New 3d visuals

[texasmame]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

I feel like that guy is being deliberately obtuse, as would be indicated from his continuing to harp on needing a gaming rig in order to use graphics that were, again, literally taken from a game that is made to operate on mobile devices. In like 2000 you probably would need a good GPU to run those. We aren’t in the year 2000 anymore and pretty much any computer that’s not a chromebook made in the last 10 years could handle what I posted.

*twirls his own devilish moustache*


MUAHAHAHAHA

[Zitofan75]

Originally Posted by silvam14

I think I was one of the few who loved OOTP 2006. Not because of the implementation, but because I knew the potential it unlocked. Before that, we couldn't have more than one league, now look. But man, did Marcus catch hell for that at the time

I agree with you. I liked the flexibility and potential the new engine offered but for some reasons half the people on the board wanted to argue about losing the "stars".

[AESP_pres]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

It’s funny to me how it seems the priorities of what people want or expect in a new version are so vastly different than what they used to be.

I always want the same thing I always wanted... real 19th century baseball with all the league as they played, so no fake progression + the UA and the PL.


As usual I know it won't happen since so few of us start their simulation from the beginning...

[progen]

Originally Posted by Zitofan75

I agree with you. I liked the flexibility and potential the new engine offered but for some reasons half the people on the board wanted to argue about losing the "stars".

Stars are so annoying. Main reason why I don't join any online leagues anymore. I went through a list of leagues just to see what they were offering, and most of them used stars.

And that's one of the main reasons I won't buy the hockey game. No option to turn stars off.

[tward13]

Originally Posted by progen

Stars are so annoying. Main reason why I don't join any online leagues anymore. I went through a list of leagues just to see what they were offering, and most of them used stars.

And that's one of the main reasons I won't buy the hockey game. No option to turn stars off.

FABL is stats only, not a star to be seen.

It's also Fictional Historical. Following MLB setup but fake players and teams. Not that you'd know they were fake the way the GMs talk about them.

[Pelican]

Okay, since this is a a thread about 3D, and despite the “eye candy” reference previously (not meaning to offend anybody), I have to reluctantly raise a few issues. The actions of the 3D players are far from fluid, and to an annoying degree they do not correspond to the narrative of the play. Guys called out are obviously safe. Fly balls to the gap are pop-ups to short outfield. High strikes are low balls. Are we supposed to think this is all poor umpiring or nearsighted play-by-play announcers? I sometimes - frequently - wish for a button to charge the umpire and get ejected and let the AI manage the rest of the game. To me, the graphics can be cool, but can also by out of synch and distracting and frustrating. I think that aspect has a long way to go. But I honestly don’t care, because the other aspects of the games are deep and challenging and fascinating. Glad to hear that the development team for graphics is distinct from the team for AI and game play. I hope the company adds developers for the latter and not the former. But to each his own.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Okay, since this is a a thread about 3D, and despite the “eye candy” reference previously (not meaning to offend anybody), I have to reluctantly raise a few issues. The actions of the 3D players are far from fluid, and to an annoying degree they do not correspond to the narrative of the play. Guys called out are obviously safe. Fly balls to the gap are pop-ups to short outfield. High strikes are low balls. Are we supposed to think this is all poor umpiring or nearsighted play-by-play announcers? I sometimes - frequently - wish for a button to charge the umpire and get ejected and let the AI manage the rest of the game. To me, the graphics can be cool, but can also by out of synch and distracting and frustrating. I think that aspect has a long way to go. But I honestly don’t care, because the other aspects of the games are deep and challenging and fascinating. Glad to hear that the development team for graphics is distinct from the team for AI and game play. I hope the company adds developers for the latter and not the former. But to each his own.

