Preview #2 of the upcoming match simulator

It's been way too long since we last posted an update about our work on the upcoming match simulator. During the last couple of months we come to realise, that our experience with "live animations" hasn't been that great. And when you don't have any experience, you make mistakes. This meant we had to redo some of the individual components several times in order to get it right.

But as long as keeping rising every time we fall and maintain our high ambitions for the final product, everything will turn out just fine :)

And actually, I think things are going pretty well overall. Since the last preview we've added a lot of fun things.

We've made a new preview. Watch it here.

The sound is not a part of the actual match viewer. It was just something I added because complete silence was too borring. In the final product the crowd will react more intelligently to the match - and of course you'll be able to turn off the sound.

Here's the full list of additions since the last preview:

• The players are a little bit larger.
• They don't "blink" anymore.
• We've improved the load time dramatically (in the video, you can see how long it takes from when I click the red button to when the match actually plays).
• Besides shirts, shorts, skin and hair color, we now also color the socks.
• If a player scores he'll run towards the corner flag and his team mates will follow (there's no cheering animation yet however).
• We've developed a new image coloring technique which makes it a lot easier for us to add new actions/animations in the future.
• We've added a simple stadium around the field. This still needs a lot of work though.
• The movement of the camera are more fluid and natural.
• The camera's area of movements has been adjusted so that it will keep its center point a good distance from the border of the field even though the ball is at the corner flag.
• We've added a referee.
• The players can now also walk sideways and backwards.
• The goal keeper can now dive for the ball.
• To be able to make sudden dives the goal keeper will enter "ready mode" when the ball approaches.
• The goal keeper can pick up the ball and carry it in his hands.
• We've added a popup noting important situations during a highlight (for instance, when a goal is scored).
• The statistics part in the "between highlights popup" now actually updates the statistics correctly.
• The players will fade in and out at the beginning and end of a highlight.
• Recent ball possession is now shown via an animation at the top of the "between-highlights-popup".
• We've added animations for tackling and "being tackling".
• The players now understand the concept of "a goal kick".
• The players somewhat understand the concept of "a throw in". However, they still kick the ball into play instead of throwing.
• The camera will now focus at the center of the field when there's no highlight.
• The stripes on the grass is made larger to look more realistic.
• If a player receives a card during a highlight the referee will run towards him.

We've still have a lot of ground to cover. However, for each passing day we get increasingly more certain: The final version will be awesome.

We wish you a very nice weekend :)