Motion gaming: Direct combat edition

[dobwal]

ok let me hit you with one of my right hooks! the AI isn't on easy I'm near the end of the game in this video.

you don't have to throw your body around to hit hard I just have a nice right hook.

maybe the game is feeling the power behind the hits because it has accelerometer & gyroscope ,

I wasn't trying to use proper form I was just getting the match over with.

You may have a nice right hook, but I doubt you throw it the way the game was animating it. The vast majority power behind hooks, in fact all power punches, are generated through the body or else they would hit about as hard as a jab. Thats why in MMA its harder to generate power while fighting off your back then the person whose pinning your back to mat. Power isn't just a matter of speed, if not, Paul Malignaggi would be a KO artist.

Even the game seems to recognize this because in the Kimbo video (which is more impressive than the first) those ugly hooks are the least effective punches thrown and your straight punches and your punches where I can see your npc putting its weight into them are far more effective at draining the life bar.

The split screen demo looks good but the movements for the most part are slow and deliberate, which Move seem to do a great job of picking up. But what about constant hectic movement with a lot of body and head shifting while punching and blocking? Put it this way if the game was a controller based non motion game, I doubt anyone here would be anywhere near close to impressed with the gameplay vids. The problem is whether whats being shown is because of you, Move's capabilities, how well the game is coded or a culimination of parts or all three motion aspects.

 

[onQ]

You may have a nice right hook, but I doubt you throw it the way the game was animating it. The vast majority power behind hooks, in fact all power punches, are generated through the body or else they would hit about as hard as a jab. Thats why in MMA its harder to generate power while fighting off your back then the person whose pinning your back to mat. Power isn't just a matter of speed, if not, Paul Malignaggi would be a KO artist.

Even the game seems to recognize this because in the Kimbo video (which is more impressive than the first) those ugly hooks are the least effective punches thrown and your straight punches and your punches where I can see your npc putting its weight into them are far more effective at draining the life bar.

The split screen demo looks good but the movements for the most part are slow and deliberate, which Move seem to do a great job of picking up. But what about constant hectic movement with a lot of body and head shifting while punching and blocking? Put it this way if the game was a controller based non motion game, I doubt anyone here would be anywhere near close to impressed with the gameplay vids. The problem is whether whats being shown is because of you, Move's capabilities, how well the game is coded or a culimination of parts or all three motion aspects.

The slow movements was to show that it's doing exactly what I was doing it picks up fast movements better than any other motion tracking system that's on console. I recorded my movements with a webcam on my laptop so my fast movements wouldn't be picked up too good in my video vs the game.


" no one would be impressed with the game play of this motion controlled fighting game if it wasn't motion controlled?"

yeah I have no idea of what the point of that statement was

 

[dobwal]

The slow movements was to show that it's doing exactly what I was doing it picks up fast movements better than any other motion tracking system that's on console. I recorded my movements with a webcam on my laptop so my fast movements wouldn't be picked up too good in my video vs the game.

Well thats great, but the fast movements is what going to happen during gameplay and picking up slow movement well doesn't demonstrate it does as well when picking up fast movements. I rather see you blur around and see how the game translate your movements than assume that the motion control is perfect and that the person playing it has an unorthodox punch in his arsenal.

" no one would be impressed with the game play of this motion controlled fighting game if it wasn't motion controlled?"

yeah I have no idea of what the point of that statement was

The point being no one is going to want to play a FightNight Round 5 thats based off a motion control system that doesn't allow you mimic professional fight styles and forms because it does a poor job translating your actions and comes off looking like "Kindergarten Kings". I am not saying thats what your videos show but your gameplay videos are a step down in the quality of actions seen in controller based fight games. I want motion control fight games but not at the expense of the inability to create the type of actions that we are already accustomed too.

Plus, if you are really impressed with the Move and its performance the last thing you should do in a demonstration videos to others is this...."I wasn't trying to use proper form I was just getting the match over with".

