NBA 2K12 Developer Insight #10- Controls(更新翻譯中)

云卷残烟 · 发表于 2011-9-20 16:15

本帖最后由云卷残烟于 2011-9-20 17:55 编辑

Hello, NBA2K fans.
It’s Mike Wang, Sr. Game Designer, with you today to talk about some of the new features and improvements made to the offensive end of the floor in NBA2K12 – primarily in the areas of Ball Handling and Shooting.

Ball Handling
Let’s start off talking about dribbling. Last year, one of our top AI engineers completely re-worked the dribbling system and it was immediately recognized as one of the biggest improvements in the jump between 2K10 and 2K11. We were really happy with how far it came last year, but there were certain things that we didn’t have time to get in… which is typically the case when undergoing huge code re-writes such as this. In a nutshell, the two main goals we wanted to achieve with the dribbler in NBA2K12 were to:

Refine the movement, in terms of look and feel
Make good ball handlers feel more “explosive”

The first area that needed to be addressed was speed. Feedback came through loud and clear from the forums that people wanted a proper walk dribble instead of the “hunchback” dribble that we had last year.

To be honest, I didn’t think it was that big a deal in the scope of things, but decided to spend some time refining it and capturing new walk dribble animations to appease the fans. After playing with the changes, I was amazed at how much I actually missed being able to walk up and down the court. It’s a small change, but goes a long way towards making the overall dribble model feel more complete.

On the other side of the spectrum, we felt that it was important to convey a better sense of speed, especially during fast breaks. This is where the blowout dribble comes in. Many of you have already seen this feature in various trailers and videos that we’ve released. Basically, if you press and hold Turbo while in the backcourt, the dribbler will throw the ball out ahead and sprint to catch up to it. It’s a great tool for gaining an advantage in transition and also makes our fast breaks feel more alive. The ball is essentially loose during the blowout though, so make sure you have space in front of you before trying it or you’ll end up throwing the ball off someone’s foot.

Size ups were another area that saw a nice improvement this year. In NBA2K11, size up dribbles were, essentially, short in-place dribble sequences that the ball handler could use to size up his check, in an effort to get him to shift one way or the other. Unfortunately, once the user kicked off the sequence, they pretty much had to sit there and watch a movie play out with little control over the outcome.

In NBA2K12, we wanted the user to feel more connected to the system so we broke the size ups up into much shorter sequences, and in most cases just one dribble. So you can now manually rock the ball from side to side by holding the Dribble/Shot modifier and moving the left thumbstick left, right, left, right, etc. Moving the left stick away from the hoop will cause your guy to quickly retreat, toward the ball hand will have him do a quick inside out dribble, toward the offhand will perform a crossover, and toward the hoop will be a more aggressive attacking type dribble. It’s a bit difficult to describe but when you get your hands on it, the difference is night and day. Instead of watching a sequence play out by itself, the user now has the ability to chain together ankle-breaking combos however he wants.

We tightened up a number of other aspects of dribbling: cuts, stops, etc. Collectively, these changes have made a significant improvement to the overall feel that we think you guys will appreciate. But the last thing I want to mention about the dribbler is this idea of explosiveness. The dribbler in NBA2K11 was smooth… almost too smooth. One of the things that separate a great ball handler from a poor one in the NBA, is the ability to change speeds on a dime. So when a Derrick Rose or Chris Paul takes you off the dribble with their first step, they don’t slowly accelerate… they explode off the bounce with a blur. In NBA2K12, we added a number of new dribble moves and launches that bring this aspect of real life dribbling into our game. For example, if you perform a size up, hesitation, or stepback move, you can quickly move the left stick in one of four directions to queue up an explosive first step:

Toward the ball hand = Go move launch
Toward the off hand, but more toward the basket = Crossover launch
Toward the off hand, directly across the body = Behind the Back launch
Toward the off hand, but more away from the basket = Spin launch

The stop and go game is deadly and can easily leave a flat-footed defender in the dust. One of my favorite things to do is to set up my defender with a few size up moves, explode to the basket with a behind the back or spin launch, follow that up with a stepback move to freeze the retreating defender, then throw another launch at him or pull up for a jumper depending on how much space I’ve created.

