3D Animation of FM2018 Still Look Nasty

[baskor]

The 3D animations in 3D matche engine of FM2018 still look nasty.

Please make a realistic 3D animation of football in FM2019.

I want a new Goalkeeping 3D animation and how the football game processed (defending, attacking, etc.)  in FM2019.

Also i want new dribbling 3d animations.

[..Valhalla..]

@baskor - that does sound a bit arrogant, no? I want, I want  

I doubt SI are going to drop everything and say "Stop programming guys! baskor wants some things...."

The game gets better every year, the match engine looks more and more realistic, it's constantly evolving. You could say you are hoping the animations are better in FM19 (as we all are, no doubt). 

[Snorks]

25 minutes ago, ..Valhalla.. said:

@baskor - that does sound a bit arrogant, no? I want, I want  

I doubt SI are going to drop everything and say "Stop programming guys! baskor wants some things...."

The game gets better every year, the match engine looks more and more realistic, it's constantly evolving. You could say you are hoping the animations are better in FM19 (as we all are, no doubt). 

To be fair - I'm not sure English is his first language, so while sounding arrogant and privileged (like my teenage daughters) I will give the benefit of the 'lost in translation' doubt.

But yes, I hope the ME is improved for FM19. While i can willingly suspend my disbelief and accept it is a game, with incredible coding to allow for the 'randomness' that s live football, I felt the ME and and 3D visuals seemed to take a bit of a step backward in 18 (when compared to 17). While there are a few things I would like to see improved: Referee blowing whistle before the ball has crossed the line, goals from crosses, the 3-striker 'exploit', long-shot accuracy, lack of goals from free-kicks etc I can accept that these are the result of AI/ME quirks and play around them. 

But then, I can also get fully-immersed, even emotional about a story about youngsters having to fight each other to survive in the name  of entertainment for a privileged society, or a rebellion against a sinister empire in the history of a galaxy far away.

[..Valhalla..]

8 minutes ago, Snorks said:

Referee blowing whistle before the ball has crossed the line

This one drives me up the wall  

And yeah I wasn't thinking about that, no doubt not a native English speaker so understandable. 

[Snorks]

1 minute ago, ..Valhalla.. said:

This one drives me up the wall  

And yeah I wasn't thinking about that, no doubt not a native English speaker so understandable. 

As a teacher in tertiary education, I have around 15 international students, mainly from India, Phillipines etc, so  I kinda get used to re-interpreting the language barrier.

The whistle is the only 'quirk' that still annoys TBH, promising attack, striker about to shoot, I am off my seat watching and the whistle goes - you know it's a corner as he shoots. Mind you, the other day  I missed a  penalty, the whistle blew as the ball was dropping in the box, ball went wide and high, I stomped off to the kitchen cursing my clumsy striker who couldn't hit a frikkin barn door, came back to see the replay of a penalty we scored. Apparently, there was a push in the box.

[DementedHammer]

Along the same lines as the referee whistle issue, does anybody remember in FM2005 where all the players would stop moving well in advance of it being obvious that the ball was going to cross the sideline? That really did my head in at the time. 

[baskor]

18 hours ago, ..Valhalla.. said:

@baskor -The game gets better every year, the match engine looks more and more realistic, it's constantly evolving. You could say you are hoping the animations are better in FM19 (as we all are, no doubt). 

I don't think so. See my other post requesting a new 3D animation for FM2018 in the early year of 2018 (because SI told me if I want to have a request then I should post it in the early of the year (e.g. January)). But look at the 3D animations of FM2018, it just the same as FM2017. Is this what you call with "The game gets better every year"?

[Neil Brock]

51 minutes ago, baskor said:

I don't think so. See my other post requesting a new 3D animation for FM2018 in the early year of 2018 (because SI told me if I want to have a request then I should post it in the early of the year (e.g. January)). But look at the 3D animations of FM2018, it just the same as FM2017. Is this what you call with "The game gets better every year"?

There were hundreds of new animations added for FM18 that weren't in FM17. 

[John_Yuki]

9 hours ago, Neil Brock said:

There were hundreds of new animations added for FM18 that weren't in FM17. 

In fairness though, they aren't that great. I will always use this example, but LMA Manager 2007's 3D view was much nicer to look at than FM18's. It was less clunky, the colours were much better, etc. And that is an 11 year old game.

