As Football Manager 25 release is fast approaching, the excitement about what to expect from the Football Manager 25 match engine is building up. With rumours about significant improvements to the FM25 match engine going on for nearly two years, the question remains what will the new match engine on Football Manager 25 bring upon us.
At FM25 announcement, one significant hint about the future upgrades to Football Manager 25 and its match engine was burried deep inside the official game description on Steam or Epic Games. It revealed that “volumetric player animations from real soccer matches and enhanced graphical fidelity will elevate the Matchday experience”.
A slicker, smarter UI delivers key info when you need it, empowering you to delve deeper to gain the edge on your rivals. New, volumetric player animations from real soccer matches and enhanced graphical fidelity elevate the Matchday experience. […]
– About Football Manager 25, Steam Store
According to Sports Interactive, the Football Manager 25 match engine is expected to be more realistic than ever! With Football Manager 25 powered by the Unity engine, there will be one of the biggest technical and visual advancements to Football Manager for over a generation with more realistic animations and a more immersive match experience.
Although we are yet to know what the switch to Unity Engine means to the match experience and its move to the FM25 Unity engine, the mentioned volumetric player animations coming to Football Manager 25 could give us some hints about what to expect from the Football Manager 25 match engine and its overall matchday experience.
What volumetric player animations means to the Football Manager 25 match engine was quickly uncovered by FM Youtuber FM Console who took a deep dive into what volumetric player animations means. In his video, which you can watch below, he provides a quick insight into how this brand new technology is transforming the landscape of both real sports and simulation games such as Football Manager 25 or EAFC 25. I recommend to watch his video too.
Today we’ll take a closer look at what volumetric player animations are and how it may influence on the FM25’s gameplay. We will also take a closer look at what we can expect from volumetric player animations added into Football Manager 25 and the graphical enhancements and benefits of introducing volumetric motion capture on Football Manager.
Table of Contents
What is Volumetric Motion Capture?
To understand what volumetric player animations are, we need to understand the technology behind volumetric motion capture.
Volumetric player animations is based on a technology where you uses three-dimensional motion capture, volumetric capture, often shot in 4K or 5K resolution, to bring you viewing angles you’ve never seen before.
With multiple cameras strategically positioned around a three-dimensional space, for instance a football field or an object, you can capture exact player motions and other more advanced true-to-life visuals based on real-life events, for instance a football match to record human performances to gather data. The videos can later be turned into either 360° videos or motion captures that enables you to see for instance actionable highlights from different sporting events, or enhance the feel of realism in the gaming world.
The volumetric motion capture technology is already a major part of top football.
Already in 2019, Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool partnered with Intel Sports by adding 38x 5K volumetric cameras in their stadiums to cover the any perspective of any player on the pitch – enabling you to get closer to the action!
The Intel True View technology aims to capture every part of the play with cameras around the entire field to cover all the possible angles to later use AI to create astonishing video replays and highlights that won’t be possible to see with a single camera.
By using the Intel True View, it enables them to create a more interactive experience for the fans by adding the availability to watch replays of goals and key highlights from different angles at a time – providing you a completely new perspective to on-pitch actions as you can spin around the camera and view on-pitch actions from any angles.
Not only can volumetric motion capture provide better opportunities for interactivity for the fans, but it can also be used to compile data to better study details for improvements. It can help to provide another layer to tactical analysis for individual players and the team as players movements, positioning and decision-making can be carefully examined with cameras covering all the angles of the pitch.
For a manager who is interested in tactical data, it can provide another layer of depth to future tactical decisions as you can examine the correlated positioning of each of the players within the team, suitable passing paths or opportunities to progress play as the camera vision can be panned into the perspective of an individual.
The benefits of Volumetric Motion Capture
- Enhanced storytelling; Virtual cameras can follow the ball or players of interests and look at the action from any point-of-view to capture the match actions like you’ve never experienced it before, unless you were on the football pitch as the referee, the manager on the sideline or one of the players running across the field.
- For instance, it enables you to experience the match actions from the player’s perspective by providing the opportunity to watch 360o degrees replays
- Create AR Experiences; it allows the user to navigate around the game action, for instance at match highlights or key moments to project the on-field action. This can be used to provide another dimension of tactical depth, for instance to provide further tactical analysis of your team or the opponent’s performances in-matches represented to more enhanced player data.
