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Pageantry and Tradition; two words commonly used to describe what separates college football as one of the greatest experiences in sports today. Contrary to popular belief, not all of the action takes place on the field... and one of the hallmarks of collegiate football is how you get there. From Howard's Rock at Clemson, to the "Play like a Champion Today" sign at Notre Dame, to the roar of the crowd as our favorite team takes the field, we've recreated some of your favorite traditions before kickoff and brought them to you like never before.
As I wrote in my last blog, we really wanted to strengthen our authenticity and presentation in NCAA 11. And to do that, we knew pregame entrances were a major component of building a great foundation. We've created run outs for some of the most popular schools based on who you pledged your loyalty to in last year's title, including Clemson, Notre Dame, Miami, Nebraska, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia Tech, Florida State, and more.
It was import for us to create a sense of nostalgia and identity with each entrance, and we did that by finding key elements that separated one team from another. Objects like LSU's "Win Bar" or Tennessee's "I will give my all for Tennessee today!" sign helped us to expand our interior environments. However, other key elements were found via the interactions of the players; for instance, Ohio State's players interlock arms as they head to the field. In addition, we looked to see what role the teams' mascot played in the entrance. We saw mascots leading the team out to the field holding a giant team logo flag (Notre Dame) or an American Flag (Iowa) or simply running with the players from the tunnel exit (Georgia). Each of these elements was important in creating the run out sequences you'll see in the game this year. With that in mind, I'd like to give everyone a glimpse of our creation process using the Miami Hurricane's entrance as an example.
In-Depth: A look at the creation of the Miami Entrance
Each of our pregame entrances started with research and concept work. We looked through reference photos and videos, including an awesome segment by ESPN's College GameDay about the various signs and objects teams touch as they make their way to the gridiron. Once we knew what pieces we wanted to capture, we turned to our concept team and they created story boards to help us flesh out what we wanted to depict. In Miami's case, the main element was that they ran out of an inflatable helmet tunnel through a cloud of smoke on their way to the field.
Much like you've seen in behind-the-scenes featurettes of your favorite movies, we took those story boards and built 3D animatics to help our Art Director and Animators determine the pacing and composition of the shots. In the images below, you can see some of our concepts of camera placement and the height of the smoke particles as the Hurricanes run out onto the field. Once these were approved, work began on constructing the characters, environments, props, animations, lighting, and particles required to bring our entrances to life.
After all the pieces were ready, we built the sequence of cut scenes in our newly developed presentation tool and inserted it into our pregame flow. From that point we tuned the pacing and cameras even more to get the best angles possible for each scene (as shown below).
Once timing was locked down, the audio files were created and aligned with each scene to bring the whole experience together. You'll be taken through the tunnels with the clacking of cleats, the murmur of the fans echoing off the tunnel walls, and the jawing of players hyping each other up for the forthcoming run out onto the field. The team's cheerleaders and mascots get the crowd amped for the game and the entire presentation reaches its thunderous climax when your favorite team bursts onto the field accompanied by the band blasting their team's fight song.
I hope you have enjoyed this look into how our new pregame entrances were created and implemented into NCAA® Football 11. We're really excited to bring this new experience to everyone and continue to strengthen the presentation in our title. In the video below, you'll see some of our run outs in motion. I look forward to sharing more updates as we get closer and closer to our release.
Note: Video in the link!
Pageantry and Tradition; two words commonly used to describe what separates college football as one of the greatest experiences in sports today. Contrary to popular belief, not all of the action takes place on the field... and one of the hallmarks of collegiate football is how you get there. From Howard's Rock at Clemson, to the "Play like a Champion Today" sign at Notre Dame, to the roar of the crowd as our favorite team takes the field, we've recreated some of your favorite traditions before kickoff and brought them to you like never before.
As I wrote in my last blog, we really wanted to strengthen our authenticity and presentation in NCAA 11. And to do that, we knew pregame entrances were a major component of building a great foundation. We've created run outs for some of the most popular schools based on who you pledged your loyalty to in last year's title, including Clemson, Notre Dame, Miami, Nebraska, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia Tech, Florida State, and more.
It was import for us to create a sense of nostalgia and identity with each entrance, and we did that by finding key elements that separated one team from another. Objects like LSU's "Win Bar" or Tennessee's "I will give my all for Tennessee today!" sign helped us to expand our interior environments. However, other key elements were found via the interactions of the players; for instance, Ohio State's players interlock arms as they head to the field. In addition, we looked to see what role the teams' mascot played in the entrance. We saw mascots leading the team out to the field holding a giant team logo flag (Notre Dame) or an American Flag (Iowa) or simply running with the players from the tunnel exit (Georgia). Each of these elements was important in creating the run out sequences you'll see in the game this year. With that in mind, I'd like to give everyone a glimpse of our creation process using the Miami Hurricane's entrance as an example.
In-Depth: A look at the creation of the Miami Entrance
Each of our pregame entrances started with research and concept work. We looked through reference photos and videos, including an awesome segment by ESPN's College GameDay about the various signs and objects teams touch as they make their way to the gridiron. Once we knew what pieces we wanted to capture, we turned to our concept team and they created story boards to help us flesh out what we wanted to depict. In Miami's case, the main element was that they ran out of an inflatable helmet tunnel through a cloud of smoke on their way to the field.
Much like you've seen in behind-the-scenes featurettes of your favorite movies, we took those story boards and built 3D animatics to help our Art Director and Animators determine the pacing and composition of the shots. In the images below, you can see some of our concepts of camera placement and the height of the smoke particles as the Hurricanes run out onto the field. Once these were approved, work began on constructing the characters, environments, props, animations, lighting, and particles required to bring our entrances to life.
After all the pieces were ready, we built the sequence of cut scenes in our newly developed presentation tool and inserted it into our pregame flow. From that point we tuned the pacing and cameras even more to get the best angles possible for each scene (as shown below).
Once timing was locked down, the audio files were created and aligned with each scene to bring the whole experience together. You'll be taken through the tunnels with the clacking of cleats, the murmur of the fans echoing off the tunnel walls, and the jawing of players hyping each other up for the forthcoming run out onto the field. The team's cheerleaders and mascots get the crowd amped for the game and the entire presentation reaches its thunderous climax when your favorite team bursts onto the field accompanied by the band blasting their team's fight song.
I hope you have enjoyed this look into how our new pregame entrances were created and implemented into NCAA® Football 11. We're really excited to bring this new experience to everyone and continue to strengthen the presentation in our title. In the video below, you'll see some of our run outs in motion. I look forward to sharing more updates as we get closer and closer to our release.
Note: Video in the link!
