Natural Motion: Euphoria…

Well, in this post (while we are waiting for some more exciting FU news) i’ve decided to give a more indepth look into the new technolgy used in The Force Unleashed, commonly known as, “Euphoria”.

This is a fantasic new technology that is going to change the gaming world.

“Well, you probably Force pushed a stormtrooper or two as Kyle Katarn in a Jedi Knight game, right? Imagine if that stormtrooper was able to stop his progress by grabbing onto a railing and then proceeded to grab a gun beside him and fire back at Kyle—all this because his biomechanical AI simply knew that that’s the best thing for him to do. That’s euphoria in action.”
―Haden Blackman

Euphoria

Euphoria brings Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS) onto Playstation® 3, Xbox 360 and PC.
With euphoria, animations are not canned but are generated on-the-fly by the CPU as the game is played. Every tackle is your tackle, every haymaker is your haymaker.

Previously, animation data had to be manually created (through key-framing) or recorded (through motion capture). This is often expensive and laborious, and results in static, non-interactive data.

Euphoria is instead based on a full simulation of a 3D character, including body, muscles and motor nervous system. This creates fully interactive animations that act and react differently every time.

Euphoria:core

Euphoria:core is NaturalMotion’s lightweight DMS engine. euphoria:core runs parallel to the game’s animation engine and is called by the game’s AI whenever synthesised motion is required instead of canned animation. This enables a non-disruptive integration and scalable use.

Euphoria:core consists of a small kernel, AI controller modules (for adaptive behaviours) and a rigid dynamics module (for physics). euphoria is physics-engine independent and works with all commercially available engines (as well as proprietary ones).

Partners

Euphoria is not middleware. Instead, NaturalMotion has close co-development relationships with publishers and development teams to integrate euphoria into their next-generation titles. This allows clients to hit the ground running and produce euphoria-enabled games within short time frames.

Euphoria is currently being integrated into multiple AAA next-generation console titles, including Grand Theft Auto IV, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Indiana Jones and Backbreaker.

Music of The Force Unleashed…

Over the last few months, we’ve all learned quite a bit about The Force Unleashed (Like how they’re not making a PC version…. haha just kidding, i’m not really that bitter about it…. no really) so now we’re going to learn a little bit about where the music from The Force Unleashed comes from.

A lot of the game’s music feature themes are from the movie scores composed by John Williams. The original score for The Force Unleashed is composed by Mark Griskey, who composed the scores for KOTOR:2. The main theme music was written by LucasArts in-house composer and music supervisor Jesse Harlin and arranged by Mark Griskey.

Mark Griskey details the brief for the original score, “One of the main goals of the score was to bridge the gap between the sounds of the prequels and the original trilogy. The game will feature a lot of John Williams’ music from the films as well as the original music we recorded. The music needed to stylistically match the music from the films and incorporated some of the well known themes from the films. I also composed several original themes for characters, and location unique to the game.”

The soundtrack features around 90 minutes of original music recorded with 80 musicians of the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra at the Skywalker Sound Scoring Stage on September 23rd and 24th, 2007. The score was then mixed for three days at Skywalker Sound (September 27th-October1st.)

Check out the full article here, it’s definitely an interesting read.

The 48 Best Games of 2008…

GamePros.com has come up with 48 of the most promising games of 2008, with The Force Unleashed debuting in position 25. Not bad I guess condsidering the amount of games set to release this year. Personally I would have picked at least the number 1 slot.

“You thought 2007 was nuts? Think again. We dig deeper into the 48 most promising games of 2008.”

This is a great list, there actually a number of games on there that I havn’t even heard of or even knew was coming out. Be sure to check out the full list starting here.

25. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
X360, PS3 * Summer 2008

The Force Unleashed looks like every Star Wars fan’s wet dream.

Why you should care: A third-person adventure, Unleashed has players hunting down Jedi Knights as a bad-ass apprentice for Darth Vader, giving them the opportunity to, say, hurl a giant Star Destroyer around like so much garbage. Unleashed’s mass-carnage ambitions are backed up with impressive tech, so when you force-throw Stormtroopers through walls, a physics engine ensures that characters flop and twist in cool, but realistic, ways.

Why you shouldn’t: Who wants to serve as Darth Vader’s lackey? Here’s a wild idea: Let us play as D. Viddy himself for once

Debuting as the 2008 most anticipated game of 2008 of course, Grand Theft Auto IV. I have to admit I am waiting for this game as well. I’ve played all the others including the orginals and they are pretty sweet.

