Mana Games

[matservant]

Thanks for the update !! It looks really promising. As people already said, this new animation system will definitely be a game changer.

If we can start sharing our feedbacks about this second motion test, I would say it looks quite realistic but it reminds me more about amateur players than professional players. It definitely looks more human and more natural on the overall, but looking closely at each animation gives a feeling of a amateur / casual athlete, but maybe I'm overthinking and people will not share this opinion, I'm curious to know !

[Actarus69]

Manu, happy new year to you too!

When you release v1.0 of TE4, will you release the Linux version immediately or after a few days/weeks? Now I think I have v0.98 but I could be wrong, I don't remember.

[manutoo]

matservant,
if I understood correctly, this anim set is just a free set from Unity and not even a set created for the Motion Matching plugin I bought, and obviously, it's not a tennis player. So having a good tennis player will be already quite an improvement, and as explained in the post, I should try to get a near-professional one to ensure the quality of the result, which isn't going to be easy...

Actarus69,
I usually update the Linux version when the current version is stable and I remember to do it, so at least a couple of weeks after the 1.0, depending on the feedback.

[Fed1]

Hi Manu! Happy new year! I thnk movement/animations is the final step towards getting the goat of videogames tennis, so keep it up!

Regarding the discussion with AI vs Motion capture, it's clear that AI is cheaper, but what about development time? Do you think going for the AI route will take longer than motion capture? It seems to me that motion capture is easier in terms of coding and time, sadly money always plays a role and needs to be considered

[vinsalive]

Hello Manu,

Happy new year and thanks for letting us know next steps !

I agree with the previous comments, running animations are really good but are clearly not those of a professional player, but it would be still an incredible achievement.

It would be really nice to have the access to the a basic .ini to modify it on consoles (I'm on PS5), and I previously said, if you have the courage would be great to have a quick descritpion of the attributes impact in-game and to add TEM2 on consoles to have the full package !

Thanks for your hard work

[manutoo]

Fed1,
with AI, it's still motion capture, but there's no motion sensor or markers ; it requires only the videos and the AI finds the joints for animation by itself, so it's very convenient and easy to set up (although it has its own cons). The resulting animations are the same as other Mocap methods and usually require some cleaning.

[zappingol]

Hi Manutoo, Happy New Year, if in the end you decide to use AI for motion capture I have read that Deepmotion is possibly the AI that offers the best results, also on their website they have a step by step Tutorial including which application to use at the end to do clean up of the final animations, here they explain everything: https://www.deepmotion.com/post/how-to- ... -animation

Best regards

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[manutoo]

zappingol,
I checked the Deep Motion example and the baseball throw has so much less energy in the capture motion than in real life, the arm motion isn't replicated correctly, etc. : it's really not great.

For AI video capture, it's much better to have something that supports a multi-camera setup as it's much more accurate.

Move AI seemed to be the best, but it looks like they just greatly raised their prices. I'm looking into other solutions now...

[Aleg82]

Nice manu!!! I think this new running motion is amazing!

I found an old youtube video of a guy who did some tennis animations that look pretty real: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOJU2kRrKl4

Not sure which program did he use or even if something like can replace a motion capture system, but I thought I let you know in case it's useful for you to contact the guy to see if it helps make some of the changes you want

[manutoo]

Aleg82,
in the video description, he says he used Mocap. That's what I'm going to try to do...

[Basti 86]

Hey manutoo when will the update where you can start from the 2025 season ? Keep up the good work ..best game ever

[will1855]

This is by far the best tennis footwork animation that I have seen( that isn't pre rendered), however the implementation looks very convoluted. Just thought it's worth a look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZVKrNs ... otianZhang

[manutoo]

Basti 86,
hopefully, around the end of January. But if you play with the XT Mod, it won't change it.

will1855,
yes, I already had a deep look at this. The code is completely alien to my eyes, and anyway, it'd require me to buy the rights from TennisTV to process the images from the tennis matches. So it's just cheaper, faster, and even more importantly safer to take the classic MoCap route coupled with the innovative Motion Matching.

[RulazoAP]

Manutoo

Have you seen the news animation in the Australian Open.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHXP7NsEorU
Maybe this can help to simplify de animation of a real tennis player.

[manutoo]

RulazoAP,
this doesn't look very good ; I guess it's AI-driven, with minimal quality so it can be achieved in real time.
Hopefully, I'll manage to set up a solution that produces better anims.