 

[Scott_Arm]

Dobwal watches some boxing! He knows the feather-fisted Magic Man.

As Dobwal says, none of the punch comes form the arm. Your elbow is really only used to adjust the distance and roll over the punch. The force from the punch should start with your feet and end with your shoulders, as you transfer your weight. If you throw with your arms, they'll get really tired. I'm by no means an expert, but shadow boxing is fun. Look up some beginners guides on youtube.

I'd be curious to see how this game responds to someone with good fundamentals and head movement, to see how all the different parts of the tracking fit together. From the videos, it looks like it works very well. Just not a big fan of how you control movement.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The point being no one is going to want to play a FightNight Round 5 thats based off a motion control system that doesn't allow you mimic professional fight styles...

this leads into the major issue of true 1:1 gaming though. To play that way, you need to be trained that way. We'll need to see OnQ's next bunch of vids where he's giving it what for to see how well the game tracks at speed, so I'm not saying TFLO does or doesn't allow realistic fighting, but you have to bare in mind no game can require that such that you won't get beginner-level gaming looking dull and slow to spectators where it's fast and demanding for them playing at their level. Virtua Tennis demos won't show someone playing top 16 quality tennis if the player themselves isn't that good. That's something controller-based games don't have to worry about, which means a different experience and a different look and feel that isn't comparable. In FN round 5 a gamer won't be playing as a complete amateur sissy, whereas in motion gaming if that's their own personal level of skill, they will!

 

[dobwal]

Regarding the issue of moving around the ring in a boxing game, IMO it's already established that a working mechanic can be designed with Move.

So with Kinect, what do you guys think about this design:

To move your character around the ring, place one foot in the general direction you wish to move. If you want to move forward, place a foot forward, if you wish to move back, move a foot back. I'm sure there are variables, such as the software knowing the difference between someone trying to move and just standing there in a fighting stance (which generally has one foot in front of the other anyways), but a clever designer should be able to figure a system out by using your feet IMO.

The rest for Kinect would be easy IMO. Just have a rectangle play area like most current games have now, where you are granted free movement. So if you wish to side step right then side step right, much like the Reflex Ridge game in Kinect Adventures.

I rather MS do something like split the standard controller into a dual controller setup, one for each hand. Allowing for long delibrate movements to be handle by the controller and quick and/or short movements to be handled by the camera. Thereby the player can move with the controller while recentering themselves for Kinect when they moved too far away from the sweet spot (the point where Kinect can optimal handle your movements and your prime area for observing the TV).

 

[dobwal]

this leads into the major issue of true 1:1 gaming though. To play that way, you need to be trained that way. We'll need to see OnQ's next bunch of vids where he's giving it what for to see how well the game tracks at speed, so I'm not saying TFLO does or doesn't allow realistic fighting, but you have to bare in mind no game can require that such that you won't get beginner-level gaming looking dull and slow to spectators where it's fast and demanding for them playing at their level. Virtua Tennis demos won't show someone playing top 16 quality tennis if the player themselves isn't that good. That's something controller-based games don't have to worry about, which means a different experience and a different look and feel that isn't comparable. In FN round 5 a gamer won't be playing as a complete amateur sissy, whereas in motion gaming if that's their own personal level of skill, they will!

True, but in the case of boxing, it can be made similar to games like GT where you don't need real professional skills to get the higher levels but you do need improving skills and better understanding of cornering to actually make it the higher levels.

I wouldn't expect someone needing to be as fast and strong as PacMan to compete for a welterweight title on FN5, but the game should punish poor form through poor match performance and encourage proper form through training as a prerequsite to higher level matches.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I wouldn't expect someone needing to be as fast and strong as PacMan to compete for a welterweight title on FN5, but the game should punish poor form through poor match performance and encourage proper form through training as a prerequsite to higher level matches.