- Create VR experiences; it could even open up the opportunity to place users in the middle of the action in a way we have never been able to experience before!
How LALIGA uses volumetric data?
LALIGA uses this technology to gather volumetric data that is seen throughout the match with overlays on the pitch of match statistics, or be provided to pundits with pre-match insights and key metrics through LALIGA’s advanced statistics project with Microsoft, named Beyond Stats.
With 16 optical cameras and 3 tactical cameras in each of the LALIGA team’s Stadiums, LALiga is aided by Microsoft Azure and AI technology to compile and digest more than 3.5million data obtained per match to provide advanced statistics that is impossible for the human eye to digest when simply watching the match unfolds, whether you are a manager on the touchline or watching the match on TV or tablet.
The information gathered through volumetric data can eventually help the managers and others to make more informed decisions by becoming a tool to analyse both individual players performances, and the performances of their tactics by enhancing tactical depth.
Watch the volumetric camera in action in LALIGA below:
It’s evident that Volumetric data can map players positioning and runs throughout the match as it can track all actions an individual player has made whether it being movements and carries.
That’s on top of other advanced statistics that tracks key metrics such as attacking efficiency, possession in the final third, where shots have been taken from and the team’s intensity both in pressing and recoveries in the final third.
Frankly there’s no restrictions on what it can track or compile of data as it provides another dimension and depth to the ongoing events on the football field.
What are Volumetric Player Animations coming to the Football Manager 25 match engine?
Volumetric player animations is the concept of tracking player’s movements from a number of different angles to capture motion graphics at a completely new level. By capturing exact player motions that happens in real football matches, we can experience a more individualistic motion graphic that relates to specific players.
By taking advantage of real-world volumetric data, Sports Interactive can then use artificial intelligence to recreate unique body movements.
In Football Manager, volumetric player animations could possible provide a more immersive gameplay experience on Football Manager 25 by mimicking the unique movement patterns of individual players.
For instance, we can speculate on the wider consequences of Sports Interactiving acquiring the full Premier League licence by getting to experience the way Erling Haaland runs, where he moves inside, or outside the penalty box when the team is in possession of the ball, or how he uses his foot or head to finish off a chance.
Just imagine getting the opportunity to experience unique dribbles and tricks that are specific to certain players, or discover certain individual traits replicated in Football Manager 25 in a more true-to-life way.
With women’s football coming to Football Manager 25, the use of volumetric player animations will help the developers to better diversify both body language and movements between male and female players.
The job to replicate the distinct actions and body movement of players is not an easy job. It requires to build a library of both upper, lower and full body movements for both male and female players, before implementing it into the game.
How EA Sports FC uses volumetric data
Football Manager 25 is not unique to using volumetric player animations to provide a more immersive gameplay experience.
EA Sports FC 25 aka FC 25 uses a similar technology known as HypermotionV and AI Mimic to make gameplay animations more realistic.
In FC 25, EA Sports has enhanced their library of full body movements to include 1847 athletes from across the world, providing you a new level of realism when watching both female and male players in action on the pitch.
Their use of volumetric data has drastically increased from FC 24, when they used the technology from 183 professional men’s and women’s football matches to mould realistic player movements in-game. Back then, they managed to mirror 1200 different types of running types and let you see full teams, from goalkeepers to forwards, have each specific authentic movement styles.
Apart from replicating individual player’s exact movement patterns and body language, this ground-breaking technology can be used to provide another layer of realism to on-pitch actions by enhancing visuals and match graphics.
One opportunity that enrupts with using volumetric player animations from the real world of football, is the opportunity to replicate iconic football moments inside the game. You could enable certain players to have a set of skills which can be seen in the match engine. For instance, allowing licenced players to celebrate goals in a certain way, implement certain finishing styles, unique dribbles or running techniques.
Opportunities with volumetric player animations
- get distinctive running styles from individual players incorporated into Football Manager
- implement typical goal celebrations of specific players
- add certain passing techniques, dribbles, feints and shot techniques into the match engine in a more authentic way than simply asking a specific person to control or shoot the ball.