Shooting
As many of you know, one of the things I’m most passionate about when it comes to my virtual hoops is having a strong shot arsenal. Last year, we took some good steps with the addition of new shot types such as stepback and spin jumpers as well as my personal favorite, the “flick flick.” But we really wanted to make huge strides in taking shooting to the next level in NBA2K12.

To accomplish that, we added a new, extremely talented engineer to our AI team. He hit the ground running the day he started and the two of us spent a better part of the dev cycle iterating on new ideas and building the most robust shooting system to date. I could probably write a novel on all of the upgrades that we made this year, but I’ll try to just hit the highlights in this Insight.

The first thing we set out to do was add some new tech. I’ve long been a believer that in order to continue to grow Signature Style, which is one of the cornerstones of our game, we needed to explore a more dynamic shot engine. Otherwise, we’re going to hit a ceiling, run out of animation memory, and not be able to offer new shot content.
Enter Shot Compositing. The idea behind this technology is to blend multiple shot animations together in order to “build” a cohesive signature shot. Think of it as a flip book, remember the ones you read as a kid where you’d mix and match the head, torso, and legs of different characters to build your own? Shot Compositing works in a similar way. So if you go into Create a Player, you can assign a specific shooting form (upper body) to a player, and then mix and match different shot bases (lower body) to create the shot you want.

I am sure many of you saw the screen of Ronnie's My Player last week with his extremely funky created shot. This is what I am referring to in terms of Shot Compositing.

Shot compositing gave us the ability to essentially create a limitless number of sig shots, while still allowing for tons of new shot types without bloating our memory footprint. The tech is very cool and I think users will love having the ability to create unique jumpers. Plus, it yields consistency when you see a guy like Shawn Marion shooting all his shots with his trademark flick or Dirk always releasing with his high patented follow through.

The next big undertaking was the Change Shot code. Frankly, this feature was a mess and hadn’t been touched for several years. This year, the code was completely re-written and I’m proud to say that it’s a feature that’s finally worth talking about. You can now change your shot from any layup or dunk without it looking robotic, and the variation in shot finishes is at least 30 times more than it was last year. Now when you switch hands in mid-air or change from a dunk to a layup, it’s difficult to tell if it’s raw mocap or two animations blending together.

The system can also predict where the ball will release, whereas before it just played an animation blindly which led to a lot of shots going into/behind the backboard. Now you can use the feature with confidence that you’re not putting yourself into a worse shot than the one you started with. In fact, the feature is so strong that we started using it as one of our primary shot collision resolution tools. What does that mean? Well, in the past we relied heavily on two player animations to show contact between a shooter and a defender. Those animations looked nice but they felt horrible. You would get pulled into directions you didn’t want and defenders would get put into block animations without ever hitting a button. Not to mention you’d see the same outcomes over and over again.

For NBA2K12, we create these collisions on the fly using the physics of the two players. So if a shooter takes off and ends up hitting a defender in the air, we send him into the Change Shot system and play a shot that matches the shooter’s in air physics but shows him taking a hit in the process. It feels right, teaches the user not to force shots, and also provides a wide variety of outcomes that can play out when you drive into traffic. A lot of people have said that it’s the most impactful difference between last year and this year in making the user feel more in control on both offense and defense. And I’d probably agree.

Another major improvement is in the transitional blends going into various shots. This was something we attempted to improve last year but we really didn’t get as far as I’d hoped.

Shot gathers into pull-up jumpers are so seamless this year that it’s difficult to tell where the dribble animations end and where the shots begin. It’s one of my favorite upgrades and really makes shooting look and feel fantastic.

Of course, we’ve added a number of new shots to the user’s arsenal, but one that I want to call out is the escape dribble pull-up. From triple threat or stand dribble, if you hold LT on 360 (L2 on PS3) and move the Shot Stick in any direction, you can pull off an explosive escape dribble that directly transitions into a pull-up jumper. The nice thing about these shots is that you can break out of them. So after kicking one off, if the defense reads you properly and jumps in your way, you can retreat out or change directions while maintaining your dribble. There’s a risk/reward to it though because you can end up losing the ball if you collide with a defender. So be careful when and where you choose to use these shots.