Yeah, that's one of the biggest upsides to motion gaming, actually developing real physical skills, instead of virtualised thumb skills. Games need excellent progression, covering a much wider arc than controller-based games.

 

[onQ]

Well thats great, but the fast movements is what going to happen during gameplay and picking up slow movement well doesn't demonstrate it does as well when picking up fast movements. I rather see you blur around and see how the game translate your movements than assume that the motion control is perfect and that the person playing it has an unorthodox punch in his arsenal.



The point being no one is going to want to play a FightNight Round 5 thats based off a motion control system that doesn't allow you mimic professional fight styles and forms because it does a poor job translating your actions and comes off looking like "Kindergarten Kings". I am not saying thats what your videos show but your gameplay videos are a step down in the quality of actions seen in controller based fight games. I want motion control fight games but not at the expense of the inability to create the type of actions that we are already accustomed too.

the game tracks fast movements as well as slow movements & if you want a 1:1 fighting game to look like fight night when everyone plays it you're going to have to go to everyone's home & teach them how to be a pro boxer over night. in other words you're saying you want a gesture based fighting game ( go have fun playing Fighters Uncaged)

Plus, if you are really impressed with the Move and its performance the last thing you should do in a demonstration videos to others is this...."I wasn't trying to use proper form I was just getting the match over with".

that 1st video was just to show the head tracking setup that fight at the end had nothing to do with showing how Impressed I am with Move's performance.

The look of the fighting has more to do with the animation than just the Move tracking performance to have animation as good as Fight Night it's going to have to know what punch you're doing before you finish doing it & that's not 1:1

 

[dobwal]

the game tracks fast movements as well as slow movements & if you want a 1:1 fighting game to look like fight night when everyone plays it you're going to have to go to everyone's home & teach them how to be a pro boxer over night. in other words you're saying you want a gesture based fighting game ( go have fun playing Fighters Uncaged)

A 1:1 boxing game can teach anyone to fight with proper form by simply rewarding and training them for doing so. You don't have to have real-life racing skills to thrive in GT but it doesn't look like Mario Kart because it makes the attempt to mimic real life physics without hindering the fun factor. You don't have to know how to drive and never watched racing in your life, but any real time spent in GT and you will know how to properly take a corner.

The look of the fighting has more to do with the animation than just the Move tracking performance to have animation as good as Fight Night it's going to have to know what punch you're doing before you finish doing it & that's not 1:1

No you don't, the only thing need for Move to be viable for FN is FN facillitates proper form. By nature, everyone is going to want to mimic what they see in reality and you only need to encourage proper form by highlighting its advantage while highlighting the disadvantage of improper form. The animation is not going to be the problem, because unless you are a pro boxer, consoles can animate a three punch combination faster than you can throw one. Furthermore, there is nothing to say bad form is more easily to 1:1 track than proper form.

The reason your vid look more like toughman fight versus a hbo boxing match has nothing to do with limitations of Move. By looking at your vids, I can imagine is the placement of PSEye may be problematic if its level with the camera you are using to record your vids. Second, I see where those clubbing punches come from, 1:42 in your second video in your Kimbo post. Its actually Move doing a pretty good job of mimicking of what no one would readily describe as a hook.

 

[onQ]

A 1:1 boxing game can teach anyone to fight with proper form by simply rewarding and training them for doing so. You don't have to have real-life racing skills to thrive in GT but it doesn't look like Mario Kart because it makes the attempt to mimic real life physics without hindering the fun factor. You don't have to know how to drive and never watched racing in your life, but any real time spent in GT and you will know how to properly take a corner.



No you don't, the only thing need for Move to be viable for FN is FN facillitates proper form. By nature, everyone is going to want to mimic what they see in reality and you only need to encourage proper form by highlighting its advantage while highlighting the disadvantage of improper form. The animation is not going to be the problem, because unless you are a pro boxer, consoles can animate a three punch combination faster than you can throw one. Furthermore, there is nothing to say bad form is more easily to 1:1 track than proper form.

