Pomers was on to something - scripted randomness in DBC14

[blockerdave]

OK, so the title is deliberately provocative, and not quite right, but i have spotted a few things that look "pre-determined". essentially it's as if the game decides as soon as you have played the shot what the outcome will be - boundary, 1, 2, 3 or out.

i have hit the ball in the air say 10m away from cover, and he has warped and been waiting for the ball to drop in his hands... Usain Bolt wouldn't have got there quicker. i've hit the ball in the air say 6m from cover, and he's jogged on the spot until the ball is past and hit the ground and then started to run after it.

same when the ball goes across the ground - cover/extra-cover will get to mid-off and stop you getting a single, or jog on the spot as the ball goes 2m past him and off for four.

equally, boundary fielders will warp speed and cut off a ball turning a certain four into a 1 or at best a 2... or a one bounce four into a caught out... then the same fielder will do a "running through knee-deep treacle" impression to let a ball get to the boundary.

also i've seen several times the fielder doing the same treacle run, so slow they're almost running on the spot, waiting for you to complete your first run and get part way down the second, before they suddenly race to the ball and throw it in.

also, i have scored two hundreds in career, and in both of those the field was alternating 2 boundary-fielders between the 3 spots i'd scored most fours through - so there was always a gap in a "go to" area... at the same time i've got out once in the 90s, twice in the 80s, and these times the field had all the boundaries cut off... almost as if twice the game said "ok, he can have his 100" and the others it was "not this time son" (all 3 times i got out to edges playing shots i'd played fine plenty of times in the innings)

has anyone else spotted any examples of this?

 

[ellgieff]

I don't think the game is as much a "physics model" with a cricket game attached, as it is a "mathematical model of cricket" with a physics engine representation built over the top.

In life, sometimes fielders make amazing stops. Sometimes they (and sometimes the same fielder!) fail to stop things that you think they should have.

This has to happen in the game as well, or there's no interest. The issue you're having is (IMO, and based on the things I know about other games like this one) that the game is a graphical representation of a mathematical model - and graphics representations _aren't_ perfect.

I don't think, for a second, that Big Ant have actually physically modelled a batsman and a bat, playing strokes, in order to do collision physics with the ball to see where it ends up.

Because bro, if they've actually done that with this game, they shouldn't be working in games.

It's much more likely that they've done a model of "bowler bowled _this_ well, batsman's stroke was _this_ good, choose result from THESE things, represent graphically"

Likely that's why we don't see edges going to the slip cordon, because it's not actually physically modelling the interaction of a moving bat and ball.

I may be wrong (and it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong), but knowing what I know about how MLB: The Show is done and given that this is a very similar game, I'd be surprised if they didn't do it this way.

 

[blockerdave]

essentially it's an animation issue? fixing the animation to the result? makes sense.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

I think ellgeiff has put it much better than I could but yeah.

I think when a lot of people are complaining about diving catches and the like a lot of it is just the way the game has visually represented a player taking a ball within his sphere of influence. in real life he may take one or two more steps and stick a hand up but here the game's going with a gargantuan backwards leap. however, I do think the sprint speeds are ridiculous. ever raced a bowler agains the the batsmen running? I managed to run up and down the wicket 3 times before the batsmen completed 2 runs.

the field placement issues are pretty much the one area where the game completely collapses in realism though. they're just horrible.

one thing I have noticed is that batting can, almost inexplicably, become much tougher. I have on occassions cruised to brisk 30 and then found the next runs almost impossible to come by. some of that is due to stupid field placements like deciding that me on 30 warrants a cricle of run savers round the inner ring, but even hitting it solidly gets harder, I keep trying to play these struggles out because I wonder if scripting variable difficulty is in there in order to simulate the feel of building and innings.

 

[BigAntStudios]

Each ball is on it's merit, there is no "not this time son" involved

It is a physics model, ball, bat, player etc all modelled and the physics play out based on input.

It's far from a real physics model though, it's approximated for speed of the processor and because it's a game.

There are all sorts of calc's going on all the time, eg. can a fielder get to a position for a catch, if he can he is told to do so, when he gets there he then plays the most appropriate catch animation, he may still drop it.

There are bugs where a fielder is told he could reach a position and he can't but is told to get there in X time anyway, these sorts of bugs are hopefully going to be ironed out with patch#2.

In short, it is physics first and animation playing out as best it can to the physics result, not the other way around. The outcome is better that way but it's a lot harder to pull off and there will be more chance of bugs, but they will be animation glitches but the result should be true to the physics model even if it doesn't look good.