Last year, we introduced something that I called the “flick flick” shot. Basically, these are up and under type shots in which you start a shot, pump fake, and then pivot out for a step through jumper or layup. This feature makes its return in NBA2K12 but in a much broader capacity. Now, you can flick flick out of any fake-able shot with no modifiers required. For example, in the post, quickly move the Shot Stick from side to side to start a shimmy shot, quickly center the stick while the player’s doing his shimmy before he goes into his shooting motion, then just as he starts his pump fake, move the Shot Stick again and you’ll end up with a shimmy fake to step through layup.

It might sound a bit complex but it quickly becomes second nature once you get used to the system. You can even chain several flick flicks together like Hakeem’s Dream Shake, although excessive faking will often lead to a traveling violation. One way I like to use the flick flicks is to drive in, start a hop step layup by holding LT and moving the Shot Stick left or right, then faking into an up and under layup if the defense commits on my initial hop. The shots you can invent with the flick flicks are really impressive and I’m excited to see the highlights people put together using the feature.

I think that’s one of the amazing things about basketball. No two scores are ever alike in real life and I think with NBA2K12, we’re starting to get to that point where the user can read and react to the defense and pull off amazing moves/shots on the fly by chaining from one offensive system to another. All the great scorers can create something out of nothing and now you can do that in our game as well.

I know I’ve concentrated a lot on the offensive aspects of our shot systems, but don’t worry, we didn’t neglect shot defense. Every shot you can perform in NBA2K12 can be countered by timely defense. From strips to contests to blocks, every shot has multiple windows of vulnerability that also take into account the shooter’s ability with a given shot type as well as the defender’s shot defense ability. For example, if you properly read the shooter and hit the Steal button at the right time while he’s driving toward you, you can force him to fumble the ball, go into a forced shot animation, or sometimes even get outright stripped.

From a team strategy standpoint, we went to great lengths to re-balance scoring to properly match the real NBA’s shot percentages. You’ll be amazed at how accurate your stats will turn out if you play in Simulation Game Style at 12 minutes quarters. Your box scores will look like something straight out of NBA.com. We’ve also added a new feature that I encourage everyone to turn on. If you navigate to Options >> My NBA >> Presentation and turn the option titled “Shot Quality Feedback” to “All Shots,” a letter grade will appear at the top of the screen representing the quality of the shot taken. It grades the shot based on all the factors that we use to determine the final shot percentage of that shot, things like: release timing, defensive impact, range, shooter’s skill, etc. The goal was to teach users the importance of taking high quality shots throughout the course of the game in order to be successful. It’s also a great feedback mechanism to gauge your own shot defense against your opponent.

Another area of focus for us this year was the AI’s (artificial intelligence) usage of shots. In the past, we admittedly haven’t spent enough time adequately equipping the AI with all the same weapons that are available to the user. They would often play a shot randomly, not really looking at the difference between a straight up jumper or one that would create space. This is greatly improved in NBA2K12. The AI is much better at recognizing driving opportunities and, based on the particular player’s tendencies, will now utilize the full suite of shots available in the game.

There have been a lot of instances watching different people play the AI this year in which I felt the AI played smarter, and took better shots than the human. There’s nothing better than watching an AI ball handler take me off the drive, start a spin jumper, pump fake to get me into the air, and then step through for an uncontested floater. It’s a thing of beauty and I don’t even feel bad when I get schooled.

The last thing I want to mention regarding shooting, is the new free throw mechanic. At first glance, it looks and feels largely the same as last year. Pull the Shot Stick down to begin the free throw, center the stick as the player releases the shot. Early in the year, we actually experimented with a few different free throw systems like controlling your power and arc, but decided in the end that simpler was better.

