So what MIGHT OOTPBB22 have to offer ?

[Bobbyraz49]

I'd like to see 3B step on the bag when there are runners on 1st. and 2nd. instead of throwing to first base.
Especially when 3B is 2 feet from the bag.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Bobbyraz49

I'd like to see 3B step on the bag when there are runners on 1st. and 2nd. instead of throwing to first base.
Especially when 3B is 2 feet from the bag.

That happens now (occasionally).

[pgjocki]

I just want my 3B to throw the damn ball instead of catching the ground ball and watching the runner head to first.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[CBeisbol]

Obligatory

The animations are (sometimes poor) representations of the play.

You can make a better one. Imagine that the player dropped, juggled, kicked or otherwise muffed the play.

Be creative

[Bunktown Ballers]

Hope And Prayer

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by Bunktown Ballers

Hope And Prayer

Been playing since OOTP3... and I have found each version gets a little better in the least... and much better in some cases... I am always pleased with each version.

The animation has really surprised me in the last few versions... one of these days soon it will be where most of us would like it to be.

Very happy with the animation of OOTP21... but still haven't downloaded the latest patch... it seemed to have problem of crashing... after I finish my playoffs, I will download it... hope it is now stable.

I've heard it made improvements in the animation... really looking forward to it.

[Eugene Church]

I don't know if it is the way I adjust the animation screens, but there are many views where you cannot see what happens to the ball... often one outfielder is not visible... also foul balls are not followed until they are caught... the catcher, first baseman or third baseman is not seen catching the foul fly until you choose another view to see the play finish out.

Is this the way the game does it?... or do I need to adjust my screens to see all of the action?

Is there a view where you see completion of the entire play without going to another screen view?

[Bobbyraz49]

Love this game.
However ...watching a guy go from 1st. to home on a the ball in the SS hand on the infield really irks me. The SS watches the baserunner go right past him, hold onto the ball until the runner touches home.

P.S. These forums are great ! And I thank you.

[CBeisbol]

Use your imagination

https://youtu.be/7JW8YRPTbIY

[jg2977]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

I don't know if it is the way I adjust the animation screens, but there are many views where you cannot see what happens to the ball... often one outfielder is not visible... also foul balls are not followed until they are caught... the catcher, first baseman or third baseman is not seen catching the foul fly until you choose another view to see the play finish out.

Is this the way the game does it?... or do I need to adjust my screens to see all of the action?

Is there a view where you see completion of the entire play without going to another screen view?

Check out the options for camera speed and camera delay in the game options screen. If you bump up the camera speed to about 16 and make the delay 0 it should follow the ball just fine

[ALB123]

This isn't an insult. I freakin' love OOTP and I think the Devs do an awesome job, especially reading all our complaints...

I'm not a gamer. I don't know nuthin' about nuthin', but I have to ask... Why is it so difficult to make the animation and play-by-play match up? We're not dealing with photoreal graphics and motion captured movements on players, like, something that video game The Show has to do. And in the case of OOTP, we aren't swinging or fielding or running ourselves, like in those PS4 baseball games. In a thousandth of a second after I hit space bar (I play one-pitch) to tell my batter he's got the green light to swing, the result has already been determined by whatever data crunching and other "stuff" * the software needs to do, right?

So, let's say it determined the play is going to result in: A high flyball to CF that will be caught for an out. The runner on second base is going to tag up and advanced toward 3B. The throw from CF will just barely beat the runner, resulting in an out at 3B.

Is it really that hard to have the animation complete those on-screen movements, again, considering it's extremely low detail objects?

What is it that my feeble mind doesn't understand about this stuff? I just like to learn & understand as much as I can.


* I'm sorry that I got extremely technical there, but it was necessary.

[mytreds]

Yes it is hard. Especially because the ball is round.

[BusterKing]

There are 3D improvements but not enough imo. Maybe assign more people or more time for fixes. They seem to make some fixes while introducing new faulty animations for some plays. Like the foul balls in the infield are awful to watch now.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by ALB123

This isn't an insult. I freakin' love OOTP and I think the Devs do an awesome job, especially reading all our complaints...

I'm not a gamer. I don't know nuthin' about nuthin', but I have to ask... Why is it so difficult to make the animation and play-by-play match up?

Basically the game works as such that the moment you enter a command it generates the result of the play. Everything else it tacks on afterwards. For a long time that was only the text-based play-by-play, and it was not easy to notice that things were already "done" while the PBP was unfolding, although older versions of the game had technical glitches, too, that sometimes betrayed the illusion. F.e. in OOTP 12 you could be sure that a "send runner from X to Y" prompt was going to come up if the game took half a second to start the PBP.

Steam achievements popping (the infamous walkoff homer most notably) at the second you hit enter rather than at the conclusion of PBP is also proof that this is how it worked and works.