[forameuss]

I'd temper your expectations.  The people that usually complain about the animations seem to have this unattainable goal in their head of how they should look, meaning they'll be eternally disappointed.

Are they as good as they could be?  Absolutely not.  Are they improving?  Absolutely.  Is it easy to bridge that gap and get them to that as-good-as-it-gets level?  No.  People look at something like FIFA and PES and breathlessly ask why they can't get to that level, when it's quite obvious.  FIFA's match engine is...well, the mods wouldn't be happy with me using the word I'd need to describe it.  It's terrible.  A very poor approximation of a football game (although good enough for a 10 minute game in an arcade setting).  FM's is far from perfect, but it's a quantum computer against a calculator in terms of complexity.  It's the core of the game, and the visual representation has to be moulded around that.  It's far from an easy task.

[HUNT3R]

7 hours ago, John_Yuki said:

In fairness though, they aren't that great. I will always use this example, but LMA Manager 2007's 3D view was much nicer to look at than FM18's. It was less clunky, the colours were much better, etc. And that is an 11 year old game.

Maybe the colours were but you seem to be talking about graphics while Neil mentioned animations. LMA barely had animations.

[..Valhalla..]

I see loads of little animations that make me smile in FM18. One of my favourites is when a players gets basically flattened, gets back to his feet and kinda throws his arms up at the ref as if to say "how is that not a foul!??", and the way my players pass the ball and do little tricks and flicks once they are gelled and really comfortable with each other. FM18 is definitely a lot better than 17 in terms of on-pitch animation. 

It's FAR from perfect, but it is constantly evolving and improving. 

[anagain]

If you're more interested in the way FM looks than the depth of its management simulation then I think you're looking for the wrong thing from the game.

FM doesn't need to be the best looking pitch simulation it possibly can.

The only thing I need to see improved on the pitch is the stadiums. In my Nybro game most of the real life stadiums are grass surrounded by a few benches. In game each club has huge stands.

I'd be happy with more animations and a little polish to the game engine, but it does what it needs to do. That's the important thing.

[Neil Brock]

1 minute ago, anagain said:

If you're more interested in the way FM looks than the depth of its management simulation then I think you're looking for the wrong thing from the game.

FM doesn't need to be the best looking pitch simulation it possibly can.

The only thing I need to see improved on the pitch is the stadiums. In my Nybro game most of the real life stadiums are grass surrounded by a few benches. In game each club has huge stands.

I'd be happy with more animations and a little polish to the game engine, but it does what it needs to do. That's the important thing.

You say that, but the long-term goal is of course to make the match engine look as realistic as possible, be that with animations, the way teams play and the overall look. It's not a quick or easy task by any stretch of the imagination, but absolutely that's the end goal. 

[anagain]

1 minute ago, Neil Brock said:

You say that, but the long-term goal is of course to make the match engine look as realistic as possible, be that with animations, the way teams play and the overall look. It's not a quick or easy task by any stretch of the imagination, but absolutely that's the end goal. 

Interesting to hear you say that, but I've always seen the main side of FM to be the depth of the management simulation. I'm not against progress graphically, but I'd rather it wasn't at the expense of what surely has to be the most important aspect of the game.

I feel there's a difference in what some would be happy with and what some demand. Many want to see FIFA levels of graphics in FM. 

I've always liked the match view. I feel it more than adequately represents what is happening.

 

Glad to hear SI think they can push it further though. 

[Neil Brock]

Just now, anagain said:

Interesting to hear you say that, but I've always seen the main side of FM to be the depth of the management simulation. I'm not against progress graphically, but I'd rather it wasn't at the expense of what surely has to be the most important aspect of the game.

I feel there's a difference in what some would be happy with and what some demand. Many want to see FIFA levels of graphics in FM. 

I've always liked the match view. I feel it more than adequately represents what is happening.

 

Glad to hear SI think they can push it further though. 

The game is very much modular - coders will have their specific areas of the game to work on (say one works on transfers, one of contracts, one on the match engine animations, one on competitions and rule groups and so-on). Where there's overlap or a particularly large area you'll have coders work closely together (also of course our User Interface team has to work with all of these) so the game will constantly evolve in all areas. 