- ability to capture exact player motions with much more detail than ever before – for instance how a person uses his or hers arms when running at full speed, compared to how he or she uses arm movements when striking the ball at corners, free-kicks or when making a pass and diversify the difference between short and long passes.
- add more authenticy to the match engine as individual player’s strength and weaknesses is better replicated – meaning each player’s playing style or strengths and weaknesses are unique to one specific player
How will Volumetric player animations be integrated in Football Manager 25?
In previous iterations of Football Manager, Sports Interactive has used motion capture to replicate body movements. By putting on a motion-capture suit on a person, the developers has mapped out how the human person moves arms and legs when running, turning or passing the ball in a skeletal output that provides the foundation for the final 3D animations we see in the FM24 match engine.
Rather than filming the person making a specific movement, the switch to volumetric capture enables the developers to use real life football matches to replicate distinct features of an individual in all phases of play, whether he or she is on or off the ball.
The key detail here is more realistic graphics and more authentic visuals.
The final product would in theory enable Football Manager to recreate unique running styles for each individual player – enhancing the realism of the FM25 match engine animations to a greater degree.
Motion Matching Introduced for FM24
How volumetric player animations will be integrated into Football Manager 25 is yet to see but a database of new animations entitled Motion Matching was already incorporated into FM24. It utilized the “Inverse Kinematics system to reflect the real-life captured data in the most accurate and realistic way possible”.
With Motion Matching introduced for FM24, it allowed the developers of Football Manager to identify these more realistic animations and directly use them for every player in FM relative to the context of the match.
These significant improvements to animations in off-the-ball actions such as running and body positioning provided more fluidity to player movements, as players would position themselves in a way that enabled themselves to turn quicker due to a more realistic representation of how players behave in matches according to the ball.
In some ways, this Motion Matching could be seen as a step towards a more smoother gameplay experience and enhanced animations. With volumetric player animations, SI might have taken an extra step forward. Whether they will leave behind Motion Matching and call the use of volumetric data in Football Manager 25 something new is all up in the air.
Even how many players, or how Sports Interactive intends to incorporate volumetric player animations on Football Manager 25 is yet to discover for the moment. Regardlessly, if Sports Interactive manage to integrate volumetric animations on FM25 in the way perceived, it can truly be a game-changer.
However, the intention of moving away from Motion Capture to Volumetric player animations on Football Manager 25 is very very intruiging.
As previously discovered, the integration of volumetric player animations within the Football Manager 25 match engine opens up a new world of opportunities.
Even though players movements patterns might not be fully replicated on FM25, there are many long-term benefits of moving towards a more authentic 3D environment, which can be expanded upon for future releases.
So far, Sports Interactive has partnered with FIFA to acquire the licence of the English Premier League. Although it’s been announced that official branding such as logos, kits and faces will be visible in FM25, they could potentially add certain animations that relies to specific players, e.g Erling Haaland at Manchester City and his iconic Lotus pose goal celebrations.
Potentially it could see the FM25 match engine making huge leaps forward, compared to the previous iterations of the Football Manager match engine we have come to know.
Perhaps Sports Interactive can take advantage of volumetric data from real football matches to improve how teams tactical styles of play are represented in the game, or improve the visuals for individual players by taking their distinctive features based on previous seasons statistical performance to determine their strength and weaknesses to move towards an attributeless environment where statistical performance gets more of an influence in the players’ profiles.
The opportunities with using volumetric motion capture opens up a host of future possibilities. We can only speculate, but perhaps in the future Sports Interactive will add AR and VR experiences in Football Manager and provide you with the experience of watching the action on the football pitch as if you were there with volumetric player animations one step towards new action cameras that enables you to watch the player as if you were on the pitch!
According to the roadmap, the new features and changes to the Match Experience is deemed to be announced closer to FM25. For now, we can only speculate on how Football Manager 25 will integrate volumetric player animations until more information is revealed.
Once we know more about the Football Manager 25 match engine, we will update this page with further information about the changes coming to the Football Manager 25 engine and its matchday experience.
The New Features & Improvements to Match Experience on Football Manager 25
Here we will gather all the future new features and changes to the match experience on Football Manager 25.
Bookmark this page to get a deep-dive to the coming changes to the Football Manager 25 match engine!
More information to be announced soon…
