Football Manager 2010 new features blog Day 5: animations, stadiums, cameras and weather

By Dan Silver in Football Manager 2011

Published 14:04 08/09/09

After yesterday's match engine video trailer, today I'm going to attempt to get down and dirty with letting you know what has been going on match engine- and match view-wise over the last year.

For those who are new to the game, or don't know about the terminology used, a quick definition:

The match engine in Football Manager is a simulation of the game of football based on the tactics you have set, the tactics your opponent (whether a computerized version of a real life manager, or another human on multi-player games) has set, and the footballers that you have both picked.

The match view is what is displayed on the screen in front of you in one of a multitude of camera angles, including both 2D and 3D.

Today I'm going to talk about the match view, which includes things surrounding the pitch, such as the new stadiums and crowds.

First off, animations. There are well over 100 new animations in FM2010, alongside most of the old animations being tweaked and improved. We've now got a full time animator at Sports Interactive (previously we were working with contractors) which has made a huge difference, particularly as he has experience on working on other football games so has already knows what works and what doesn't. He's forced us to provide him with some tools too, so we've got a shiny new animation editor, and a mirroring system so that he can make an animation work for left footed and right footed players without having to do it all twice.

Next up, stadiums. The approach we've taken with stadiums is that we shouldn't have half a dozen to depict different ranges of size of stadium, but we should have a load of different stands that can be used and re-sized according to the stadium capacity. Whilst we'd love to have licenses to use real stadiums for every club around the world, we don't, so while the stadiums won't look like the real thing, they will at least be able to fit the right amount of fans in, have the right kind of stands, terracing or seating, roofs or not, that kind of thing.

The crowd itself should (by the time of launch - it doesn't yet!) have the right amount of people in for the attendance of the match, sitting happily in their seats, getting excited and celebrating when the team scores.

And not forgetting match cameras. At the moment, we have two new cameras in the game, called sideline and touchline. What you can see of these in the videos is work in progress. I'm hopeful that both will stay in, but one of them might be tweeked a bit before launch. You'll just have to wait for the demo and find out then!

We've also added in weather effects to the match view. Different types of rain and snow all appear, and aren't just there to look pretty either. The effect that weather has on a real pitch will happen in game too, so if it's pouring down with rain, expect the ball to travel a lot slower on the ground and roll less.

The player graphics themselves have also improved, as have the pitch types and pitch degradation too. Again, the degradation on the pitch has an effect on ball movement.

Lighting has also improved massively, and there's a noticeable difference on player and stadium shadows based on the time of day that a match is being played and the type of weather that the match is played in.

Tomorrow, I'll be looking into the match engine itself, and having a little chat with Paul Collyer, co-founder of Sports Interactive (we who make Football Manager), and the guy to shout at if you see something unrealistic happening in the match!

Until there, here's the video.