The reason your vid look more like toughman fight versus a hbo boxing match has nothing to do with limitations of Move. By looking at your vids, I can imagine is the placement of PSEye may be problematic if its level with the camera you are using to record your vids. Second, I see where those clubbing punches come from, 1:42 in your second video in your Kimbo post. Its actually Move doing a pretty good job of mimicking of what no one would readily describe as a hook.

this is a fighting game! not a boxing game so why would bad form play a big roll in how much power you take away & why should the game show a disadvantage to people that's not using proper form?

if this was fight night maybe they would have focused on that.

& how can a console animate a three punch combination faster than 1 can throw one punch if it's my punch that it has to animate.

1:1 tracking isn't the same as pressing a button. when you press a button the game does the whole animation. with 1:1 it has to follow your movements.

 

[dobwal]

this is a fighting game! not a boxing game so why would bad form play a big roll in how much power you take away & why should the game show a disadvantage to people that's not using proper form?

if this was fight night maybe they would have focused on that.

Thats like saying why should anyone who picks a 4 cylinder Civic in GT5 should have a power disadvantage against someone in a Lambo.

Proper form in boxing or fighting is not an arbitrary creation. A person in proper form should by able to pretty much maximize the potential of their punches, while at the same time allow for defense. I can sacrifice my defense by putting all my effort into hitting you with a maximium shift in weight (a haymaker). I can also be soo fast that I can keep my hands down because you are too slow to hit me. But nothing is going to make an arm punch more devastating then a properly performed hook (in relation to one person throwing both punches). That doesn't change whether you are in a boxing match or a street fight.

If we were talking about a game such as a motion based Mike Tyson punchout, I would have no problem and your club punch would fit right in but this game makes an attempt at realism. Its not like the game allows you to raise your arms up and form a spirit bomb.

& how can a console animate a three punch combination faster than 1 can throw one punch if it's my punch that it has to animate.

1:1 tracking isn't the same as pressing a button. when you press a button the game does the whole animation. with 1:1 it has to follow your movements.

Which is not hard unless you are terribly fast, in the Arwin video even with the person's uncoordinated attempt at speedy movements had a hard time creating a big lag gap. Its not the rendering thats the hard part its the image capturing to rendering. And if a motion system has a poor time of capturing and then rendering an image enough to cause an animation issue, its not a problem of poor versus good form.

 

[onQ]

Thats like saying why should anyone who picks a 4 cylinder Civic in GT5 should have a power disadvantage against someone in a Lambo.

Proper form in boxing or fighting is not an arbitrary creation. A person in proper form should by able to pretty much maximize the potential of their punches, while at the same time allow for defense. I can sacrifice my defense by putting all my effort into hitting you with a maximium shift in weight (a haymaker). I can also be soo fast that I can keep my hands down because you are too slow to hit me. But nothing is going to make an arm punch more devastating then a properly performed hook (in relation to one person throwing both punches). That doesn't change whether you are in a boxing match or a street fight.

If we were talking about a game such as a motion based Mike Tyson punchout, I would have no problem and your club punch would fit right in but this game makes an attempt at realism. Its not like the game allows you to raise your arms up and form a spirit bomb.



Which is not hard unless you are terribly fast, in the Arwin video even with the person's uncoordinated attempt at speedy movements had a hard time creating a big lag gap. Its not the rendering thats the hard part its the image capturing to rendering. And if a motion system has a poor time of capturing and then rendering an image enough to cause an animation issue, its not a problem of poor versus good form.

""The character control and animations are going to improve vastly because most games of this era were set up to do DualShock control. Everything was baked and scripted. With the Move you have this one-to-one control over the character – you've seen that in The Fight and Sports Champions.