Some areas are easier to recruit and pick up the knowledge within than others. Our match engine AI code is unbelievably complex and not the type of thing that you could make changes to a week after looking at it. If you can make changes after a year of learning it you'd be doing well! So that gives an idea of just how complex the game can be.

Likewise the game is somewhat limited by how much memory it can use. We could make the manager AI for say transfers stronger, but in doing so the game would be more resource hungry - we had people raise this just for FM18 where some people found the game a bit slower when running a large number of leagues. This was mainly down to making the AI stronger; considering more players, more aspects of their squad and an element of the long-term vision that's been discussed elsewhere. For the graphical side we've been looking to recruit and improve our team. If you know anyone who can code we're always looking for good talent and our career page can be found here - http://www.sigames.com/careers

[westy8chimp]

I hope to see more animations again this year... I dont particular care how they look (graphically) as long as there is more sense of individuality about the players i. E. Different run ups for pens or free kicks, different dribbling techniques... More curl on the ball etc

[westy8chimp]

Also maybe associate the right moves with right type of player (possibly through ppms or flair attribute etc) the only player ive seen do a rabona was mertesacker on FM17... So it was great that the animation exists... Next step is tieing it in with ppm/attribute. Ppm would be a good way to go as you could have 'likes step overs' and things like that which you can hook the animations to to stop them being random

[Tony Wright 747]

6 hours ago, Neil Brock said:

You say that, but the long-term goal is of course to make the match engine look as realistic as possible, be that with animations, the way teams play and the overall look. It's not a quick or easy task by any stretch of the imagination, but absolutely that's the end goal. 

As an CM/FM player from CM2 Neil I believe this is where you/we are with the match engine:  animations - going in the right direction, the way teams play - starting to go in the right direction, the overall look - starting to go in the wrong direction.  I have faith in the SI team and that in five years time we will be closer to the end goal of making the match engine look as realistic as possible than we are at the moment

[turnip]

I can remember FM3, so the game's got to do something spectacularly awful to make me think the graphical match engine is progressing in the wrong direction

[Andrew_Goats_Gruff]

I think it’s time they pushed the boat out now and made it more LMA style 3d with obviously better animations, 3d was introduced almost a decade ago and their isn’t really any major improvements on that front, just graphics and animations. Fog, snow and rain need more emphasis to add more of a season feel else the game just feels like a pro evolution soccer master league, bland and dull and repetitive. Groundsman clearing the pitch of snow in lower leagues pre match to add the feel.

[wayne'o]

Iv not played the game for 5 years but have recently been watching loads of games via the Internet, personally I think the graphics and 3D ME looks much better than it did 5 years ago so that’s progress?      

I’d like to see better stadiums with more options and variety...

Niel talks about making the Ai more intelligent when it comes to squad management and transfers, I think this is needed for long term saves to keep the game exciting, things need to evolve to keep the game challenging..

when Fm19 gets released if I took an average team and stated winning everything with ease I’d personally get board, I want football manager to be more than just tactics on match days..

Niel you say the game can become slower with the Ai spending more time on transfers etc but from what I remember FM in general is far quicker now than it was going back years? Pc’s In general are more advanced now?  

[turnip]

PCs as a rule are more powerful, but not everyone playing FM has an up-to-date PC.

All developers have to work out the sweet spot between making their game as complex (graphically for, say CODBLOPS; process-wise for FM) as they'd like while still making sure as many people as possible can play it.

[wayne'o]

30 minutes ago, turnip said:

PCs as a rule are more powerful, but not everyone playing FM has an up-to-date PC.

All developers have to work out the sweet spot between making their game as complex (graphically for, say CODBLOPS; process-wise for FM) as they'd like while still making sure as many people as possible can play it.

That is true but the world of technology seems to change faster than joe public can keep up?  A top range pc today may be obsolete in couple years time compared to a person buying a new computer 2 years down the line?..

I’m sure Si along with loads of other creators have things up thier sleeve which could be added to the game tomorrow but like you say can’t do it due to the low end pc’s most people use? 

I mean I’m gonna get a new pc for fm19, haven’t had one now for 5 years but I’m looking to spend upto £1500 - £2000 for top end machine just to run FM in its full glory. 

[michaeltmurrayuk]

On 10/08/2018 at 02:51, John_Yuki said:

In fairness though, they aren't that great. I will always use this example, but LMA Manager 2007's 3D view was much nicer to look at than FM18's. It was less clunky, the colours were much better, etc. And that is an 11 year old game.

