Mana Games

[manutoo]

Hello,

the version 1.0 features the experimental new movement animation system !

You can activate it in Settings -> 3D Match.

I used the animation set bundled with the Motion Matching plug-in I bought, which direly misses sidesteps and small footwork, so I think it's really required to produce a new animation set with motion capture from a real tennis player. (more details in the mini-blog => viewtopic.php?p=295463#p295463 )

After have played 1 or 2 hours with it, what do you think of it ?

[Remains]

I like it. The gameplay feels smoother except for these micro-movements where characters twitch. Also am I crazy but in AI v AI there are only old animations (WTSL 3.11)?

[Gusbaldo]

I am playing without mod and I like these new animations, they are on the right way.
I like the way they move their legs and how the body is positioned before the animation to make the shot.
Overall it feels more fluid and rewards a lot to the feel of the game.

I understand that there are still some things to be corrected, but I would like to leave some comments:
- There are times when players do 360°.
- When they start to run accelerating sideways, they lean very much downwards, as if their heads were very heavy.
- Sometimes when you position the player sideways he has no movement from the hips down, i.e. his legs are rigid (I also saw this with the AI).
- This is just a detail: In some animations the ‘not skilled’ hand is in a straight down position which is unnatural for professional players.

I will make a video where I will try to mark these things better.

Thanks Manu for this great update

[manutoo]

Remains,
indeed, it's turned off in CPU vs CPU matches ; I fixed it for the next update, thanks to your report.

Gusbaldo,
thanks for your feedback. There's no need to make a video, I've noticed all that, that's why I labelled it "experimental"...

[IOW]

I think they are brilliant. Changed the game for me.

Suddenly feels like the game has x10 its budget.

It feels easier and more intuitive too.

Please stick with this direction...!

[buzlev]

This is great, the animations make the game feel like it's one gen newer. Do you plan to make the steps length, or count be affected by energy level or breath ?

[Maddoglives]

The new animations are appreciated and continues to elevate an already great game! In addition, with you stating to continue to work on it by using a live person, it provides us with more to look forward to in the near future. Thanks again for putting out a terrific product and still fine tuning it Manutoo!

[manutoo]

buzlev,
no : being tired leads to running less fast, leading to slower animations. There's nothing more to do on this side.

IOW & Maddoglives,
I'm glad you enjoy the new anims !

[matservant]

Hi Manutoo !

What an amazing surprise to be able to test these new animations already!!
I thought the first test version would be available much later in the year. As I mentioned elsewhere on the forum, I was looking forward to these new animations in TE4 even more than GTA 6!!

Here’s my detailed feedback — I hope it helps!

I marked "It's not ok, it requires new animations to be appealing," because, as it stands, it's still experimental and therefore not usable by default in the game. However, we’re already very close to having an impressive result that could be used as the default.

From what I observed in 2-3 hours of gameplay:

- Overall, this brings a completely new dimension to the gameplay. As others have already said, it almost feels like playing a new game—or at least, stepping into a new category of tennis games. To me, we are getting closer to the perfect tennis game.
- These movement animations create a new feeling as a player: it truly feels like we are controlling a real player rather than just a 3D model in a game. You can really sense the players’ speed, athletic abilities, and weight. When combined with XKT and real-player animations, I often felt like I was controlling the real Nadal, Alcaraz, Zverev... It’s addictive. It made me want to play again with every player on every court available. It’s been a long time since I felt that excitement with TE4!!
- The lateral movements are fantastic, incredibly realistic. All the micro-adjustments add a lot of fluidity and seem to be fully compatible with the different player animations available. That was my initial concern, but it turned out to be one of the biggest surprises and successes!
- The direction change animation (change of foot support) is absolutely fantastic, but sometimes instead of changing the supporting foot to change direction, the player turns his body completely 180 degrees and then runs in the opposite direction, and this specific animation is a bit strange, because it is not very realistic
- The forward and backward movements are also an improvement, but could still be refined. The small adjustment steps forward and backward are perfect, but the sprinting animations in those directions feel a bit more amateur and less like a professional player.
- I noticed a major animation bug when hitting a shot while moving backward. It almost always results in a very strange player animation. This does not seem to happen when hitting a shot while running forward.
- The general animations seem to work well, but you always need to be prepared to hit your shot for the animations to stay fluid. They don’t react well when hitting a shot at the last second.
- With these new movement animations, you can really feel the shots being landed at the end of a run, and it's extremely satisfying
- Ideally, further work on overall animation fluidity and transitions would be great—for example, the transitions between movement animations, shot animations, and back to movement. The first few minutes of testing were visually surprising, but once you get into this new gameplay, it becomes very immersive.