Problem with 3D is that it is hard to generate in a sound and logical way without resorting to a fixed set of animations that would become repetitive almost immediately. So the game engine might spit out a play like "single to right, runner from third base scores, runner from first base runs to third base, throw, safe." - and now has to fudge together an animation that looks like it.

There is a finite amount of base/out states in the game, but the amount of possible plays is much larger than that and the engine invariably struggles on anything but the most basic plays. I couldn't code anything to save my bacon, but I like to dig into the logic of things, and I am pretty sure OOTP needs an entirely new game engine to make 3D work in an aesthetically pleasing, realistic way.

[ALB123]

Originally Posted by Westheim

There is a finite amount of base/out states in the game, but the amount of possible plays is much larger than that and the engine invariably struggles on anything but the most basic plays. I couldn't code anything to save my bacon, but I like to dig into the logic of things, and I am pretty sure OOTP needs an entirely new game engine to make 3D work in an aesthetically pleasing, realistic way.

Thank you for the response. I thought others would offer information, but I guess not. As I said, I wasn't asking this question because it was a complaint. I was asking because it's universally accepted around here that things are less than ideal in the visual aspects of ootp and as a non-gamer this surprises me...in a good way! Yes, everybody wishes it were perfect, but from my point of view...from my naive point of view, I couldn't fully understand it. I can and I do accept it, happily. I think that's a testament to just how good and how much fun OOTP is.

I've been hanging around here since January 2020 - ootp 21 is the first version I've purchased. On occasion, I will feel like there is something that everybody seems to understand or gets, except me. Well, I like to understand as much as the next guy, so I thought I'd ask this question. I appreciate that you didn't respond like I was ripping on ootp or the devs. I just want to understand the why behind the things I don't currently understand. I could stumble upon a post, on Reddit, let's say, where people are discussing the latest new hotness of a game. Let's pretend it's the 2021 version of Call of Duty (I don't know many titles LOL) and I'll see scores of people ripping on the game because they think the reflections in the water aren't 100% perfect. Then, those same people will talk about how awesome Minecraft is. Something like that, I just don't get right away. I just started playing out all my games, before I didn't even know

I hope that I have been articulating my thoughts clearly...My brains got a little scrambled, so I can often get confused and stuff and I often worry about saying something in a very unintended way. It's okay though...I have learned to joke about it with friends and family and with online friends and I don't mind. So, if I ever start saying crazy things, feel free to remind me to stop being a wacko. That goes for anyone reading this.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by ALB123

Thank you for the response. I thought others would offer information, but I guess not. As I said, I wasn't asking this question because it was a complaint. I was asking because it's universally accepted around here that things are less than ideal in the visual aspects of ootp and as a non-gamer this surprises me...in a good way! Yes, everybody wishes it were perfect, but from my point of view...from my naive point of view, I couldn't fully understand it. I can and I do accept it, happily. I think that's a testament to just how good and how much fun OOTP is.

I've been hanging around here since January 2020 - ootp 21 is the first version I've purchased. On occasion, I will feel like there is something that everybody seems to understand or gets, except me. Well, I like to understand as much as the next guy, so I thought I'd ask this question. I appreciate that you didn't respond like I was ripping on ootp or the devs. I just want to understand the why behind the things I don't currently understand. I could stumble upon a post, on Reddit, let's say, where people are discussing the latest new hotness of a game. Let's pretend it's the 2021 version of Call of Duty (I don't know many titles LOL) and I'll see scores of people ripping on the game because they think the reflections in the water aren't 100% perfect. Then, those same people will talk about how awesome Minecraft is. Something like that, I just don't get right away. I just started playing out all my games, before I didn't even know

I hope that I have been articulating my thoughts clearly...My brains got a little scrambled, so I can often get confused and stuff and I often worry about saying something in a very unintended way. It's okay though...I have learned to joke about it with friends and family and with online friends and I don't mind. So, if I ever start saying crazy things, feel free to remind me to stop being a wacko. That goes for anyone reading this.

No worries

To tag on a little more, take the sample play mentioned before - single to right, runner from third base scores, runner from first base runs to third base, throw, safe.

For this play, okay, single to RF - how hard is the ball hit to RF? Line drive vs Flyball singles look very different. The game also determines where on the field the ball lands. But now, the RF isn't in the same spot on every play, so if he's shading right or left that impacts things. And obviously if you have Ichiro playing RF or have decided to use David Ortiz there for an inning, they're going to move very differently to pick up the ball.

Then for the runner, you have to figure out if he's taking a big lead and running on contact, or does he have to stay back a little bit in case the ball gets caught? Again, Ichiro on the basepaths vs Ortiz are going to run very differently.

And then you add in the throw. Is it a direct throw, or through a cutoff man? How hard is the guy throwing to the base?