"There are noticeably some glitches and everyone's aware of that. It's quite good, in my opinion, for the time we had, but we can improve on that. That will be much better in the future."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-11-27-move-is-precise-enough-sony

funny that this interview with one of the creators of move would come out today

 

[patsu]

Yap ! I was thinking they need something that's better than Uncharted 1's animation. In Drake's Fortune, Naughty Dog blends a library of basic actions together to form the final animation. In Lights Out, they'd need to do that (for the foot work ?), plus whatever they take in from the Move controllers.

In Drake's Fortune, ND also needed to do muscle emulation and special tricks to prevent the chest and joints from collapsing in edge cases. The Lights Out developers (Coldwood Interactive) will probably need to grapple with similar issues.

I remember some people complained about a little "sliding" animation in U1.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That wasn't an animation problem so much as a positioning one. Climbable objects are spaced are particular intervals, and if Nate wasn't in the right place to start climbing for the animation to work, he'd be slid into position. Also on jumps, Nate's super-human powers would see him move further than the animations would produce, making them look out of place.

AFAIK there's no game that's got full, natural skeleton movements. Maybe backbreaker has? The thing to look for is turning on the spot. Invariable games just rotate the character or some such broken animation, instead of repositioning the feet. That's something you'd want in a 1:1 fighter, so that your player could be destablised and knocked over.

 

[patsu]

Yeah, I was referring to the footwork, which is controller-based. If the pre-built basic animations can't be reconciled with the upper body's motion tracking completely, they will have to fiddle with the animation or position somehow to connect/blend body parts.

 

[dobwal]

""The character control and animations are going to improve vastly because most games of this era were set up to do DualShock control. Everything was baked and scripted. With the Move you have this one-to-one control over the character – you've seen that in The Fight and Sports Champions.

"There are noticeably some glitches and everyone's aware of that. It's quite good, in my opinion, for the time we had, but we can improve on that. That will be much better in the future."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-11-27-move-is-precise-enough-sony

funny that this interview with one of the creators of move would come out today

I don't get your point. There still going to be plenty of baked and scripted animations or do you expect single player to disappear. Even in your demo video alot of animation of the pc character is scripted and alot of interpretation of 1:1 breaking is happening. And those baked and scripted animation will probably serves as the basis of animation for motion tracking. In fact, its unorthodox movements thats more likely to break game mechanics and animations like those found in FN. The more a game like FN promotes proper form the less likely you will see a drop in the quality of action of previous FNs.

Nothing you posted dissuades the argument that the quality of actions seen in previous FN is going to disappear due to 1:1 tracking. We will likely see a slow down in action but we already seen that when FN went from a button based mechanic to an analog based mechanic. There has been little to no complaint of animations of the new games based on the stick mechanics and a motion mechanic based on proper form would overlay nicely with the current mechanic.

Even your demo video lend evidence to that assertion. Throwing punches with proper form produced better animations thus better quality of action versus improper form where the game animates strangely because it had a hard time interpreting your unorthodox delivery of what you call a "hook".

 

[dobwal]

That wasn't an animation problem so much as a positioning one. Climbable objects are spaced are particular intervals, and if Nate wasn't in the right place to start climbing for the animation to work, he'd be slid into position. Also on jumps, Nate's super-human powers would see him move further than the animations would produce, making them look out of place.

AFAIK there's no game that's got full, natural skeleton movements. Maybe backbreaker has? The thing to look for is turning on the spot. Invariable games just rotate the character or some such broken animation, instead of repositioning the feet. That's something you'd want in a 1:1 fighter, so that your player could be destablised and knocked over.

There probably not ever going to true 1:1 animation of the a fighters legs since there is always going to be a need to keep the player rather stationary and with a static orientation while the actual game will have to provide a pretty large area for movement and 360 degrees orientation in a 3 dimensional space.

In fact most game will probably focus on delivering a illusion of 1:1 tracking while in reality constantly breaking 1:1 tracking in the name of animation and gameplay.