Ashes Cricket 2013 Mo-Cap Behind the scenes

[Gone4aDuck]

As pleased as I am that this company is taking the time and effort to communicate with us. This video worries me abit. The way I hear it is they capture a shot up to 8 times and then pick the best ONE! And the same for a bowling action. So am I to take it they plan on just having a quick bowler/spinner having a single action? Or did I miss a key part to the video?

 

[Chief]

As pleased as I am that this company is taking the time and effort to communicate with us. This video worries me abit. The way I hear it is they capture a shot up to 8 times and then pick the best ONE! And the same for a bowling action. So am I to take it they plan on just having a quick bowler/spinner having a single action? Or did I miss a key part to the video?

8 times for each TYPE of shot/bowl. And that's at each height as well (a low hook/pull, medium, high etc)

And those are just the base animations: once those are in we also use blending and manual key-framing on top of that... So yeah, there's a lot more to it than that sentence maybe makes it sound.

 

[barmyarmy]

Interesting about it being a mirrored left hander for the right handed shots!
Were the guys you used club cricketers, retired professionals or (hopefully not) just actors who play cricket?

Timing off leads to unpredictable results sounds great; one of my gripes in the past has been "early timing = inside edge" and "late timing = outside edge" rather than actually using the physics. In real life being early can bring a leading edge but it doesn't affect which "side" of the bat the ball hits.

Thank you again to Trickstar. I've added a wee cast list to the first post.

 

[SibiNaayagam]

Chief! Amazing video. Just loved it. But I do have a query. The mo-caps looked good, but why does the batsman fall front for a back foot shot?
I mean for a front foot drive, the batsman would lean forward during the follow through, to balance his weight. And for the back foot shot(pull shot as seen in the video) he would usually do a 180 deg turn or rather lesser, but he never falls front.
Is it what I fear it would be?

 

[Chief]

Chief! Amazing video. Just loved it. But I do have a query. The mo-caps looked good, but why does the batsman fall front for a back foot shot?
I mean for a front foot drive, the batsman would lean forward during the follow through, to balance his weight. And for the back foot shot(pull shot as seen in the video) he would usually do a 180 deg turn or rather lesser, but he never falls front.
Is it what I fear it would be?

Really, don't try and glean anything from those: you're seeing an incredibly small sample there - a few shots of hundreds.
Also bear in mind that sometimes we have to blend different legs to different upper bodies dependent on the shot you choose to play, and the timing of the shot: some shots will end up looking very different in game - this is just the raw data.

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Were the guys you used club cricketers, retired professionals or (hopefully not) just actors who play cricket?

I'm *pretty* sure they were local state or club players... Will check with the boys for you tomorrow.

 

[Gone4aDuck]

Thanks for replying chief. Didnt mean it to sound like u were doing a half arsed job. Just for me its very repetative to see any player have exactly the same action for EVERY single shot/delivery. Thanks for clearing that up. For aussies, your alright by me!

 

[Chief]

Thanks for replying chief. Didnt mean it to sound like u were doing a half arsed job. Just for me its very repetative to see any player have exactly the same action for EVERY single shot/delivery. Thanks for clearing that up. For aussies, your alright by me!

Aussies? Not to start an international incident, but *I'm* not in with that crew. But you know what? They're alllllllllll right.

 

[Chief]

Were the guys you used club cricketers, retired professionals or (hopefully not) just actors who play cricket

OK: have checked this out, and we're not sure we can reveal the identities of the cricketers we used for mo-cap at this stage... But I can confirm that they are indeed fully-fledged club cricketers and most definitely not actors...

 

[CaptainOZ]

OK: have checked this out, and we're not sure we can reveal the identities of the cricketers we used for mo-cap at this stage... But I can confirm that they are indeed fully-fledged club cricketers and most definitely not actors...

It would be nice seeing them doing a back-foot leg glance off the hip from a short-ish delivery on leg stump. Or opening the face of the bat to guide the ball down to third man. There's so much elegance in those shots - sometimes just as satisfying as a cover drive for four.

 

[Gone4aDuck]

One thing i also meant to ask was did you do shots of the batsman leaving the ball and ducking under a bouncer? Also will the keepers stop EVERY thing like they did in ac09 and ic10? Ive never scored/conceded a bye or leg bye ever in a cricket game. Sorry if that got off topic. But theres so many threads on here now its hard to know what ones get answers on!!

 

[Lassana Dias]

am more worried about AI gameplay !!! hopefully this will be more realistic

 

[Lassana Dias]

now i understand that with using one actor to do all this motion capturing, all 11 players in the team will have the same style of batting. they will look like the same batsman from openers to no11. will we get players with different body types atlest. you know like tall fast bowlers or short batsman/ spinners ?

 

[CaptainOZ]

One thing i also meant to ask was did you do shots of the batsman leaving the ball and ducking under a bouncer? Also will the keepers stop EVERY thing like they did in ac09 and ic10? Ive never scored/conceded a bye or leg bye ever in a cricket game. Sorry if that got off topic. But theres so many threads on here now its hard to know what ones get answers on!!

Bring on the leg byes!

Now that's a sentence I thought I would never say in my life.

 

[79cricket]

Sounds all great chief, i enjoyed the vid more than the first and
looking forward to more in the new year.

Love to see more of the mo-caps with different parts of the game.
About how many different shots, well more the better as cricket has well
so many but i feel you have that covered.

Just wanted to know if you can have say few different kind of batsmen
and bowlers, say for bowling you could have ambrose(scary) glenn mcgrath(line)
Siddle(work horse) and last for fast bowlers Johnson(all over the place)

For batting i will make it short, Blocker or wall(cook, normal(ponting) and last attacking
would be warner kind of batsmen.

You could do this for all parts of the game, bat,ball and field.
I have said this kind of thing before but i understand if that would take to much time.

last thing are you guys thinging about doing a special ashes 2013 edition to buy.
Like special features, give aways, at a higher price for the cricket nuts like well me

 

[manee]

Was wondering if you considered non-motion capture for bowling actions? Any club level player can play a perfect straight drive, but I'm not sure one can replicate the action of a 90mph bowler.