And the biggest points of all of this is that while we can and do calculate all these factors, everything actually moves really fast on a play. Like, if I add in a half second delay between when the fielder picks up the ball and when he starts the throw, it turns into the case where it looks like he holds the ball forever. And it's an incredibly hard balancing act since you want the ball to travel at roughly normal speeds, and the player to travel at roughly normal speeds. And there are some limitations to how things are designed, so you have to figure out if you need to speed up the runner or slow down the ball, since you can't really do both at the same time just because there's too many factors at play. And then you have to be careful that you don't change your mind to speed up the throw, but forget to change when the animation starts for the guy's throw.


That's only some of the challenges on the plays. Mostly it just ends up being a case where it's incredibly hard to balance ball speed vs runner speeds. And in the end, there's basically a limit to what sort of delays or how much you can slow down or speed up players or hits for things to still look mostly realistic. Make the balls go too fast and you end up with those infield groundballs that go to the outfield. Make them go too slow and suddenly your player has to look like Ortiz running to be thrown out on a groundball.


We'll keep making advances, and we will continue to improve things. If anyone thinks for a moment that I'm 100% happy with every 3d play we have, I'm definitely not. But we're also a small team, so it's always that balancing act of how we spend our time. Hopefully we'll keep giving everyone enough to keep coming back every year

[mars001]

Thanks Matt. I totally understand the complexities and challenges on the animations. What about the boundary issues? These seem to have been around forever with some improvement, but still so many issues. Is there a fundamental issue with the stadium models that allows the ball and fielder to go through the walls?

[ALB123]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

No worries

To tag on a little more, take the sample play mentioned before - single to right, runner from third base scores, runner from first base runs to third base, throw, safe.

For this play, okay, single to RF - how hard is the ball hit to RF? Line drive vs Flyball singles look very different. The game also determines where on the field the ball lands. But now, the RF isn't in the same spot on every play, so if he's shading right or left that impacts things. And obviously if you have Ichiro playing RF or have decided to use David Ortiz there for an inning, they're going to move very differently to pick up the ball.

Then for the runner, you have to figure out if he's taking a big lead and running on contact, or does he have to stay back a little bit in case the ball gets caught? Again, Ichiro on the basepaths vs Ortiz are going to run very differently.

And then you add in the throw. Is it a direct throw, or through a cutoff man? How hard is the guy throwing to the base?

And the biggest points of all of this is that while we can and do calculate all these factors, everything actually moves really fast on a play. Like, if I add in a half second delay between when the fielder picks up the ball and when he starts the throw, it turns into the case where it looks like he holds the ball forever. And it's an incredibly hard balancing act since you want the ball to travel at roughly normal speeds, and the player to travel at roughly normal speeds. And there are some limitations to how things are designed, so you have to figure out if you need to speed up the runner or slow down the ball, since you can't really do both at the same time just because there's too many factors at play. And then you have to be careful that you don't change your mind to speed up the throw, but forget to change when the animation starts for the guy's throw.


That's only some of the challenges on the plays. Mostly it just ends up being a case where it's incredibly hard to balance ball speed vs runner speeds. And in the end, there's basically a limit to what sort of delays or how much you can slow down or speed up players or hits for things to still look mostly realistic. Make the balls go too fast and you end up with those infield groundballs that go to the outfield. Make them go too slow and suddenly your player has to look like Ortiz running to be thrown out on a groundball.


We'll keep making advances, and we will continue to improve things. If anyone thinks for a moment that I'm 100% happy with every 3d play we have, I'm definitely not. But we're also a small team, so it's always that balancing act of how we spend our time. Hopefully we'll keep giving everyone enough to keep coming back every year

Wow! First, thank you for taking the time to address my post.

Double-Wow! Everything you said was so easy to understand as a layman to programming, animation and game design. See, those are all exactly the things I did not take into consideration. Everything you said is so logical, I almost feel ridiculous for not thinking about all of those conditions or states that you guys, as coders, need to not only think about but also synchronize with all the other stuff going on.

One of the reasons I love baseball so much is because of the seemingly endless number of situations that can occur over the course of a single game. I should have thought about what that must mean for a tiny team of coders who are trying to create a world where all of those possible situations can take place, digitally. What an undertaking it must be...

Once again, thanks for answering, Matt. That was awesome. God willing, I'll be here for a long time, following along with all of those improvements you guys make to the simulator.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by mars001

Thanks Matt. I totally understand the complexities and challenges on the animations. What about the boundary issues? These seem to have been around forever with some improvement, but still so many issues. Is there a fundamental issue with the stadium models that allows the ball and fielder to go through the walls?

Those are mostly from 3d intersection issues. We trace the ball, and then you have to check every wall segment to see if the ball hits it. But like, sometimes the math rounds wrong and the ball basically finds a seam in the wall. Or we make a wrong assumption (ie. The previous bounce came at a weird angle so we don't expect it should be able to hit a wall segment but it does). 3d physics just gets weird at times, so hard to plan for them all, especially since every stadium has its own setup.

[tejdog1]

STEVE COHEN as owner of the Mets? :flow ers: