Last year the world was introduced to the EA SPORTS Virtual Playbook. A combination of a real life analyst and virtual players extracted from Madden 09 appearing on screen together to break down the game. It was an amazing accomplishment for everyone involved and the technology’s success opened the flood gates to other applications.
Fast forward a year later to the 08-09 NBA playoffs and you may have seen one of those applications with players from NBA Live 09 appearing next to Jon Barry. EA SPORTS and ESPN had linked up again and for the first time created a virtual playbook for basketball.
EA and ESPN decided they wanted to shoot Virtual Playbook segments with NBA Live 09 and use it for the playoffs and I got to go to Orlando and be a part of the shoot. I was there to help produce the different sets and plays with NBA Live 09 that ESPN wanted to showcase and breakdown. This meant sitting down with 1 to 3 other people (a great assortment of guys from Jason Parker to a number of different members of ESPN’s emerging technology group that were producing the segment) playing the game and trying to run the different plays.
In order to get a usable take the play had to be one continuous shot, which meant the whole play had to be run perfectly in one take. We did all the plays together on the fly and came away with some really cool stuff. It was challenging with some of the more complex sets we did (IE. The Lakers’ triangle offense) and some of these ended up being too complicated to try and fit in. With the time crunch the shoot was under, there were some classic late nights with Jason and the ESPN crew and I think everyone had a pretty great time being a part of something new like this.
I think the coolest part of the whole week (besides eating lunch with Jon Barry and reminiscing about the Vancouver Grizzlies and tossing out once famous names of players we remembered; Blue Edwards, Pete Chilcutt, Michael Dickerson to name a few) was learning about the ways that the basketball shoot was different than what they did with football. The Madden shoot was a huge breakthrough and since it had been proven it they could do it a lot had been learned about what else was possible. Learning about these things as the production went on was pretty interesting. Jason Parker outlines some of the major ones:
• The biggest difference between the two was the environment. The football segments were taped on a set that was significantly smaller than a football field. To make it work, not all of the 22 players on the field could be visible at the same time.
• Since the NBA shoot was done on a real basketball court, we didn’t have to hide any players (although some were hidden during the second shoot).
• Another difference was the virtual basket. Other than the ball, there were no in-game props used in the football tapings. The virtual basket allowed the virtual players to hit field goals.
• The final major difference was sound. The football segments were silent, but the basketball ones had shoe squeaks and ball sounds. It really helped make the players feel like they were there.
I find it really interesting how the technology we deal with and present in video games now has the potential to play a new role in the way people see and understand sports. Hopefully this can lead to creating more excitement about the real sport and in turn make the video game more relevant; maybe even one day using EA SPORTS games as teaching tools. In the end I think one of the goals that everyone who works on a sports video game has in one way or another is to make a game that can make people see the real game in a different way. In doing so there is an opportunity to get fans excited about everything from the real thing to the potential for their own involvement in both virtual reality and real life. I think the path that is being paved with this technology is certainly steering us in that direction.
The logical next question is: What could be next for the Virtual Basketball Playbook?
Well, after playing the game and seeing what we could and couldn’t get to the first time, there are a number of areas that have yet to be fully tapped. I think a major catalyst for exploring those areas will come with being able to use NBA Live 10. Playing Live 09 for an extended period of time while shooting after having been playing Live 10 so much makes me see just how far things have come in the last year. With NBA Live 10 I think we will be able to examine a wider variety of the finer points of the game that Live 10 captures which will lead to: more intricate plays, broader scope of teaching points and the opportunity to look deeper into individual player and team styles and tendencies. Some of the technical improvements that could be ahead include: projecting virtual shadows onto the real court and virtual player scaling relative to real life people.
All these elements will continue to advance a technology designed to show fans what is beyond the video game and expose and teach them new things in interesting ways which will take them deeper into both the real and virtual world of sport.
-Sean Cambpell, Producer