LMA got away with a better 3D view because the highlights were pre-rendered meaning they reused the same animations over and over which meant after a couple of games you'd already seen all of the possible highlights (it also didn't even change the highlights to match the players after you made some transfers - so Newcastle's #9 would always look like Shearer regardless of who you actually had as your #9), unlike FM which tries to animate the full match.

[anagain]

4 hours ago, wayne'o said:

That is true but the world of technology seems to change faster than joe public can keep up?  A top range pc today may be obsolete in couple years time compared to a person buying a new computer 2 years down the line?..

I’m sure Si along with loads of other creators have things up thier sleeve which could be added to the game tomorrow but like you say can’t do it due to the low end pc’s most people use? 

I mean I’m gonna get a new pc for fm19, haven’t had one now for 5 years but I’m looking to spend upto £1500 - £2000 for top end machine just to run FM in its full glory. 

FM is a little different to most PC games as it tends to attract players who don't play other top of the range games. They therefore many not have the best PC possible.

Many an FM player is happy to play the game on a laptop or cheap/old PC with a small database.

I will say that SI are good at making options available for people with lesser sytems, but I wonder if big advances in graphics make it harder to do this or whether it's worth it. This is part of the reason why I've never been one to expect top notch graphics from FM.

I'm interested to see what they can do. Just because I don't expect better graphics doesn't mean I wouldn't want to see them. There's always going to be advances in game design that will help SI. I'm reminded of a game called Crowfall which I've followed development of. It's an MMO made in Unity and thedevelopers have had to make big changes to the engine to support Unity's limitations. Neil Brock said SI are looking for more programmers to work on graphics implementation. The right programmers could do wonders for FM. I'm no expert, by any means, but I've played a lot of games for a lot of years now, and I've followed development on a lot of games. Much of coding is about making things more efficient.

But, again, I think one of FM's biggest holdups is the range of systems utilised to play this game. SI have to open the game up to a much wider range of systems than many other AAA video games don't have to. The makers of Counter Strike, for example, probably expect most players of their game to have a decent PC setup.

[wayne'o]

1 hour ago, anagain said:

FM is a little different to most PC games as it tends to attract players who don't play other top of the range games. They therefore many not have the best PC possible.

Many an FM player is happy to play the game on a laptop or cheap/old PC with a small database.

I will say that SI are good at making options available for people with lesser sytems, but I wonder if big advances in graphics make it harder to do this or whether it's worth it. This is part of the reason why I've never been one to expect top notch graphics from FM.

I'm interested to see what they can do. Just because I don't expect better graphics doesn't mean I wouldn't want to see them. There's always going to be advances in game design that will help SI. I'm reminded of a game called Crowfall which I've followed development of. It's an MMO made in Unity and thedevelopers have had to make big changes to the engine to support Unity's limitations. Neil Brock said SI are looking for more programmers to work on graphics implementation. The right programmers could do wonders for FM. I'm no expert, by any means, but I've played a lot of games for a lot of years now, and I've followed development on a lot of games. Much of coding is about making things more efficient.

But, again, I think one of FM's biggest holdups is the range of systems utilised to play this game. SI have to open the game up to a much wider range of systems than many other AAA video games don't have to. The makers of Counter Strike, for example, probably expect most players of their game to have a decent PC setup.

In terms of Graphics and 3D from what Iv watched on YouTube recently they look great,   There seem to be buggy things that happen in the ME over and over and there seems to be issues with the Ai and how they build thier squads etc..

looking at my steam account I played over 1000 hours of Fm on fm10 but each year from then upto FM it got less each year by FM13 I’d kinda got fed up, it may not of been Because of FM, From what I remember of those games the game looks much better now, I’m thinking FM19 will be great?

[John_Yuki]

13 hours ago, michaeltmurrayuk said:

LMA got away with a better 3D view because the highlights were pre-rendered meaning they reused the same animations over and over which meant after a couple of games you'd already seen all of the possible highlights (it also didn't even change the highlights to match the players after you made some transfers - so Newcastle's #9 would always look like Shearer regardless of who you actually had as your #9), unlike FM which tries to animate the full match.

So what FM does is essentially sacrifice quality for quantity? And LMA had quality of quantity?