It's a work in progress. What, 3(?) years ago the players were bowling pins It's come a long way and faster than I, and a lot of others, thought it would. I'm a patient glass is half full guy when it comes to OOTP. Markus, Matt and team have continued to move the game forward year to year. It works for me

[Pelican]

It works for me, too. The tech savvy folks I know and brilliant coders in particular are hard-working and creative and dedicated, and that is clearly the case with OOTP. I love it that they pay attention to our suggestions and whining and nitpicking. I have never experienced a program that is rendered with such care and constant upgrading and improvement. I have about a 5% understanding of how they do what they do, and it is mind-boggling to me how they manage. Their enthusiasm and dedication to the product is contagious.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Sweed

It's a work in progress. What, 3(?) years ago the players were bowling pins It's come a long way and faster than I, and a lot of others, thought it would. I'm a patient glass is half full guy when it comes to OOTP. Markus, Matt and team have continued to move the game forward year to year. It works for me

This is also something I think you can compare to FM, which started with little circles on a 2D pitch and gradually over time put together a 3D engine that now works pretty great for the game as a whole. I'm hoping for more iterative changes on this aspect. There's always that chance / opportunity to bring in player models from Com2Us's mobile game the way they did with the stadia but I do feel like if they'd done that they'd have advertised it by now.

[andyhdz]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

There's always that chance / opportunity to bring in player models from Com2Us's mobile game the way they did with the stadia but I do feel like if they'd done that they'd have advertised it by now.

Aww don't throw cold water on the dream. Hopefully the trailer will answer it all tomorrow.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by andyhdz

Aww don't throw cold water on the dream. Hopefully the trailer will answer it all tomorrow.

They've come a long way with iterative improvements to the 3D engine so I'm not counting anything out!

[Beatles Eternally]

Originally Posted by Sweed

It's a work in progress. What, 3(?) years ago the players were bowling pins It's come a long way and faster than I, and a lot of others, thought it would. I'm a patient glass is half full guy when it comes to OOTP. Markus, Matt and team have continued to move the game forward year to year. It works for me

I couldn't have said it better! OOTP combines excellent accuracy with really superb graphics. No, it isn't MLB The Show nor Super Mega Baseball 3, but, this strategy baseball sim is king for many reasons and the graphics far outshine the competing games by parsecs.

Baseball Mogul looks the same as it did 6 six years ago. Action PC has its chalkboard and its play-by-play isn't even close to syncing with it. Strat PC Baseball graphics are so pathetic one can only wonder when Strat will actually step up to the plate and create a game worthy of 1990 PCs.

What I am waiting for is something that I suspect won't be coming for many years yet but here goes. Imagine OOTP with a real announcer found in APBA Broadcast Blast. It's still a fine technology and for its time, APBA's game was revolutionary.

Now that OOTP is owned by a large company, it wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility to someday get a professional to repeat the Herculean task that Ernie Harwell and Miller Associates achieved in the mid-90s for APBA.

I do think however that we are only a year or two away from graphics that will equal MLB The Show!

[Beatles Eternally]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

They've come a long way with iterative improvements to the 3D engine so I'm not counting anything out!

Neither am I! In fact, the relative silence this year has me excited, I feel like something huge is coming for this iteration.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Beatles Eternally

What I am waiting for is something that I suspect won't be coming for many years yet but here goes. Imagine OOTP with a real announcer found in APBA Broadcast Blast. It's still a fine technology and for its time, APBA's game was revolutionary.

Now that OOTP is owned by a large company, it wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility to someday get a professional to repeat the Herculean task that Ernie Harwell and Miller Associates achieved in the mid-90s for APBA.

Over the years every time I read someone wanting "real broadcasters" or at least actors doing a real play by play to replace windows TTS I've thought "OOTP is a small company and while one can dream it's not happening".

When Com2Us came into the picture, to my mind, there was now a possibility it could come about. IDK what their other games do but if they have announcers in them then C2U at least has some experience that could be used to bring it to OOTP. I have never played PT but assume it plays out games same as OOTP? Can one use TTS with PT? In any case if an audio module could be made that could be used by both OOTP and PT I can see C2U making the time and money investment. Time will tell.

[silvam14]

Originally Posted by Sweed

Over the years every time I read someone wanting "real broadcasters" or at least actors doing a real play by play to replace windows TTS I've thought "OOTP is a small company and while one can dream it's not happening".