Additional Needs Regarding Animations:

- When the opponent hits the ball into the net, our player still performs a forehand or backhand animation. The game should detect when the ball is in the net and cancel the player’s animation — it looks a bit strange as it is.
- Similarly, the game currently detects when an opponent’s shot is out and prevents our player from performing an animation. This is great. It would be even better if the game could do the same when a shot is simply out of reach (either for the player or the AI). The game should cancel the shot animation if the ball is too far away.
- This is a minor detail, but when a point ends, there's still that small, repetitive animation where the players stop and move mechanically on their feet. I don’t have any specific ideas for improvement, but this animation is more noticeable now, as it reminds us after every point that the players are still robots in a game
- Similarly, the celebration / frustration animations at the end of points won or lost now seem really baby-level animations, compared to the new movement animations.

I think I covered everything on my mind, but I’ll add more as I identify other aspects!

Thanks again for your incredible work—you are definitely on the right track!!!

[matservant]

(Also, the diagonal forward-left or forward-right running animations are a joy now!!!)

To add more details about the left/right running animation that can be little weird sometimes, I think I got why :
When the player is running left or right in the beginning of his run (let's call it "left/right running animation part 1"), his body is quite straight and this animation looks great. The footwork is great as well.
But when the player is running left or right and is getting more velocity, then his head and body start to go forward and this looks weird (let's call it "left/right running animation part 2") This part 2 animation looks weird in terms of body moving and the transition between running animation part 1 and part 2 is weird as well.

I figured out the best animations during some rallies are when the players are just moving a bit to left or to right, then we can mostly see the part 1, which looks more realistic and fluid than part 2 at the moment.

I don't know if I'm clear, but I hope this will help you Manu !

[Jirafalox]

Hey Manu, I tested a lot yesterday, and to not be repetitive to what has already been said, i just wanna add that even tho i know you're gonna make a Mo Cap later this year if everything goes right (and we all hope it goes right), i wanted to ask if its possible to edit the default running animation a little bit, the only things that threw me off a lot with the new movement apart from what's already said (180 spins, strange backwards shots, and obviously the lack of sidestep animations) is the angle of the back when running AND (big and) the hands/arms of the players, they are super rigid, the dominant hand holding the racquet has the fingers straight instead of holding the racquet properly. So idk if its a lot of work or not, but if those 2 little things could be polished a bit, i wouldnt mind waiting even a whole year for the mo cap to be honest. Congrats on launching 1.0!!! the gameplay tweaks were great, at the higher level the extra power for long rallies makes it possible to get out of those rallies with a winner finally hahaha keep it up

[lipegsouza]

It feels insanely weird, but I understand that it's experimental. I wouldn't play the game with these animations on a permanent basis and i feel like it's light years away from being playable.

Personally, I'm wary of games that try to achieve realism in animations because if it's not really good, it's better if you have consistently unrealistic animations. A mix of realistic animations, poor attempts at realistic animations, and absolutely unrealistic animations results in a terrible experience for me. And this is something that all recent tennis games (and most other sports games, with few exceptions) suffer from. The last one that nailed it for me was Top Spin 4. So if it's not Top Spin 4 level of animation, I'd rather play with TE4 current animations than something that tries to fall somewhere in between. So I would like to ask that if you decide in the future that these animations (when they are no longer experimental) will be the defaults, please keep an option to continue with the current ones.

Either way, I think it's certainly worth a try. Even something nowhere near the level of Top Spin 4 would still catch the attention of potential players more than it currently does. It definitely wouldn't catch my attention (if I didn't already know the game), but I think my opinion is not the same as most people.

[Andynator7]

Hi Manu. I have to say that I really enjoy the new motion matching system. I agree about a lot of the issues (that the players lean over too much when full out sprinting, the lack of split steps and micro adjustments and other tennis like movements, and the fact that the players appear very wobbly, like they're about to fall over, the fact that the players do 360s and occasionally float). But regardless I love that it adds a look of the players scrambling around the court and managing their weight to change directions. It is already making the players feel so much more alive than any other tennis game I've ever played. Excited to see how it develops!

[anrox335]

The animations are integrated well, but I am hoping for the following improvements:
1. Transition can be smoother from the motion matching system to the classical animations
2. There are some bugs where the player randomly changes his orientation
3. Forward and Backward animations can be better integrated, including lessening the frequency of forward slide
Overall, these animations are a drastic step up from the default ones.

[manutoo]

matservant,
as you actually already enjoy the new anims, you should have voted "it's nice"...
The 3rd choice is for people not enjoying them.

There's a "run" animation and a "sprint" animation. What you notice is the transition from the run to the sprint, when the player bends forward a lot. I hesitated about what to put and not put, and eventually I kept them both, as technically it was the most interesting for me. Hopefully, it'll look better with real tennis animations.

Jirafalox,
I cannot modify the animations, however I could correctly position the fingers for the next update (it's still not perfect as they don't move, but at least they're bent a bit).
And I don't think I'll last another year, so hopefully in a couple of months we'll be very close to having the final anims in the game...

lipegsouza,
I won't remove the basic anims, so you should still be able to activate them in the final version.