05.16.08

Custom Stadium Sounds Blog

                In an effort to bring more user generated content to NCAA Football 09 on the next generation consoles we've included a Custom Stadium Sounds feature.  This system allows you take the audio files you have ripped to your XBox 360 or PlayStation 3 and play them when various events occur during the game.  The audio file will only play if you are the home team in their stadium and there are just over 20 scenarios for you to choose from including:  kickoff, tackle for loss/QB sack, turnover, touchdown, start of the 4^th quarter, defense on 3^rd down, penalty on the visiting team, and more.

                There is a limit of 50 events that can be created at any given time, however, there is an ALL option should you want to keep the same audio throughout the league.  Specific team events have priority over the ALL setting; so if you have two touchdown events with one set to ALL and the other set to Miami, the Miami touchdown audio will be heard.

Differences between platforms

                The only difference in this feature between the game machines is that on PlayStation 3 we can pull the actual song file and on XBox 360 we use playlists.  Creating playlists is a simple process and can be done from the XBox Dashboard under Media - Music.  Since the playlist will start from 0:00, we recommend using only one playlist per audio file (unless you plan on playing a bunch of really small clips sequentially).

Why is it called "Custom Stadium Sounds" instead of "Custom Music?"

                During one of our team meetings the Creative Lead demoed the feature using a bunch of one-liners from popular Hollywood comedies.  Needless to say, it was a huge hit with the team and the Custom Music system gained an entirely new identity.  We renamed it Custom Stadium Sounds hoping our users would enter this mode with a creative mind.

(Read full blog HERE )

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05.14.08

Madden 09 Tackling Engine Blog & Video

[Glossary]

-          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".

Intro

First 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 Engine

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Yesterday, Consolesports.net took part in the EA Madden/NCAA/Head Coach community conference call (happens every Tuesday at 6pm EST).  This was the second call since this program began, and they have been very entertaining, informative, and interactive.  There’s lots of good info that comes out of these calls, and in some cases we can’t always share the details just yet.  I have to hand it to EA, their level of involvement with the community has been steadily increasing over the past 2 years since we've been involved. 

On yesterday’s call, Will Kinsler, the EA Community Manager, told us that EA is hoping to have one of the Madden devs on next Tuesday's call to answer questions and interact with those of us site reps in the EA Community Leaders program.  This call will take place on May 20^th (next Tuesday) at 6pm EST.  There should even be some recording of the call that EA will put up on their site, so you guys might be able to listen-in afterwards.  Will said he’s hoping to get one of the dev guys such as D-Cas or Phil Frazier take part in the call, which should be pretty informative.  Its great to have access to those guys.

In the meantime, we are to gather questions from our readers about Madden NFL 09 that we will ask on the call.  We will set up a thread for that in our forums. 

Go here to post questions:

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