Edit: yeah, so Prof Pomers was onto nothing

 

[blockerdave]

Each ball is on it's merit, there is no "not this time son" involved

It is a physics model, ball, bat, player etc all modelled and the physics play out based on input.

It's far from a real physics model though, it's approximated for speed of the processor and because it's a game.

There are all sorts of calc's going on all the time, eg. can a fielder get to a position for a catch, if he can he is told to do so, when he gets there he then plays the most appropriate catch animation, he may still drop it.

There are bugs where a fielder is told he could reach a position and he can't but is told to get there in X time anyway, these sorts of bugs are hopefully going to be ironed out with patch#2.

In short, it is physics first and animation playing out as best it can to the physics result, not the other way around. The outcome is better that way but it's a lot harder to pull off and there will be more chance of bugs, but they will be animation glitches and the result should be true.

Edit: yeah, so Prof Pomers was onto nothing

thanks... i figured it was more likely to be disconnect between outcome and animation etc. rather than actual "pre-determination", but this morning there were several within one innings and quite quick together and i just thought i'd raise it and check and see if others had seen similar things too - sometimes i like to make sure i'm not imagining stuff.

 

[BigAntStudios]

@ellgieff In terms of "other stuff" we should work on if we can do physics, we have a simulation team that work actively with military and law enforcement agencies for simulated weapons ranges for firearms, taser, etc.

 

[ChinamanSpin]

I think the worst thing about this thread is that the fonz coined the phrase scripted randomness. Dr Pomers just coded the physics for DBC.

 

[blockerdave]

I think the worst thing about this thread is that the fonz coined the phrase scripted randomness. Dr Pomers just coded the physics for DBC.

Oh yeah you're right... Well obviously the thread title was a joke. Just noting some stuff I had seen.

 

[Biggs]

I don't mind the "treacle running" glitch so much as it shows there IS something built into the fielding AI that means it's possible for the fielders to run slower than a choir boy from a Sunday school night class...

I also don't mind the fielding glitch when I've nailed a 6 and the fielder nearest the shot comes running TOWARDS me... Like he's congratulating me, that's when I know I've nailed it...

I tend to agree with the theory of the game sometimes just deciding you're getting out though. It's prolly placebo effect but the number of times in a BBL match that I've absolutely carted a bowler for 4 deliveries only to have me "miraculously" caught and "mistime" a shot is a little too convenient for me... Whether it's true or not but randomly blocking a few in the middle of an over seems to reset this, although again, could just be my failures more than anything.

 

[ellgieff]

@ellgieff In terms of "other stuff" we should work on if we can do physics, we have a simulation team that work actively with military and law enforcement agencies for simulated weapons ranges for firearms, taser, etc.

@BigAntStudios Having read what you said above about how you did this one, I'm not surprised

And like I said, not the first time I've been wrong.

Probably won't be the last, unless I die shortly.

 

[grkrama]

@ellgieff In terms of "other stuff" we should work on if we can do physics, we have a simulation team that work actively with military and law enforcement agencies for simulated weapons ranges for firearms, taser, etc.

so when are we going to see Big ant drones

 

[aditya123]

@ellgieff In terms of "other stuff" we should work on if we can do physics, we have a simulation team that work actively with military and law enforcement agencies for simulated weapons ranges for firearms, taser, etc.

I was wondering about this the other day before you mentioned the research experience of your crew. I work on computer simulation of biological molecules in my doctoral research and know how demanding it can be to compute the physics. I can imagine much of the inaccuracies in gaming physics being a result of computing limitations. If you were to have a totally deterministic model without any approximations, it would`nt be playable as a game on regular computing devices.

 

[Chief]

Who would have thought there would come a time when a computer program would be scripted? Heady days.

Question is, how long before the Don Bradman in DBC becomes self aware and starts reprogramming itself?

 

[whiteninness]

I was wondering about this the other day before you mentioned the research experience of your crew. I work on computer simulation of biological molecules in my doctoral research and know how demanding it can be to compute the physics. I can imagine much of the inaccuracies in gaming physics being a result of computing limitations. If you were to have a totally deterministic model without any approximations, it would`nt be playable as a game on regular computing devices.

Also a video game controller would be provide insufficient input control.

If you 100% simulated all ball off bat reactions, you'd have a level of detail that is far finer than the level of input detail, which only has 4 inputs: shot placement, foot placement, shot type and timing. This is already a lot, but if you wanted to implement a completely modelled physics system, whilst still providing the user with a sense of control, then you'd need the user to actually be able to control the bat swing. Outside of perhaps a Wiimote or kinect, I cannot see how that'd be possible.