When Com2Us came into the picture, to my mind, there was now a possibility it could come about. IDK what their other games do but if they have announcers in them then C2U at least has some experience that could be used to bring it to OOTP. I have never played PT but assume it plays out games same as OOTP? Can one use TTS with PT? In any case if an audio module could be made that could be used by both OOTP and PT I can see C2U making the time and money investment. Time will tell.

I Don't need Ernie Harwell. I would gladly take Markus Heinsohn doing play by play if it meant a nice smooth presentation

[Syd Thrift]

TBH Broadcast Blast was really awesome for its time but it's really outdated and TBH when you're playing a game for hundreds of hours that kind of thing gets super old after a while. I loooooved learning who Ernie Harwell was and having him announce games but I did turn that off after the the 50th time I heard him say a pitcher threw a "Linda Rondstadt" ball (as in, it "Blue Bayou" - I'm sure that is a cool pun the first 5 or 10 times you hear it). Microsoft came out with a basketball game in the early 2000s that used current voice of the Trailblazers and then voice of the Sonics Kevin Calabro to do play by play. I'm sure that had the same issue, even though Calabs is literally and factually the greatest PBP man in the history of sports. Hell, even Madden - I should probably not say "even" Madden because Madden has become pure trash the past several versions - gets all kinds of annoying when Chris Collinsworth says the exact same damn thing the 15th time you get into a particular situation (god, especially when it's something like "your last 5 passes are incomplete").

The way things were done back then (and I guess to this day with Madden), you brought in an Ernie Harwell or Kevin Calabro or Chris Collinsworth and you gave them a whole bunch of lines to read. Then, if you want to do player names (they did do some of that with APBA), you have guys read those separately. There are all kinds of issues with this approach:

- You can't possibly have guys say literally everything that a robust sim like OOTP would have them say. There's just too much there.

- As noted above, the fact that the speech selections are limited means there's going to come a time when it gets repetitive and annoying.

- There are weird shifts in tone and, even if you're using a great sound studio, often sound quality when you do something like "Jackson is hitting .258 on the season" because you can't actually have guys say literally every single iteration of player name / "is hitting " / average / " on the season". I don't think there's any way to get around this except to keep the use of fungible things like numbers and player names to a minimum (which is I'm pretty sure what Madden does).

- It's really, really hard to muster up proper tonality in a studio situation, even if you're one of the great broadcasters in the game. That MS basketball game that Calabs did, I think he did a really great job but I also remember he was quite a bit more subdued than he normally is with the "FLYING CHICKENS IN THE BARNYARD" and "GET ON THAT MAGIC CARPET AND RIDE" calls he made after dunks. (or "NO ONE DO THE VOODOO LIKE YOU DO"... I could go on and on)

What modern speech synthesis software does is it starts with a baseline and then has the software actually sound out the speech as it goes. I think they've gotten this to a point to where it works really, really well for vision impaired users - the Microsoft speech synthesizer handles weird rules of English surprisingly well and often (if not always) understands when a particular word is Spanish or whatever in origin and changes the rules that it uses. It's still not great at capturing tone and TMK nobody's really done a lot of work to take a sports announcer and try to capture what it is that they do. At this point these programs will sound, for the most part, professional and courteous and exactly the same whether it's a game in mid-May with the score 8-0 in the 5th or it's the 7th game of the World Series and everything is tied up. I'm sure we'll reach a point where you get all that pitch and inflection and so on that make up contextual speech but to say that we aren't there yet is an understatement.

I hope it's clear what I'm getting at: this is lowkey a MASSIVE undertaking, way, way more than a studio like OOTP Developments could ever hope to accomplish, let alone see anything like a good return on investment. At best, they could do what DKSports does, which is leverage the existing technology (available for free with Windows) as best as it can. I have used that with his basketball game in particular; TBH I tend to turn it off almost immediately because it doesn't provide anything extra and otherwise just slows the game down.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

TBH Broadcast Blast was really awesome for its time but it's really outdated and TBH when you're playing a game for hundreds of hours that kind of thing gets super old after a while. I loooooved learning who Ernie Harwell was and having him announce games but I did turn that off after the the 50th time I heard him say a pitcher threw a "Linda Rondstadt" ball (as in, it "Blue Bayou" - I'm sure that is a cool pun the first 5 or 10 times you hear it). Microsoft came out with a basketball game in the early 2000s that used current voice of the Trailblazers and then voice of the Sonics Kevin Calabro to do play by play. I'm sure that had the same issue, even though Calabs is literally and factually the greatest PBP man in the history of sports. Hell, even Madden - I should probably not say "even" Madden because Madden has become pure trash the past several versions - gets all kinds of annoying when Chris Collinsworth says the exact same damn thing the 15th time you get into a particular situation (god, especially when it's something like "your last 5 passes are incomplete").

