Why EA Is Lazy: a technical view

[illdefined]

so you guys don't think i'm just a fanboy, here's some really technical things i see about Madden. some of you may understand the tech terms. i had a stint at a videogame studio (not around anymore), so thats where the lingo comes from.

EA is LAZY.
they don't want to mess with Normal Mapping like in ESPN. Normal Mapping is a better version of Bump Mapping (3D textures) that does realtime light effects on a surface. if anyone has seen Chronicles of Riddick on Xbox than you know what Normal Mapping is all about. i'm impressed Sega got this to work on PS2 for ESPN (its alot less taxing since its just on the players in ESPN, not the environment like in Riddick). in football game terms, Normal Mapping is the vast difference in shading and 3D effect you see on the player's pants, arms and jerseys in ESPN. look at the thigh pads and you'll see the difference right away.

Normal Mapping means having to create the normal maps along with the textures. seems like EA didn't want to do that, and instead focused on old school higher quality bitmap textures. this is wonderful for the field textures (that awesome artificial turf texture in St. Louis this year), but looks like CRAP on the players. compare those painted-on 'muscles' the players have this year, with the shimmering veins of ESPN and even the FIRST Nfl Fever! you can only see them when the light is right, and look ultra realistic. on the down side, ESPN's field textures can't have as much bitmap detail because it's shading the players. bitmap textures on the other hand is Playstation ONE technology.

the other reason EA is lazy is because they WILL NOT revisit the player models and animation. Madden's animations are keyframed, BASED on MoCap but not all together mocapped like ESPN's (Motion Capture, when Faulk 'fumbled' in the suit with ping pong balls all over it). what this means is they capture the motion then retouched by hand, and for that reason are usually short, and at times robotic looking, especially compared to ESPN.

when Madden came out in '01 ('00?) on PS2 they had an exaggerated player model, the squat 'T' everyone recognizes. they based everything on this unrealistic 3D model, including the first round of animations. when animators make animations they have to 'rig' the model's joints for the animation, THATS why Madden's animations have to be hand touched everytime, because they aren't based on realistic human scale and have to be 'corrected' to fit the model. for EVERY ANIM. SO, basically, if they ever wanted to improve the animations OR the player model, they'd have to do them BOTH ALL OVER AGAIN. this is what prevents them from just dropping 100s of new animations a year (hand doing each), or ever getting the player models out of puberty and into full adulthood (they'd have to redo every animation they already had).

since the first NFL 2K on the Dreamcast, the series has had realistic models and thats why they can just dump what seems like 100s more each year, w/o the need to rig each to an unrealistic model.

the 'ragdoll' physics in ESPN's tackling is another nextgen technology that EA won't even touch. this is when a player wraps his arms around a ball carriers body, the mocap animation script STOPS and the computer applies the physics of what happens next to both the models. the tackler's arms are stuck to the ballcarrier, and whatever forces are involved (momentum, player weights) are calculated into bringing them both to the ground. the fact that you don't NOTICE this as realtime computation and think it's just another animated tackle is whats so impressive. the computer calculates it SO WELL that you think it was motion captured. why is this even cool if it looks like something you can just motion capture? because it allows for MULTIPLE TACKLERS. if you wrap somebody up, then your friend wraps BOTH you AND the ballcarrier up, then ALL THREE of you go down grabbing each other and having all your momentums and weight represented. it's sick (i've saved replays). i've seen as many as four tacklers get in on the action, and they each grab hold of whoever and go down. the ballcarrier twists, turns and buckles according to real physics and tacklers get caught underneath. then the ballplayer rolls off whoever they're on top of. no one bounces off or goes through anybody, its really top notch technology that most won't even notice. big shame too.

ESPN needs to desperately fix the 'rotating in place' issue on runners with a lean in, its not visually hard, we did it to our player in our game, but i imagine its based on some legacy algorithm that calculates AI angles. they did add in extreme versions of direction changes with, you guessed it, excellent animations and associated time penalties (the FIRST NFL Fever had this too!), but the small radius rotating turns is ESPN's glaring weakness.

for EA, it's MUCH easier (and cheaper) to add things like Owner modes, better stat producing algorithms, draft and franchise options and little AI and gameplay tweaks like HitStick and PlayMaker than to revisit the actual stuff on the field. especially when it takes its customers for granted and know they'll buy the game at full price every year anyway.

Sega has its fair share of extras and add-ons like Cribs and the whole ESPN presentation and highlight recording technology, but they haven't neglected the onfield stuff as much as EA. ultimately, adding several new animations then requiring a control to access them (HitStick) is a STOPGAP. not even meeting ESPN's light mapping technology and resorting to bitmap textures on the players is a STEP BACK. keeping legacy animations, flawed models and not even dipping into ragdoll physics technology for the past 5 years is just plain....well....LAZY