I can understand that. It's just as a player I think we are nearing the point now where the animations in the 3D view are getting very repetitive. There have been some noticeable improvements for sure, and the 3D view is a lot more bearable than it was, say, 3 years ago. However I still can't bring myself to watch all key highlights in 3D, and only ever use it when my players score some terrific goals so that I can get the replays to share on Reddit. I think a lot of people are in the same boat as I am in that regard. It would be really good to get some more realistic animations, colouring, shading, etc.

Also LMA had the ball trail which was VERY nice, that would be a great little feature to add in for the 3D view.

[wayne'o]

3 hours ago, John_Yuki said:

So what FM does is essentially sacrifice quality for quantity? And LMA had quality of quantity?

I can understand that. It's just as a player I think we are nearing the point now where the animations in the 3D view are getting very repetitive. There have been some noticeable improvements for sure, and the 3D view is a lot more bearable than it was, say, 3 years ago. However I still can't bring myself to watch all key highlights in 3D, and only ever use it when my players score some terrific goals so that I can get the replays to share on Reddit. I think a lot of people are in the same boat as I am in that regard. It would be really good to get some more realistic animations, colouring, shading, etc.

Also LMA had the ball trail which was VERY nice, that would be a great little feature to add in for the 3D view.

To be fair how many games and minutes do people spend playing FM?  Does anyone sit in front of the tv watching football matches for hours, days, weeks on end?  I think any computer game would appear the same when you’ve spent 100’s of hours playing?

i think the Grphics look good, long as the game works with thew bugs I could live with the 3D animation..

having the same old press conference and team talks over and over are far more tedious,  I say do away with all that garbage and add more random features that would make a 10 save different from a first season save..

lets be honest comparing FM to other manager games that no longer exists tells the story.  

[John_Yuki]

1 hour ago, wayne'o said:

To be fair how many games and minutes do people spend playing FM?  Does anyone sit in front of the tv watching football matches four hours, days, weeks on end?  I think any computer game would appear the same when you’ve spent 100’s of hours playing?

The exact same thing can be said about your wanting of more diverse press conferences.

[wayne'o]

2 minutes ago, John_Yuki said:

The exact same thing can be said about your wanting of more diverse press conferences.

Huh? I said do away with all the press Conferences,  after a season they don’t offer any thing from an entertaining aspect, they become a time consuming hindrance,  there’s enough things to do between games that takes time instead of giving the same answers to the same questions over and over.   By variety I mean have more random things happen,  give managers options to do more things to make there game more personal to them.

[alian62]

On ‎12‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 19:09, wayne'o said:

Huh? I said do away with all the press Conferences,  after a season they don’t offer any thing from an entertaining aspect, they become a time consuming hindrance,  there’s enough things to do between games that takes time instead of giving the same answers to the same questions over and over.   By variety I mean have more random things happen,  give managers options to do more things to make there game more personal to them.

You can always disable them by getting your Assistant Manager to handle them

 

[martplfc1]

I still watch in 2D classic, with goal replays in 3D; it's much more enjoyable for me as I would probably still use text only were it not so bad.

More interested in the game being good and enjoyable than having Fifa like graphics.

 

 

[martplfc1]

On 11/08/2018 at 16:13, wayne'o said:

 

I mean I’m gonna get a new pc for fm19, haven’t had one now for 5 years but I’m looking to spend upto £1500 - £2000 for top end machine just to run FM in its full glory. 

I'm almost certain you won't need to spend anywhere near that to run FM19 in all its glory.

[Federico]

I have nothing to complain about graphic and animations. I have seen a shot being deflected by my defender, the goalkeeper was caught unprepared but reacted extending his right leg saving the ball on corner. Really beautiful to see. Pitch patterns are also a joy to watch. Surely everything can be improved but I'm personally ok with this aspect of the game.

[Tom8983]

On 12/08/2018 at 12:09, wayne'o said:

they become a time consuming hindrance,  there’s enough things to do between games that takes time instead of giving the same answers to the same questions over and over.

Do you not think that maybe that's how real managers feel about press conferences too? Seems like SI have got that spot on to me lol  But yea, I think there's scope for much more options in press conferences, team talks, players interactions etc

[wayne'o]

3 hours ago, martplfc1 said:

I'm almost certain you won't need to spend anywhere near that to run FM19 in all its glory.

I hope not 😜