So what’s new about the free throw system? It’s been completely re-tuned to accurately model real life percentages. You still need to learn the timing of your player’s sig free throw, but the timing window and margin for error directly correlate to how good a free throw shooter you have, whereas before they were somewhat identical for all players. I know a lot of people mastered Shaq and Dwight Howard’s free throw animations because they had “tells” that cued the user when to release the stick. So there was no purpose in going to the Hack-A-Shaq strategy against certain users because Shaq would knock down 80% of his foul shots.

This year, mastering them will still yield realistic percentages because the slightest bit of error will greatly reduce your chances of making the shot. On the flip side, you almost have to go out of your way to miss free throws with great free throw shooters like Steve Nash. We also display the percentage of the free throw make/miss chance to give you feedback on how well you timed your release based on your shooter’s skill.

Conclusion

As you can see, it was a very busy year for us on the offensive end of the floor this dev cycle… and I haven’t even touched on all the upgrades. I’m excited to read/hear the feedback from the community as we continue to push the envelope and blur the lines between real life hoops and video games. Now I gotta get back to work on NBA2K13.

- Mike Wang
Sr. Game Designer

以下為翻譯(慢慢更新) 我只是轉載.不是我翻譯的.太長了. 翻譯著為遊俠會員20371082

翻译（慢慢更新中。。。）

各位2K粉丝们好：

我是游戏制作人Mike Wang，今天来谈一下NBA2K12进攻方面的一些改进和新特色---主要是控球和投篮方面。

Ball Handling控球

先说下控球。去年，我们最牛逼的AI设计师完全重做了带球系统，这被认为是2K11相比2K10最大的改进之一。为此我们非常高兴。但是因为源代码设计规模过大，有些好东东去年没时间加进游戏。简单来说，2K12的带球系统中，我们力求达到的两个主要目标是：

1.运球队员的动作更精炼、完善

2.优秀的运球队员（让人感觉）动作更具爆发性

第一个要说的就是速度。论坛里面呼声强烈，大家希望球员很正常的一边慢走一边运球，而不是像去年那样驼着背往前挪。

说实话，我觉得这个其实无伤大雅（译者注：大哥你说神马？篮球打得少？篮球比赛看得少？篮球游戏玩得少？你看见过郎多自信、潇洒的慢步从后场从容运球到前场么？2K11里面他这样运球时像个被遣返的难民），但是还是决定花时间修改，设计了新的慢步带球动作安抚玩家。在改进之后我试玩了一下，我真是爱死了能在场上慢步带球走来走去了（译者注：废话！）。这是一个很小的改进，但是确实让整个带球系统更加完美了。

另一方面，我们觉得在游戏中更好的体现出速度感也很重要，尤其是进行快攻的时候。我们加入了大步运球，你们可能已经在放出的几个视频里面看到过这个动作了。基本来说，如果在球员在后场时你就按住了加速键，带球者会用球往前砸地，然后加速跨大步追上。这个动作可以让你获得（由守转攻）反击上的速度优势，同时也让快攻显得更真实。由于此操作运球动作较大，所以最好在球员前方有较大空间时再尝试，免得砸在别人脚上。

胯下运球今年也有了不错的改进。2K11里面，胯下运球其实就是一系列原地进行的短动作组合，运球者用这招时，有多种方式进行选择（译者注：4种胯下运球方式）。但蛋疼的是，一旦玩家启动动作，他就只能坐等动作组合全部完成，动作过程中基本无法进行控制。

2K12里面，我们希望玩家与系统有更多的互动联系，所以将胯下运球的一套动作组合分解成多个更短的动作组合，多数情况就是一次运球。所以现在由你手动控制胯下的每次运球，按住运球辅助键（LT），左摇杆推左，推右，再推左，推右。。。，朝远离篮框的方向推左摇杆会让你的球员迅速的后撤运球，向运球手推左摇杆是一个快速的“内->外”运球，朝无球手方向推摇杆胯下运球过人，朝篮框方向推摇杆是一个更具侵略性的运球方式。描述起来确实有点困难，但是只要你上手实际操作，就会发现各种方式的明显区别。现在不再是傻看着一套动作做完了，玩家可以自由组合他想要的各种晃翻对手的动作套路。

