Sick highlights to a nice Kanye track…I’ll just keep watching this until the season starts back up. Ok back to player visuals.

As we start to wrap up the game, it’s amazing to see just how far LIVE 10’s player visuals have come. Today I’ll be going over those improvements in more depth.

Like all sim sports games, we strive to achieve the most realistic looking player models. I’m fortunate enough to work with some of the most talented people in the biz. Because of that, NBA LIVE 10 has made a huge leap forward in terms of visual improvements regarding the players. Let’s start with the models.

Body Types

We went back to the drawing board this year and re-modeled all of our player body types from scratch. There was a big emphasis on more realistic proportions and better uniform fit. Below are images of players with some of the new body type models.

Getting the proportions right for each body type was key. You’ll notice above that all players differ in girth and muscularity.

- Rip Hamilton - lean and cut
- Rudy Gay - medium and cut
- LeBron James - thick and muscular
- Tim Duncan - thick and less defined
- Shaquille O’Neal - very thick and less defined
- Yao Ming - unique body type all together (notice the skinny arms but thick legs)

Sidenote : Rudy, we know you mentioned in an interview that your character in LIVE 09 didn’t look like you. The gaming community also pointed that out several times. We did you right this year man. Check out the comparison image below.

Not only did we differentiate player muscularity through the model, but through new normal maps too. A normal map is a texture that brings out the definition in the model through lighting, when the geometry isn’t dense enough to model it in. Below are comparison shots of the most defined normal map on LeBron.

Now don’t expect to see everybody in the league ripped to shreds. We have more normal maps to represent players who are less defined. By having options like setting muscularity, we further differentiate the players from each other.

Uniforms

Similar to the body type changes, uniforms were treated with the same amount of focus. Uniform models for each body type were adjusted to drape better on the players. The jersey and especially the shorts (which were lengthened as well) have more volume to help accentuate the cloth movement. Uniform textures were re-authored to bring out better looking wrinkles without over powering the cloth dynamics. If you look closely at the first player line up image again, you can see that there is even variation between the way jerseys are tucked.

Material properties for shiny uniforms were replicated much better this year. The Houston Away unis below show you how much we’ve tuned the textures, shaders and lighting to bring out the satin like sheen for this team. Every NBA team’s uniform colors were tuned to better match photo reference. Now Houston’s red doesn’t read as dull as last year.

Accessories

A pass was done on all player accessories to get them looking authentic. New accessories were added, like Dwight’s adidas Tech Fit arm sleeve he premiered during the NBA Finals.

Accessory fit was an issue in the past. Not anymore….gone are the gigantic leg sleeves from LIVE 09 :)  Below is an image of Shawn Marion from LIVE 09 beside his LIVE 10 version.

You can clearly see how much of an impact these changes do to make his likeness come to life. Even accessories like socks were redone. The image below illustrates the difference from last year. Notice how we even simulated the way the socks look over a taped ankle. A ridge appears where the tape stops.

Lighting & Shaders

A lot of effort was put into our improving our player lighting and shaders. Our talented rendering programmers made some significant changes to the player skin and cloth shaders. The character artists tuned each skin tone to give us more even texture maps. Working with our Lead Rendering programmer, Lead Lighter (same lead lighter from Fight Night Round 4) and Art Director, the lighting was tuned to give us stunning results. The skin is brought to life and reads significantly more like realistic skin. Below is a side by side comparison of our cover boy, Dwight Howard.

With the added advancements to our lighting, shaders and textures, our player models are getting even closer to photo realism.

Well, that wraps up my blog today on player visuals. There’s a ton of info to soak up so I hope you take the time read through this blog and study the images. Player authenticity goes a long way in supporting the presentation of the game. All these visual enhancements help to separate the players on the court. This in turn enhances the gaming experience. For instance, the faster you can get a read on who the players are, the better you can analyze a game situation and get the ball to the right man. We’re really delivering the full package this year with visuals, presentation, and of course gameplay. I can’t for you guys to get your hands on the NBA LIVE 10 demo this September.

Peace,
Ryan