Football Manager 2010 new features blog Day 4: animations, stadiums, cameras and weather
After yesterday's match engine video trailer, today I'm going to
attempt to get down and dirty with letting you know what has been going
on match engine- and match view-wise over the last year.
For those who are new to the game, or don't know about the terminology used, a quick definition:
The
match engine in Football Manager is a simulation of
the game of football based on the tactics you have set, the tactics
your opponent (whether a computerized version of a real life manager,
or another human on multi-player games) has set, and the footballers
that you have both picked.
The
match view is what is displayed on the screen in front of you in one of a multitude of camera angles, including both 2D and 3D.
Today I'm going to talk about the match view, which includes things surrounding the pitch, such as the new stadiums and crowds.
First off, animations. There are well over 100 new animations in
FM2010, alongside most of the old animations being tweaked and
improved. We've now got a full time animator at Sports Interactive
(previously we were working with contractors) which has made a huge
difference, particularly as he has experience on working on other
football games so has already knows what works and what doesn't. He's
forced us to provide him with some tools too, so we've got a shiny new
animation editor, and a mirroring system so that he can make an
animation work for left footed and right footed players without having
to do it all twice.
Next up, stadiums. The approach we've taken with stadiums is that we
shouldn't have half a dozen to depict different ranges of size of
stadium, but we should have a load of different stands that can be used
and re-sized according to the stadium capacity.
Whilst we'd love to have licenses to use real stadiums for every club
around the world, we don't, so while the stadiums won't look like the
real thing, they will at least be able to fit the right amount of fans
in, have the right kind of stands, terracing or seating, roofs or not,
that kind of thing.
The crowd itself should (by the time of launch - it doesn't yet!) have
the right amount of people in for the attendance of the match, sitting
happily in their seats, getting excited and celebrating when the team
scores.
And not forgetting match cameras. At the moment, we have two new
cameras in the game, called sideline and touchline. What you can see of
these in the videos is work in progress. I'm hopeful that both will
stay in, but one of them might be tweeked a bit before launch. You'll
just have to wait for the demo and find out then!
We've also added in weather effects to the match view. Different types
of rain and snow all appear, and aren't just there to look pretty
either. The effect that weather has on a real pitch will happen in game
too, so if it's pouring down with rain, expect the ball to travel a lot
slower on the ground and roll less.
The player graphics themselves have also improved, as have the pitch
types and pitch degradation too. Again, the degradation on the pitch
has an effect on ball movement.
Lighting has also improved massively, and there's a noticeable
difference on player and stadium shadows based on the time of day that
a match is being played and the type of weather that the match is
played in.
Tomorrow, I'll be looking into the match engine itself, and having a
little chat with Paul Collyer, co-founder of Sports Interactive (we who
make Football Manager), and the guy to shout at if you see something
unrealistic happening in the match!