A Closer Look at FN 4 Graphics - Art Director Blog

A closer look at Graphics - Art Director Blog

Posted On: Apr. 30, 2009 3:15 PM EST By: sk88z 2 Comments
http://insideblog.easports.com/resiz...en_5F00_BW.jpgBy Jen Freeman
At the beginning of FNR4, when we were planning the visual priorities, a crucial feature was ‘authenticity’ - To us this meant being true to the sport, and making every boxer unique and accurate.
Height, weight and reach, every boxer is unique – every boxer in our game has his own unique body.
What we did was created 7 different body types that your boxer could be, and combined that with non-uniform scaling. So this means that your reach is independent of your height, and also your weight. As reach is so important in boxing, and essential to the gameplay in Fight Night, we created a system where 2 boxers who were roughly the same height could have very different lengths of arms. Take George Foreman and Tomasz Adamek for example; there is only one inch in height between them and 10lbs in weight, but a difference of 7 inches in their reach. Getting this non-uniform scaling system in the game was one of our top priorities, and one that we’ve managed put in our create player feature. Now you can create any boxer you like accurate to the inch and the pound.
We picked several key boxers per body type that encapsulated what that body type meant. For our Body Type 1, we picked Erik Morales with his slight frame and compact small muscles and skinny legs:
http://insideblog.easports.com/resiz...PE_5F00_01.jpg
On the other end of the scale were the heavyweights, they seemed to have the most variety in their physiques. For reference, we picked Ali and James Toney, 2 very different bodies. Ali has that classic heavyweight look to him, a large muscle mass, large legs, hips slightly narrower than shoulders. Toney was very different; big, bulky, soft muscle mass that gains weight around the waist:
http://insideblog.easports.com/resiz...PE_5F00_06.jpg
Notice Body Type ‘6’s ‘flexed’ state isn’t as obvious as our leaner boxers, he has a thicker layer of fat cover his body which jiggles when he moves in the game.
There were a few boxers who were a bit of a challenge, Tyson for one. We found his body was very unique, he has massive legs and has very large round muscles, we created a unique body type just for him:
http://insideblog.easports.com/resiz...PE_5F00_07.jpg
Body Type ‘7’ ‘flexed’ state is way more obvious than some of our other body types. Not all the ‘flex’ appears at once – otherwise the boxers could look like super-heroes, not something we want to create. You can pick Tyson’s body type in our create player feature.
I think my favorite body type was Hagler’s, the guy in his prime was incredibly ripped, he had that classic ‘V’ shape to him, incredibly strong abdominals and large pectorals:
http://insideblog.easports.com/resiz...PE_5F00_03.jpg
Muscle flex and fat jiggle system - To begin trying to figure out what we were going to do with the art for Fight Night 4, we started off with looking back on what was so successful on FNR3 and mixing that with FNR4. In its time, FNR3 was an amazing looking game – there was so much detail on the boxers, muscle definition, sweat, veins popping. What we noticed was that FNR3 was a snapshot in time, it wasn’t dynamic – meaning your muscles, fat and sweat all stayed the same whatever you were doing in the ring. So, we took the detail from FNR3 and made it move. We came up with the flex and jiggle system, identifying 16 zones in the body that moved in sequence depending on how you moved your boxer. If you throw a right hook, your right arm and back muscles go from a relaxed look to a fully cut and flexed muscle map. If you lean away from a punch, your abs look like they are working and straining. Working with the muscle map system is the ‘jiggle’ layer, which is in fact a calculation of how much fat there is on the body and the way it moves. If you are bouncing up and down in the ring, you will see the fat bouncing too. When you play James Toney or Eddie Chambers in the game watch their back and pectorals – they bounce up and down depending on how they are moving. With fat and flex layer systems working together we have been able to tune per weight class and body type – if you are a featherweight you are going to see many more muscles flexing than say if you are a 300 pound heavyweight.
http://insideblog.easports.com/resiz...00_ea/flex.jpg
Boxer likeness – One of the things EA sports really pride themselves on is authenticity, we have the licenses to some of the most famous sports stars in the world and take pride in creating them as accurately as we can in the game. One of the major features in the game is boxer likeness, this not only includes how we model a head in the game but also how they move, how their faces animate and what they are wearing.
A lot of research is done on all our boxers. We start off by gathering photographic and video reference and even meet some of the boxers to take 100s of photos of their face and body. Getting a likeness of a boxer who isn’t in their prime is really tough as you have to rely on video footage and photos that may be very old. Take Ali for instance, because we wanted to capture a very young Ali we were looking at black and white photos from the 1960s, our artists spent a long time studying these to create the head. Unlike boxers who are in their prime now, we just couldn’t take their photo and apply it to a piece of geometry.
The first thing the artists do is identify 2 states – ‘the game face’ and ‘the neutral face’. The ‘game face’ photos are used by both the animators and modelers to get the boxer’s likeness when they are in the ring. Looking at the ‘game face’ photos was always tricky, a lot of the time their eyes and noses were swollen or they were covered in blood, or simply getting punched in the face. Getting the likeness of a boxer is always a snapshot in time, boxers gain and lose weight very quickly, and on top of that they scar and swell up.
The ‘neutral face’ ones are the photos the artists use to model from, so for example they can get the exact size of the nose right. Finding a front shot and a profile shot of a boxer with no expression on his face is hard to do but is essential in the head modeling process. The artists would start from a ‘base’ head model and then start pushing and pulling polygons (the mesh that makes up the head), to get the boxer’s likeness exactly right. Next is adding the textures, hair, sweat layer, animation rig, skin shaders and then the lighting – any one of those layers can enhance or ruin the boxer’s likeness, our artists do an incredibly skilled job and I think when you play the game you’ll really appreciate just how good the boxers look.
http://insideblog.easports.com/resiz...F00_punch2.jpg
The body types, head models, scaling and muscle fat layers all combined together have meant that every boxer you play with is unique. We’ve also applied this system to the create boxer feature so you can make whatever body type you like.