First of I'd like to Thank everyone for taking the time to provide some direct feedback for NCAA Football 10 it really helps us in keeping things together instead of filtering through 100's of wish list/feedback posts on the entire game across multiple forums .

With that said I'm very interested in starting with Progression, given the initial feedback from the game and the released patch which changed it. I'm curious about what are your thoughts about the current state of progression in NCAA 10 and was the patch a step in the right direction in your opinion or not? Secondly I'd like to know what you feel is the most important aspect of a player progression both in our game and in reality (personally I feel they should be the same if not similar).

Some examples include:

• A players Potential - Some guys are just going to get good as they get older; sure playing time and coaches might help... but the kid is going to have All American talent
• The Team - Coaches and Facilities build great players; while a recruit has some ability he really can't get much better unless someone helps him along the way
• On the Field - The only thing that matters is what you do on Saturday (or any other day the Sun Belt schedules a game ); meaning that his stats drive how good he can be.

I'll be reading through every post here in my new NCAA Football sub forum and we will have a Live Chat in the near future on this topic, so if you have questions put them in your post. I'll try and get some free time to post as well, but we are working hard on the game right now.

Sit down with Environment Modeler Eric Sherwood and get an inside look at how he takes the University of Minnesota stadium and recreates it...in the game!

The process of creating a stadium is a long task, it takes almost 2 months, to build a NCAA stadium (not counting all the debugging and testing time) and get a polished, shippable stadium.  First we gather reference and information on the stadium; in the case of Minnesota, as with most stadiums, we did a photo shoot of the new stadium and got schematics breaking down the layout and giving us measurements of the facility.  In the photo shoot we try and capture as much information as possible, from taking pictures at the field level to up in the press box.  After that we start modeling the stadium based off of camera matches inside Maya so that we know the scale and relative size is correct.  The images for the camera match are taken from photos during our photo shoot.

        Above is a "wireframe" of the camera match inside Maya.

        Above is a schematic of the stadium layout

Once we have the stadium blocked in and know our layout is correct we start adding in all the details to the scene.  We model out as much information as possible within our budgets for the scene, from edge wall tunnels, to the interior of the press boxes, and everything in between.

After the modeling is finished we move onto texturing the stadium.  For texturing we will try and use information from the photo shoot when applicable, during the photo shoot we will take close up pictures of just the brick or concrete to then use those images in our scene so they match the real life reference as much as possible.  This process is usually as time consuming as the modeling, both being around 3-4 weeks.  In the end of the texturing process we will have all the materials in the stadium, from the base color, dirt on walls, and self shadowing of the objects.  The last step is for lighting to light the stadium, where we apply shadow information, illuminate scoreboards, and assign light intensities.  After all of these steps, the end result is a polished stadium similar to the others you have seen in NCAA.

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My second game tonight was against Dave Sleepy.  His name might not indicate it, but our game was anything but boring.  It took two overtime periods to determine a winner and probably could have gone even longer.  He used Pitt and I played with my home state Maryland Terps.

I picked off a pass in the first quarter that set up my first scoring drive and Dave quickly replied with a touchdown drive of his own.  Fom that point it was back and forth all game.

Dave wasn't satisfied with playing catch up and took the lead in the fourth, forcing me to kick a game tying field goal to go into over time.  In the overtime period Dave got the ball first and scored on his very first play.  I scored on my own second play in overtime to keep the score tied.

I just barely converted a 4th down and managed a short touchdown pass to my tight end to go up 34-27.  It was up to Dave to tie it back up.  After a 3 incomplete passes he had one more chance to stay in the game.  The Maryland pass rush was just too much and a quarterback sack ended the game in my favor 34-27.  It was a great game by Dave.  Let's get a rematch soon.

Check back tomorrow for more updates and gameplay videos from the event!

-raczilla

The NCAA Football 10 Community Playdate is in full swing and the community has the edge over the EA SPORTS participants. While the night is far from over, the chances of the EA SPORTS guys winning the night at this point seems dim. Take a look at a couple of recaps from our EA SPORTS participants.

Designer Greg Heddelsten talks about his matchups from the evening thus far and what he expects from the rest of the night.

Producer Ben Haumiller faces a bit of trouble during his showdown with a community member.

Follow us on Twitter where we're posting all night and keep an eye out for more updates, including gameplay videos from some of the games the NCAA Football 10 dev team is playing.