The Science of bounceTek

[22cedric]

http://www.easports.com/nba-live/news-u ... technology

Gary Paterson is the Senior Creative Director for NBA LIVE 14, which releases later this year on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Gary joined the FIFA team in 2006, and he was instrumental in creating an all-new dribbling mechanic that gave players freedom on the pitch, as well as working on the introduction of 360-degree dribbling. Gary joins the NBA LIVE team with plans to revolutionize the game's dribbling control in the same way.



THE ISSUE

As heard at E3 from Cleveland Cavaliers PG Kyrie Irving and NBA LIVE 14 Executive Producer Sean O'Brien, dribbling is the most important fundamental skill in the game of basketball. Basketball gamers spend about 50 percent of their playtime dribbling the ball, but despite that stat, dribbling had been one of the most underdeveloped mechanics in every basketball game to date. That had to change.

The basketball genre has been hampered by a dribbling mechanic that has the following flaws:

- The ball can be stuck to the player's hands, as seen in the video above

- The ball magically floats into the player's hands, bouncing in mid-air

- Players change direction without an animation

- Players get stuck between animations

While some of these issues may seem cosmetic, they speak to the deeper flaws of the genre. Authenticity is huge in our games. Players expect our game to look, feel and respond like it does in real life. With our old technology, that could not be achieved.



WHAT WE'RE DOING

The goal of bounceTek is to completely separate the ball from the animation in order to create a physics-driven dribbling mechanic where the ball is under the same physical forces seen in the NBA. This mechanic will result in authentic responsiveness as opposed to rigged animations.

As you can see in the footage above, red lines will appear to show the ball when it's under the effect of physics. The red cages are called contact cages. If the ball passes through the cage, then the player is able to touch it. The third set of lines is called the player warp track, which allows us to control an animation so that the player is fluid and able to turn in any direction. By taking a look under the hood of NBA LIVE 14, you can see that the physics are not being faked.



HOW THIS HELPS THE GAMER

As stated earlier, our fans require authenticity from EA SPORTS. Everything from the look, feel and responsiveness in our titles. bounceTek will take all of these elements to the next level.

- The dev team recaptured all of our dribble animations in order to give players the responsiveness they were looking for.

- Our technology allows us to ensure that movement is as fluid as it should be in order to deliver authentic gameplay.

- Our dribbling has something called "Authentic Responsiveness," which means the ball is controllable when it touches the player’s hands, ensuring that control is responsive when it should be and unresponsive when it should be. While that sounds counterintuitive, it's important to create the depth required in a top-notch dribbling system.

- Depth is created through decision-making and risk-reward options that forces users to think about what they want to do with the ball in their hands.

Dribbling has been stagnant in basketball video games for far too long. In NBA LIVE 14, that's changing with the all-new bounceTek dribble system.



NBA LIVE 14 will be available later this year for Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Preorder today, and be sure to check the NBA LIVE website, Facebookand Twitter for updates throughout the summer.

[Hiteshom]

Sweet! Sounds awesome! CANT WAIT!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7KSkZxt_zo

[jmoney777]

There were three videos attached with it. Just a correction to above

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... TKlhjiU7Co
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... xGKYRjF75M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... FzyURsNoRs

[Hiteshom]

There were three videos attached with it. Just a correction to above

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... TKlhjiU7Co
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... xGKYRjF75M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... FzyURsNoRs

Oh yeah, my bad...

[JBulls]

Much more fluid when it comes to dribbling than any other basketball ball game so far, but I noticed in one animation sequence the ball clearly getting sucked into the palm. To be honest I would be quite satisfied with the current state of the bouncetek system and HQ animation blending if the final gameplay is entirely representative of what was shown in these videos. Great stuff.

[Andrew]

Definitely a good, informative blog. That's the kind of info they need to be putting out there, with visual demonstrations and comparisons to previous games. This was quite promising, hopefully future blogs continue to impress and bring good news.

While the dribbling is the focus of the blog - obviously - I was hoping that it might touch a little more on the defensive aspects of the technology, since early previews (and the first Twitter Q&A) suggest we won't be seeing situations on defense where the action feels canned, particularly when it comes to blocks and steals. I guess more on that will be coming later.

[mlp111]

I really wasnt that impressed with anything i seen besides the foot-planting looks great, everything else is so so....

[Manni Live]

For real? They got much more issue's that they need to fix and their worried soo much on the dribbling? c'mon EA

[JaoSming]

and what issues are those Manni? in a brand new game, with no public gameplay footage, with only basic information or anything being shown, what issues are you aware of that they need to fix before adding a revolutionary feature to a basketball game?

[benji]

and what issues are those Manni? in a brand new game, with no public gameplay footage, with only basic information or anything being shown, what issues are you aware of that they need to fix before adding a revolutionary feature to a basketball game?

Jay-Z probably hasn't even started on the menus yet.

[Hiteshom]

and what issues are those Manni? in a brand new game, with no public gameplay footage, with only basic information or anything being shown, what issues are you aware of that they need to fix before adding a revolutionary feature to a basketball game?

Jay-Z probably hasn't even started on the menus yet.

OHHHH SNAPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Arcane]

I really wasnt that impressed with anything i seen besides the foot-planting looks great, everything else is so so....

Not a fan of some of your comment, this is what the video was trying to show:

- ball freed up by real physics not canned sequences animation
- the physics based dribble bounce path and areas where players hands are expected to regather the ball on the bounce to dribble bounce the ball again
- removal of ball warping
- freedom in being able to strip away the ball with no pre determined foul call
- ability and fluidity with changing player speeds height in attack posture/pose and change of direction

[Patr1ck]

I think the best thing about the tech video is that the ball and player movement did not look to be locked to 8 directions. It appeared that a full 360 degrees of movement is now possible.

[Manni Live]

and what issues are those Manni? in a brand new game, with no public gameplay footage, with only basic information or anything being shown, what issues are you aware of that they need to fix before adding a revolutionary feature to a basketball game?

Sorry i didnt know it was going to be a "Brand New Game" i thought they were going to base it back on nba live 13 and build it up on there or something.I just really want this game to be good and worth buying.

[mlp111]

I really wasnt that impressed with anything i seen besides the foot-planting looks great, everything else is so so....

Not a fan of some of your comment, this is what the video was trying to show:

- ball freed up by real physics not canned sequences animation
- the physics based dribble bounce path and areas where players hands are expected to regather the ball on the bounce to dribble bounce the ball again
- removal of ball warping
- freedom in being able to strip away the ball with no pre determined foul call
- ability and fluidity with changing player speeds height in attack posture/pose and change of direction

Well there is freedom of speech and thought...... I can read quite well, I understood what they were saying, it sounded better on paper IMO.... ball warping isnt completely removed judging from those videos, as i stated it was underwhelming for me... thats my person opinion. But i was impressed by the foot-planting, but thats about it, everything showed was in live 13, elite 11...... so no that impressed

[Arcane]

I really wasnt that impressed with anything i seen besides the foot-planting looks great, everything else is so so....

Not a fan of some of your comment, this is what the video was trying to show:

- ball freed up by real physics not canned sequences animation
- the physics based dribble bounce path and areas where players hands are expected to regather the ball on the bounce to dribble bounce the ball again
- removal of ball warping
- freedom in being able to strip away the ball with no pre determined foul call
- ability and fluidity with changing player speeds height in attack posture/pose and change of direction

Well there is freedom of speech and thought...... I can read quite well, I understood what they were saying, it sounded better on paper IMO.... ball warping isnt completely removed judging from those videos, as i stated it was underwhelming for me... thats my person opinion. But i was impressed by the foot-planting, but thats about it, everything showed was in live 13, elite 11...... so no that impressed

Do I again need to re-quote what I said to this exact response on EA forums

[quote=dragon4thQ]Not entirely so. The dribbling mechanics weren't entirely released to physics based in Elite 11 or Live 13 they were still "on rails" it was more in shooting mechanics where it was physics based during those titles.[/quote]

[JBulls]

Arcane, he knows what they were trying to show. He's just saying that bouncetek in its current form wasn't executed well enough to impress him. I agree there are still some clear issues but it did say "work in progress" in each of the videos so I am withholding final judgement until the game is released.

[Patr1ck]

I understand as well. To sell that tech, they need to show us how the responsiveness works . Where can we interrupt dribbles and where do we have to wait for the ball top come back up? I hope they don't plan on having us focus on the bouncing animation in order to time our moves. I really want to see the difference from a highly skilled ballhandler in contrast to a poorly skilled one.