我们强化了很多其它的运球：内切、急停，等等。总的来说，这些变化让游戏整体效果更令人满意，最后要说的一点是爆发性动作（急停急起），NBA2K11里面，球员控起球来速度都很平缓，实际上过于平缓了，带球高手和菜鸟之间的最大区别之一就是带球过程中的瞬间变速。当罗斯或是保罗开始运球准备晃你的时候，他们绝不会慢悠悠的加速。。他们总是在瞬间爆发。2K12里面，我们加入了一大堆新的运球动作，可以在游戏中体现出真实的急停急起（急速变相）.例如，当你做出一个胯下运球，虚晃，或者后撤步操作后，迅速将左摇杆推向（4个方向中的）某一方向，你就可以进入爆发性动作（急停急起）的启动阶段：

l朝持球手（推左摇杆） = 虚晃接过人

l朝无球手，同时朝篮框（推左摇杆）=胯下运球

（译者注：假设篮框是正北方向，持球手是正西方向，那么朝西北偏北位置推摇杆）

l朝无球手（横推摇杆） = 背后运球

（译者注：假设持球手是正西方向，把摇杆从西推到东）

l朝无球手，同时远离篮框方向（横推摇杆） = 转身

（译者注：方向？你懂的。。。。）

急停急起的动作具有超强杀伤力，能轻易的把那些措手不及的防守球员晃到一边。我最喜欢的事情就是利用一连串的运球动作戏耍防守球员，用一个背后运球或是转身动作向前突破，然后一个后撤步甩开回退的防守球员，然后再接其它动作或是利用已经制造出的空间来个跳投。

Shooting投篮

大多数人都知道，最让我激动的事情之一就是在投篮区（译者注：应该是碰撞区周围）里面祭出杀手锏。去年我们就新加入了一些投篮方式，例如后撤步投篮、转身投篮和我最喜欢的（连推右摇杆两下那种）“flick flick”。
但是我们真的想让2K12的投篮达到一个新的高度。

为了实现这一点，我们的AI组招了个超级天才进来。他一来就开始埋头苦干，另外两个助手在开发周期内不断的提出新的点子，想做出一个超牛逼的投篮系统。我几乎可以就他们今年所作的改进写本小说，但是在前瞻里面我还是只说亮点好了。

首先，我们加入了一些新技术，长期以来我一直坚信，要让我们的游戏保持鲜明的特色（2K游戏的核心理念之一），我们需要开发出更动态的投篮引擎。可惜的是，我们已经快到极限了。动作数据库已经快满了，不可能提供更多的投篮姿势了。

现在介绍一下“投篮姿势混合”，这个技术的要点就是将多个不同的投篮动作混合在一起形成一个新的特色鲜明的投篮姿势。想像一下你小时候看的翻页书，将不同角色的头，身体，脚混在一起，创建一个新角色。“投篮姿势混合”工作方式类似。所以当你创建一个新球员时，你可以为他分配一种具体的投篮动作（上半身），然后组合不同的下半身动作合成出一个新动作。

你们肯定已经看过上周发布的罗尼-布鲁尔的“创建球员”的截屏了，里面正在展示我所说的“投篮姿势混合”，合成出他非常特别的出手方式。

“投篮姿势混合”可以合成出无数的投篮姿势，在引入大量的投篮新动作的同时避免动作数据库的溢出。这很牛逼，玩家也肯定会喜欢创建有特色的投手。还有，这个技术保证了动作的一致性。你会发现马里昂那个家伙所有的投篮都是他标志性的抛球，司机自始自终都在使用他的专利动作。（译者注：2K11难道不是么?）

接下来是出手后的动作变化。坦率的说，这个特色比较糟糕，很多年都没有谈到过了。今年，这部分代码彻底的重做了一遍。终于值得一谈了。现在，当你做出上篮或是投篮动作后，你可以改变出手方式，动作衔接不再像以前那么机械了，出手方式的变招是去年的30倍。现在，无论是你在半空中的换手还是在扣篮（上篮）过程的变招，都很难看出到底是及时演算还是两个动画的合成了。

（诸位亲，剩下的估计不会翻了，DEMO实际评测才是最重要的，大家enjoying！9.20 17：45）