Are the 3D animation boundary issues being fixed?

[mars001]

It seems like we've reported a number of these dating back to the first introduction of 3D. While there has been improvement, I still see so many issues of the ball and fielders running through walls.

Is it still worth it to report these in the fourm? Is it as good as its going to get?

[Reed]

I do not know if the animation issues that we report are really fixed in patches. I posted 3 or 4 pages of animation issues last year and don't know if they were ever looked at. I asked a couple times but never got a response. This year, I posted a couple issues such as disappearing in the fence. I could have posted more but feel like I am wasting my time. Some kind of acknowledgement, negative or positive, would have been nice but I have a feeling they didn't even look at the thread after the first couple weeks last year.

Correct me if I am wrong but I don't think I am.

[Matt Arnold]

We've been focused on some of the other stuff for now. We'll have a push to look at the in-game stuff in the next couple weeks.

As for reporting issues, if it's the same issue that you or someone else has reported (ie. runner going through the RF wall in Chase Field), then no need to report it again. If it's a new situation, then please do and we will look through them at some point.

[mars001]

Thanks Matt! Good to know they'll get addressed at some point.

[smiller]

What's holding me up buying 21 is that I never hear anything about improvements in animation, especially eliminating things you mention and also whether outfielders are still taking their time throwing balls in while runners score at leisure. What about the first baseman who fields a ball inches from the bag, but instead of tagging the bag, waits for the pitcher to saunter over, then softly tosses the ball while the runner crosses the bag with an infield hit? Or ground balls the pitcher chases into center field, then throws out the runner who runs as if his feet are caught in treacle.

[mars001]

smiller... 3D has come a long way since it was first introduced. Timing issues (holding the ball) is much better than before. This is rarely a problem now. My biggest issues are

a) Boundary issues
b) Not seeing the animation when sending the runner (this works about 10% of the time)

[McBruce]

Originally Posted by smiller

What's holding me up buying 21 is that I never hear anything about improvements in animation, especially eliminating things you mention and also whether outfielders are still taking their time throwing balls in while runners score at leisure. What about the first baseman who fields a ball inches from the bag, but instead of tagging the bag, waits for the pitcher to saunter over, then softly tosses the ball while the runner crosses the bag with an infield hit? Or ground balls the pitcher chases into center field, then throws out the runner who runs as if his feet are caught in treacle.

While these are frustrating, I've come to realize that what it means is that the result of the play has already been decided by the game engine and it is the animation that is lacking. It would be far more frustrating if balls came in from the outfield without delay and a runner who looked to be out by a mile was called safe. (By the way, there is another aspect to this: the fly ball that looks like an easy SF except that the same fielder that examined the stitching on the ball on the previous play now catches and throws in a single motion! Sometimes it looks like he has hit it back like a shot at Wimbledon...) What I find is that the animation is a great improvement, as long as we remember that it is secondary to the game engine, which has about 18 or so more years of development behind it. OOTP is not going to sacrifice game engine realism for animation realism.

[Calvert98]

Originally Posted by McBruce

While these are frustrating, I've come to realize that what it means is that the result of the play has already been decided by the game engine and it is the animation that is lacking. It would be far more frustrating if balls came in from the outfield without delay and a runner who looked to be out by a mile was called safe. (By the way, there is another aspect to this: the fly ball that looks like an easy SF except that the same fielder that examined the stitching on the ball on the previous play now catches and throws in a single motion! Sometimes it looks like he has hit it back like a shot at Wimbledon...) What I find is that the animation is a great improvement, as long as we remember that it is secondary to the game engine, which has about 18 or so more years of development behind it. OOTP is not going to sacrifice game engine realism for animation realism.

I think the concern, at least from this OOTP fan, is that the 3D has sort of become the *Front Porch* of OOTP.

Even when you do a google search, pictures of the 3D come-up almost right away, and from Youtube thumbnails, and if this is not functioning or progressing, that could be problem. For example, I have watched some OOTP 21 youtube streams, and I have seen a number of these guys playing-out games, and noticing and then negatively commenting on in-game 3D issues.

As OOTP expands its audience, I think the 3D is likely to be more front and center, as people segway into the core management aspect of the game. Again, it is sort of the front-porch of the game, and likely a lot more important from that aspect than it may appear.