The way things were done back then (and I guess to this day with Madden), you brought in an Ernie Harwell or Kevin Calabro or Chris Collinsworth and you gave them a whole bunch of lines to read. Then, if you want to do player names (they did do some of that with APBA), you have guys read those separately. There are all kinds of issues with this approach:

- You can't possibly have guys say literally everything that a robust sim like OOTP would have them say. There's just too much there.

- As noted above, the fact that the speech selections are limited means there's going to come a time when it gets repetitive and annoying.

- There are weird shifts in tone and, even if you're using a great sound studio, often sound quality when you do something like "Jackson is hitting .258 on the season" because you can't actually have guys say literally every single iteration of player name / "is hitting " / average / " on the season". I don't think there's any way to get around this except to keep the use of fungible things like numbers and player names to a minimum (which is I'm pretty sure what Madden does).

- It's really, really hard to muster up proper tonality in a studio situation, even if you're one of the great broadcasters in the game. That MS basketball game that Calabs did, I think he did a really great job but I also remember he was quite a bit more subdued than he normally is with the "FLYING CHICKENS IN THE BARNYARD" and "GET ON THAT MAGIC CARPET AND RIDE" calls he made after dunks. (or "NO ONE DO THE VOODOO LIKE YOU DO"... I could go on and on)

What modern speech synthesis software does is it starts with a baseline and then has the software actually sound out the speech as it goes. I think they've gotten this to a point to where it works really, really well for vision impaired users - the Microsoft speech synthesizer handles weird rules of English surprisingly well and often (if not always) understands when a particular word is Spanish or whatever in origin and changes the rules that it uses. It's still not great at capturing tone and TMK nobody's really done a lot of work to take a sports announcer and try to capture what it is that they do. At this point these programs will sound, for the most part, professional and courteous and exactly the same whether it's a game in mid-May with the score 8-0 in the 5th or it's the 7th game of the World Series and everything is tied up. I'm sure we'll reach a point where you get all that pitch and inflection and so on that make up contextual speech but to say that we aren't there yet is an understatement.

I hope it's clear what I'm getting at: this is lowkey a MASSIVE undertaking, way, way more than a studio like OOTP Developments could ever hope to accomplish, let alone see anything like a good return on investment. At best, they could do what DKSports does, which is leverage the existing technology (available for free with Windows) as best as it can. I have used that with his basketball game in particular; TBH I tend to turn it off almost immediately because it doesn't provide anything extra and otherwise just slows the game down.

After all of that I will say I am actually quite happy with TTS and short pbp. If they could take out the ball velocity, ball locations (56D, 8XD etc.), it would be better. There was a time where that wasn't there but was added into the pbp (someone probably complained not enough info even though it was shorpt pbp) and so TTS reads it too.

As is with short pbp and 3d I may read 1% of any pbp. Those are odd times like injury that isn't visible in the pbp window when the play ends. So I go up and take a quick look to verify who the TTS voice said may be injured. Or when a play looks odd compared to the description etc. 99% of the time I can just watch the play and listen to TTS and be good to go.

I certainly wouldn't expect world class audio if they were able to do it. Just a bit of smoothing out with more of a broadcast\human tone to the voice, whoever the speaker is, actor or real pbp person.

[andyhdz]

Saw the new trailer. Unless I'm missed something I didn't see anything close to the other com2us game I saw more updated animation movements more than anything

[mjcarr74]

I agree unless i missed something

[Syd Thrift]

Yeah they don’t look like Com2Us graphics but they also look much improved and look like they nigh have brought in some assets from that game, I don’t know. All in all they look pretty great…