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:
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:
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:
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:
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.
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.
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.
Come on Ricky Hatton!
- JenA closer look at Graphics - Art Director