Madden NFL 09 - New Tackle Animations

The all-new Tackling Engine

One of our primary pet-peeves in Madden NFL has been in the responsiveness of tackling. We wanted to feel like as a ballcarrier or defender you are always in more control. The feeling of delay before a tackle started really took away from responsiveness. Also the "suction" you get when being pulled into tackles, well, sucks. We found that the cause of the delay was searching through our 300 and some odd tackles for one that "matched" the current scenario as close as we can, and while this may only take 1/10th to 1/4th of second, I found that delay un-acceptable. So we invented a whole new way to tackle this year.

We started with a concept that I worked on with the NBA Street team for character interactions, and pumped it up for the requirements of such a deep football simulation. What we did was connect it to our physics engine in ways that allows the animation to be what can be called "Physics Informed" and then altered the interaction based on that information. This means that we can procedurally manipulate the animation based on physics without losing the personality and life of the characters the way ragdoll does, and without losing the creativity the animators can put into the motion.

While I don't want to (and EA definitely doesn't want me to) give away the "how" we do it, I find it hard to imagine you won't both see and feel the dramatic improvements this new system has made to multi-character interaction. The basics of the system allows the characters to be aware of each other on the field in a way they never could before, and we can then manipulate the animation with the physics engine to allow the hits to match the physics scenario (rather than finding a tackle that sort of matches it like the old days). We can also prevent the loss of momentum of the victim character that causes that "suction" feeling. You will see more variety because we no longer have tackles that play more often because certain scenarios occur more frequently. We have also eliminated the "explosion" phenomenon when the game couldn't find a tackle animation in time and characters bang off each other and both fall down.

In Madden NFL 09 this also means you can truly break tackles now, you can spin, truck, juke and stiff arm your way out of tackles AFTER impact has already happened. But be careful, defenders can now strip the ball from you after impact as well, and Hit-sticks are nothing short of brutal.

With this brand new system (created in a collaborative effort between NCAA Football and Madden NFL), you will see unprecedented fluidity in multi-character interaction, which generates much better results across the board: improved blocking, improved chucks, better handoffs, interactive celebrations with teammates, and even friendly player avoidance and help-ups in post-play. In NCAA you will see pursuit physics specific to wide open gameplay and interactive celebrating with mascots. In Madden you will be manually breaking tackles, adding far better response and control as well as more depth to tackling, which is quite fun. None of this could be possible without this new engine.

I made this video to demonstrate the new system (and cut it to music for fun, but I assure you I did this at my desk). We are still multiple weeks away from completion (as you might notice our new lighting system isn't fully tuned yet), but I captured these tackles out of replay in Madden NFL 09. Enjoy your first up close and personal look at one of our many massive gameplay improvements for this year!

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Madden
• 09
• video
• game
• nfl
• 2009

[davidsawesome2]

Wow not near as good as the backbreakers new tackles check the game up

[PRIzoom]

Madden2010 better be good because Madden2009 sucked

[caribolu1]

madden 10 and 9 sucked but 2011 and 12 rock

[Tank1080p]

what the fuck!?

why is there snow on the ground?

[pokemonwizard555]

backbreaker doesnt use animations for tackles...

[dsmitty82]

madden sucks anymore

[Noobkiller1o1]

this is nothing compared 2 backbreaker

[vikdude366]

True but the way they run is pretty much retarted!

[RKR808]

gay

[Angelo7silver10]

i wish u can suplex some1 like brain dawkins