GameTrailers.com Exclusive Video…

GameTrailers.com has posted an exclusive video looking into The Force Unleashed. GameTrailers Geoff Keighley, gets an exclusive look at The Force Unleashed at LucaseArts in San Fransisco. The video contains exclusive footage of playing with Darth Vader as well New music, characters and cantinas all in The Force Unleashed. It also includes some information on some other cool looking games. Check it out below!

Force Unleashed…More questions answered…

Some more questions have been answered by our Force Unleashed representitive over on the LucasArts Forums.

Again there are a lot of unhappy PC gamers out there and this question has been asked a multitude of times. Again the answer is strickly, no, there will not be a PC version.

“Also, I know lots of people have asked me about a PC version of the game. I realize that no matter how I phrase this, PC gamers will be unhappy. But when the game ships in September, there will not be a PC version. I wish I could get into the details of “why” there isn’t going to be a PC version, but honestly, I just don’t have the information. As such, all PC-related questions will not be answered.”

Some of the more interesting questions are as followed.

I guess my only question is why is it going to be 6 months until the game is released, when the game appears to be pretty much finished now?

“The entire TFU team is dedicated to making sure that when you go out and buy the game, you’re getting the best, most polished, and exciting experience possible. As such, they’re hard at work making sure that the game is going to be just that? the best it can be.”

What types of customization are there (lightsaber, fighting styles, ship stuff, etc.)

“While there aren’t specific fighting styles, like what you might find in a fighting game, combat in TFU is quite varied with lightsaber combo attacks and Force powers. You can modify your lightsaber as you progress through the game to include various effects, and coupled with the ability to use Force powers in combat create a wide number of different fighting options.”

Customization will include clothes and lightsaber color modifications, right?

“Correct, you can alter the color and powers of your lightsaber, as well as unlock special costumes for the Secret Apprentice.”

Any chance of a possible multiplayer mode for the 360/PS3 versions at a later date?

“Honestly, I have no idea whether multiplayer is a possibility in the future. But I do know that when the game ships in September, the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions will deliver one heck of an exciting single-player experience.”

Can you pick up weapons dropped by enemies?

“The Secret Apprentice can’t pick up blasters or other weapons from defeated enemies. But, remember that the he does have a wide number of combat moves with both his lightsaber and Force powers, each of which can be strung together to create a large number of different attack combos.”

In some of the gameplay videos the Secret Apprentice is being shot at by Stormtroopers, but the laser blasts have no effect on the character and seem to go right through him. Is this how final gameplay will look, or is it too going to be updated?

“Simple answer, when you take damage, you’ll see it translate as such on-screen. Long answer, when putting together videos used for marketing purposes, sometimes developers will turn on a God Mode or other debug tool to make sure they can capture a cool shot or action sequence without the pesky risk of getting blown to bits in the process. So, if you see a video where it looks like blaster shots go right through the Secret Apprentice, don’t worry, it’s not going to be like that in the final product.”

Are we going to see these guys do lots of random things with euphoria, or is it just duck, dive, and grab?

“euphoria is being used to imbue enemies with behavioral patterns and actions to provide them with more life-like reactions to what’s going on around them. This includes them being able to duck out of the way, dive, and grab onto anything they can when faced with a physical threat. In short, enemies will do what they can to take them out of harm?s way. They won?t, however, do the following: play chess, take a nap, make and eat a sandwich, dance or sing.”

Will the Wii version of the game have destructible environments?

“Keep in mind that in all versions of the game, certain parts of the environment can be destroyed, such as using the Force to blow metal doors that are hindering your progression. But, keep in mind, TFU isn’t going to be featuring 100% destructible environments. While it’s a neat idea, being able to completely decimate your environment poses a few gameplay issues. Rest assured, though, you’ll be able to do the same sorts of things in the Wii version.”

Finally, I’ve heard that the SA can use Force Choke? Is this correct? Of course, I understand if you can’t tell me this yet as well.

“You?ve all probably seen the Darth Vader video segment that aired on Spike TV on Sunday. In the segment, we all get the chance to see Darth Vader Force Choke a few unlucky Wookiee warriors. But to fill everyone in, Force Choke is a power exclusive to Darth Vader. The Secret Apprentice doesn?t have this power, but instead gets to utilize the very enjoyable Force Lightning power. Zap!”

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