Height - Wingspan

[J.R. Locke]

Just read this about Luke Harangody. ESPN

He was 6-foot-6 without shoes and 6-8 with the sneakers he would wear in a game. His wingspan was 6-9.


Comparatively speaking, USC's Taj Gibson went 6-8, 6-9, 7-4. Hansbrough was 6-8, 6-9, 6-11. Blair was 6-5, 6-6, 7-2. Xavier's Derrick Brown was 6-7, 6-8, 7-2 and Gonzaga's Josh Heytvelt was 6-10, 6-11, 7-1.

I would like to see better body proportions in the game to differentiate the players. This wingspan thing is one thing that would make longer armed players (Rondo) look different than alligator armed players (anyone remember Kevin Willis)

There also needs to be more difference with weight/body type. There needs to be more than 3 options.

I think this is the next step with player graphics.

[DakkoN]

Re: Height - Wingspan

Yeah somebody like Ben Wallace is dang near useless in 2K as it is because he's only 6'8 or 6'9 and has the arms of a player as such. In real life he has about a 7'2 wingspan.

[Pared]

Re: Height - Wingspan

...somebody like Ben Wallace is dang near useless...

That's better.

[KingCashus]

Re: Height - Wingspan

Yes, every year they never add in options to change body weight and proportions. Maybe it has to do with animations not working right with the ball if you changed the pre-set sizes?

[IGOTU23]

Re: Height - Wingspan

Ben Wallace is actually around 6'6-6'7, but he been passed as 6'9 for so long. Wingspan thing would be a nice plus to this game, I been wanted this for a while now.

[DakkoN]

Re: Height - Wingspan

Ben Wallace is actually around 6'6-6'7, but he been passed as 6'9 for so long.

I guess LeBron is 6'6 too then.

[steebu]

Re: Height - Wingspan

Yes, every year they never add in options to change body weight and proportions. Maybe it has to do with animations not working right with the ball if you changed the pre-set sizes?

You've hit the nail on the head. The issue is known as "retargetting" and has everything to do with actor proportions versus game character proportions.

Let's say you mocap a basketball player who's 6'3" and tell him to touch his head with his left hand. You track the data, and then apply the data to the game skeleton so it looks like this:



Now let's say you want to put that same head-touching data onto Ben Wallace, who has much longer arms. Without changing the data and applying it directly to a skeleton with longer arms you would get this:



See the problem?

If you take the data of an actor of a certain proportion and apply it to a skeleton with different proportions you'll run into this retargetting problem all the time. In fact, you'll see it in Madden when little dudes try to high-five big dudes and their hands are NOWHERE near each other.

Now that you understand the problem I'll try to nip some potential questions in the bud:

Q: why don't people just capture multiple animations with dudes 6'0", 6'3", 6'7", and 7'0"?
A: are you freakin' ********? Not only is it horrendously difficult to accomodate every possibility (6'7", short arms, 6'7", medium arms, 6'7", long arms) because such mocap talent is hard to find, you will increase the amount of animations almost 20-fold. There's already thousands of animations in the game, and now it goes to 20,000? Forget about it; the game won't even load into memory!

Q: why don't you just use Endorphin or those other cool physics thingies I know nothing about but keep hearing about?
A: *sigh* At the moment, the technology isn't robust enough to handle multiple-players without having the system chug. "But I've seen that Indiana Jones trailer and all those football trailers with dudes tackling that those Endorphin guys did!" OK, that's fine, but you didn't see 5-v-5 basketball or 11-v-11 soccer/American football, did you? The game engine would require a complete rewrite to support such technology, and even then there's no guarantee that it would be efficient enough to not chug. And, might I add, have either of those games hit the shelves?

It's a tough problem to solve; it's not intractable, but it's really difficult nonetheless. Most people don't care when it's a high-five that looks off, but when people see Nate Robinson block Andre Iguodala and Robinson's hand is a foot below Iggy's shooting hand, well, that's when people care. :-)

[homeycool]

Re: Height - Wingspan

I would also like to see standing reach added to the game. I don't know where you would find all this information out for all of these players, but it would be awesome.

[J.R. Locke]

Re: Height - Wingspan

Good answer Steebu.

Thanks for pointing out the technical problems with the wingspan. I would have to think there is a way to get body proportions in the game though. Even if we just increase it to what College Hoops 2k has had in the past with 5 different body types.

[Brankles]

Re: Height - Wingspan

lol I like how Steebu sighed at the question he asked about Endoprhin, like he's fed up with himself

[Kully]

Re: Height - Wingspan

good post steebu. Made it easy for me to understand lol.

[flamangatang2k5]

Re: Height - Wingspan

As a basketball player and fan I have very rarely seen any basketball player with short arms. There are avg (where their wingspan match their heights) and then there is long arms (where their wingspan is 6-8 inches above avg). So really all you need is 2 types of players. I know there are those who have wingspan's 3-4 inches above their height (I am one of them) but for NBA2k all they need is two types.

On another note, to help the created players wingspan, they should just add in a cloning feature. Which would allow you to clone the body types of Tayshun Prince, Nate Robinson, Shaq, or Lebron. That would make it easy for wingspan for created players.

[P-Dub]

Re: Height - Wingspan

steebu, good explanation. But I believe that they should be able to assign target points or procedural changes to the animations so that (in your example) the hand would always touch the head.

Adding procedural animations to canned animations could lead to things like a successful steal/block/rebound attempt always having contact between the hand and the ball, players adjusting their arm/hand position based on their relative proximity and angle to the ball/defender/backboard/rim on both offense and defense. It could also lead to an incredible variety of animation possibilities.

They already have what looks like some of it in the game, I think. The other day I had two players going for a defensive rebound with a player on offense behind them both. The offensive player grabbed the rebound sideways over the two defenders and the arm farthest from the ball was clipping through his own head as he reached for the ball.

[steebu]

Re: Height - Wingspan

steebu, good explanation. But I believe that they should be able to assign target points or procedural changes to the animations so that (in your example) the hand would always touch the head.

They already have what looks like some of it in the game, I think. The other day I had two players going for a defensive rebound with a player on offense behind them both. The offensive player grabbed the rebound sideways over the two defenders and the arm farthest from the ball was clipping through his own head as he reached for the ball.

Yup, all of that's already done by most games, but I don't want to get into the nitty-gritty of how. You do unfortunately see many artifacts to the solution you describe: clipping and foot sliding is the most common.

[cdiddy71323]

Re: Height - Wingspan

Wingspan needs to be put in. Like Ben Wallace mentioned, Elton Brand is another name that comes to mind (6'9" but I think has a 7'3" wingspan), and newly drafted Tyreke Evans is 6'5", but has a 6'11" wingspan which makes him more deadly. If you take that 6'11" wingspan away, he's just like every other 6'5" guard. It should be able to be done, and yes that explanation was good, but regardless, that is a big part of basketball