most recently as the Animation Director for "NBA Street Homecourt". While working at EA-Canada I collaborated frequently with Ian Cummings as all EA Sports titles now share our proprietary next generation animation technology that I have spent many years working on designing with my colleagues.
After Homecourt, Ian Cummings and the team here made me an offer I couldn't refuse, to move to Orlando and work on the historic Madden NFL franchise. As a former football player myself, and a guy who loves working on sports titles, I jumped at the opportunity to transfer to Tiburon and work on one of EA's best games. Animation technology for simulation sports is held to a far higher standard than any other genre in our industry. Animation volume is also about 10 times that of an action title, and our character to character interaction is at a level that no other genre of game must even come close to dealing with. I have always been one who likes to attack the most complex challenges head on.
So on to the fun part!
The all-new Tackling EngineOne of our primary pet-peeves in Madden NFL has been in the responsiveness of tackling. We wanted to feel like as a ballcarrier or defender you are always in more control. The feeling of delay before a tackle started really took away from responsiveness. Also the "suction" you get when being pulled into tackles, well, sucks. We found that the cause of the delay was searching through our 300 and some odd tackles for one that "matched" the current scenario as close as we can, and while this may only take 1/10th to 1/4th of second, I found that delay un-acceptable. So we invented a whole new way to tackle this year.
We started with a concept that I worked on with the NBA Street team for character interactions, and pumped it up for the requirements of such a deep football simulation. What we did was connect it to our physics engine in ways that allows the animation to be what can be called "Physics Informed" and then altered the interaction based on that information. This means that we can procedurally manipulate the animation based on physics without losing the personality and life of the characters the way ragdoll does, and without losing the creativity the animators can put into the motion.
While I don't want to (and EA definitely doesn't want me to) give away the "how" we do it, I find it hard to imagine you won't both see and feel the dramatic improvements this new system has made to multi-character interaction. The basics of the system allows the characters to be aware of each other on the field in a way they never could before, and we can then manipulate the animation with the physics engine to allow the hits to match the physics scenario (rather than finding a tackle that sort of matches it like the old days). We can also prevent the loss of momentum of the victim character that causes that "suction" feeling. You will see more variety because we no longer have tackles that play more often because certain scenarios occur more frequently. We have also eliminated the "explosion" phenomenon when the game couldn't find a tackle animation in time and characters bang off each other and both fall down.
In Madden NFL 09 this also means you can truly break tackles now, you can spin, truck, juke and stiff arm your way out of tackles AFTER impact has already happened. But be careful, defenders can now strip the ball from you after impact as well, and Hit-sticks are nothing short of brutal.
With this brand new system (created in a collaborative effort between NCAA Football and Madden NFL), you will see unprecedented fluidity in multi-character interaction, which generates much better results across the board: improved blocking, improved chucks, better handoffs, interactive celebrations with teammates, and even friendly player avoidance and help-ups in post-play. In NCAA you will see pursuit physics specific to wide open gameplay and interactive celebrating with mascots. In Madden you will be manually breaking tackles, adding far better response and control as well as more depth to tackling, which is quite fun. None of this could be possible without this new engine.
I made this video to demonstrate the new system (and cut it to music for fun, but I assure you I did this at my desk). We are still multiple weeks away from completion (as you might notice our new lighting system isn't fully tuned yet), but I captured these tackles out of replay in Madden NFL 09. Enjoy your first up close and personal look at one of our many massive gameplay improvements for this year!
Click To See Video Here