Also, what about the gathers? The transition from dribbling to gathering into a hop step or finish towards the rim and pullup shots and passes need to be responsive enough while providing a smooth and realistic looking motion.

[mlp111]

I really wasnt that impressed with anything i seen besides the foot-planting looks great, everything else is so so....

Not a fan of some of your comment, this is what the video was trying to show:

- ball freed up by real physics not canned sequences animation
- the physics based dribble bounce path and areas where players hands are expected to regather the ball on the bounce to dribble bounce the ball again
- removal of ball warping
- freedom in being able to strip away the ball with no pre determined foul call
- ability and fluidity with changing player speeds height in attack posture/pose and change of direction

Well there is freedom of speech and thought...... I can read quite well, I understood what they were saying, it sounded better on paper IMO.... ball warping isnt completely removed judging from those videos, as i stated it was underwhelming for me... thats my person opinion. But i was impressed by the foot-planting, but thats about it, everything showed was in live 13, elite 11...... so no that impressed

Do I again need to re-quote what I said to this exact response on EA forums

[quote=dragon4thQ]Not entirely so. The dribbling mechanics weren't entirely released to physics based in Elite 11 or Live 13 they were still "on rails" it was more in shooting mechanics where it was physics based during those titles.

[/quote]
as you re-quoted what you stated in EA forum..... still the videos didn't provide much insight to any physic truly being seen that are game changing.. as in the EA forums all I said is I wasn't impressed, and you responded you were a fan of my comments, lol.... while there is another member there who is totally bias for EA and trashes 2k every chance he gets, and not one thing is said to him, so I take it your a bias EA fan as well, either way it doesn't matter to me... to each its own, but as for me, I'm happy to see EA back on the seen, but at this moment I'm just not impressed with what i have seen (work in progress, I know) but this engine is about 2-3yr old and still seem they haven't totally got it right, SMH!

[Andrew]

but this engine is about 2-3yr old and still seem they haven't totally got it right, SMH!

As far as I'm aware, the IGNITE engine is actually making its debut on the next gen consoles and was not used in NBA Elite 11 or NBA Live 13, which were last gen/current gen titles and tech.

[Arcane]

I really wasnt that impressed with anything i seen besides the foot-planting looks great, everything else is so so....

Not a fan of some of your comment, this is what the video was trying to show:

- ball freed up by real physics not canned sequences animation
- the physics based dribble bounce path and areas where players hands are expected to regather the ball on the bounce to dribble bounce the ball again
- removal of ball warping
- freedom in being able to strip away the ball with no pre determined foul call
- ability and fluidity with changing player speeds height in attack posture/pose and change of direction

Well there is freedom of speech and thought...... I can read quite well, I understood what they were saying, it sounded better on paper IMO.... ball warping isnt completely removed judging from those videos, as i stated it was underwhelming for me... thats my person opinion. But i was impressed by the foot-planting, but thats about it, everything showed was in live 13, elite 11...... so no that impressed

Do I again need to re-quote what I said to this exact response on EA forums

[quote=dragon4thQ]Not entirely so. The dribbling mechanics weren't entirely released to physics based in Elite 11 or Live 13 they were still "on rails" it was more in shooting mechanics where it was physics based during those titles.

as you re-quoted what you stated in EA forum..... still the videos didn't provide much insight to any physic truly being seen that are game changing.. as in the EA forums all I said is I wasn't impressed, and you responded you were a fan of my comments, lol.... while there is another member there who is totally bias for EA and trashes 2k every chance he gets, and not one thing is said to him, so I take it your a bias EA fan as well, either way it doesn't matter to me... to each its own, but as for me, I'm happy to see EA back on the seen, but at this moment I'm just not impressed with what i have seen (work in progress, I know) but this engine is about 2-3yr old and still seem they haven't totally got it right, SMH![/quote]

The Ignite engine has been in development for 2 years behind the scenes (with a collaborative programming talents from FIFA, NFL, UFC and NBA Live development teams) this is its first public display. Sure in some previous game releases over the past 2-3 years there has been iterations of what could of been elements of the Ignite engine. As to your statement of me being a fan boy, I am purely a now former EA Moderator who still assigned to helping Inform the community of EA Sports title news. I do also as a NLSC Moderator provide news and information for 2K and EA titles. I try to be as in formative as possible on both a software and hardware point using my understanding of being a games developer (having built 3 games and attempting a 4th title now).