How FIFA Graphics & Gameplay Are Evolving (1993 - 2023)

[Narrator] This is FIFA 23.

[Commentator] There is it!

[Narrator] It's insanely realistic.

Thanks to HyperMotion,

a new technology that captures animation

from real football matches using machine learning.

To understand how far FIFA animation has come,

we've got to look back to where it all started.

I'm Kantcho,

game design director on the FIFA team.

I'm gonna give you a quick breakdown of how gameplay

has evolved over the years on FIFA.

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[Narrator] The first FIFA was released in 1993.

It's so funny to see this.

I used to play this as a kid.

I love this game.

The big innovation here is that it was the isometric view.

[Narrator] An isometric view is an angle

that makes a 2D game look like it's 3D.

This was pretty revolutionary for the time.

As other games showed a top-down view,

side-view,

or bird's-eye view.

The way they're running around and dribbling,

this is not based on motion capture.

This is based on an animator hand-keying individual frames

of animation.

[Narrator] This was the same until 1997,

when French football player, David Ginola,

acted out motion capture for the game.

And that's when the first polygonal,

or 3D,

virtual football players were born.

And over the years,

more polygon lines were added,

making the players look more and more lifelike.

But a few extra lines doesn't make a human look,

well, human.

So from FIFA 2000,

designers sought to give players real emotion.

[Commentator] And he made it look easy.

[Narrator] Players performed extravagant goal celebrations

and arguments with the referee,

but the facial modeling was a work in progress.

Enter the PS2,

a huge milestone for FIFA 2001.

[Commentator] And that gets us off the mark nicely.

[Narrator] The hardware had about 10 times

the processing speed of the PS1.

For the first time,

animators could give players unique faces.

David Beckham went from looking like this guy

to having a slight resemblance.

And over the next 20 years,

the animation kept improving,

still filmed in EA's motion capture studio.

[Commentator] Here we are at the start of the match.

Now, as we move on to FIFA 2013,

you see some improvements there,

but actually the animations are still a little bit rigid

because they've been captured

in a motion capture studio environment

where it's not the most authentic,

real match scenario.

[Narrator] But for FIFA 22,

EA's motion capture technology got a complete overhaul.

So, HyperMotion is our groundbreaking technology

where we use these Xsens suits to motion capture

professional footballers on the real pitch competing.

So with traditional motion capture,

we're in a studio space like this,

players will be doing different moves like passing,

shooting, dribbling,

but it's more of a scripted scenario.

Whereas with the Xsens suits,

players are outside playing competitively

in a real 90-minute match of football.

We're not asking them to do anything specific.

We're just saying,

go out there,

play football,

and do your best.

[Narrator] Traditional mo-cap uses infrared cameras

that track reflective balls placed on the outside of a suit

worn by actors.

It's kind of limiting and restricting.

The Xsens suits track the motion of each player internally

which means there's no need for several cameras

or awkward sensors getting in the way of play.

[Kantcho] And all of that data.

It's millions and millions of data points.

Those feed into our machine learning algorithms.

[Narrator] And it creates a much more

authentic feel to the game where everything looks

way more fluid,

from the way that the female players move,

to goals,

dribbling,

and sprinting.

So, how does the machine learning algorithm work?

So in this video,

you can see how the machine learning algorithm is detecting

what is a jockey.

[Narrator] A jockey is a skill move made by a defender.

The defender positions themselves in between

a striker and the goal,

preventing the striker from scoring.

And the algorithm is able to distinguish

between a jockey and a sprint, for example.

If I'm running and sprinting,

that's not a jockey.

The machine learning understands that.

So, that's the first part,

detecting what is a jockey motion.

So, it's gotta be low to the ground,

it's gotta be crouched.

We take that data and we feed it into the system

so that it understands this jockey motion

was facing this way,

another one was moving back,

but facing that way.

So all of those permutations,

they're getting connected by the algorithm.

When you actually play the game,

it's outputting animations real time

that actually look like a real professional footballer

jockeying and defending in that 1v1 situation.

With HyperMotion 2,

we've actually added this acceleration feature

that allows players to have more nuanced differences

than we've ever had.

So for example, Mbappé,

he's an explosive player.

He gets off the mark right away.

Nobody can catch him.

However, a player like Virgil Van Dijk,

he is also very fast,

but it takes him a little bit longer to get up to speed.

So we have different archetypes for different players

to sort of mimic how they accelerate in real life.

And when you get these sort of nuances

in the way players sprint and accelerate,

it just makes the game more varied and less predictable.

[Narrator] Another change,

the dribbling.

Animators have been able to add way more personality

this time.

Players can now turn way more quickly to get past defenders.

Their feet are actually planting on the ground.

Every step makes sense.

It's not like the sliding that you saw

in the previous versions of the game.

So, the game is actually looking more like real football

than it ever has.

[Narrator] The animation team has also made

aesthetic changes to the game.

See how the grass now flies off the pitch

as Mbappé slides on the floor.

The shadows are also more exaggerated,

creating a more cinematic feel.

The net strings now ripple when the ball

hits the back of the goal,

based on the 3D geometry of a real net.

But as FIFA gets more and more realistic,

where do animators draw the line,

and how do they approach the uncanny valley?

Basically, that creepy feeling people get

when a fake human looks really realistic

but there's something still slightly off.

I was actually an animator for multiple years on FIFA.

The uncanny valley is something

that we're always looking at.

We don't want to make the players so ultra-realistic

that it's sort of off-putting,

but the way we do that is we stylize things.

We don't just make it super realistic,

we make them a little bit quicker to accelerate,

or when they shoot the ball,

it's a little bit more powerful.

So, exaggeration is key in making things feel right,

even though they're not a hundred percent realistic.

[Narrator] For FIFA 23,

developers captured a women's match for the first time.

We first introduced women's football in FIFA 16.

That was a big year.

The first time we've ever had women playing in FIFA.

[Commentator] Really is perfect timing.

When I look back at this footage,

it looks good,

but I noticed that all the motions are actually based off

men's motion capture because that's what we had done

in FIFA for so many years.

Now, as we get into FIFA 23,

because we've captured two women's professional teams,

all that data is coming through

and it's feeding the women's game.

The women's game looks so much more authentic.

They're kicking properly,

they're dribbling,

they're moving.

It looks completely different than when you watch

the men's game.

We also have signature run styles for the women's athletes.

Some of the star players like Sam Kerr,

you can notice the way she's running here.

It looks just like she does in real life.

And not only her,

there's a few other star female players

that we have signature star run styles for.

[Narrator] And what other industries could benefit

from HyperMotion?

The technology of using Xsens suits

and capturing outside of a studio,

I think that will work really well for films

and any other spaces where you just want

more natural movement.

That's what we get with these suits.

You're less restricted,

you can be outdoors,

you can do what you need to do to get that authentic motion.

That's what it's about.

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