Sunday, January 08, 2006

Kickbox Game Animation

Remember the Echo game from 'The House of Flying Daggers'? Well my friend Deano has just gone through some basic kickboxing moves and sketched out a typical practice area with pressure pads and high pads at shoulder height set East, West, North, South. Then there are the combination of moves with legs and arms so that there are several types of punch and kick aimed at pad 1-8. Then there is speed and power training and all this before sparring and actual fighting. It would also be interesting to see how the muscles flex and relax on each motion and hit. The sounds generated could be used to create music and weapons training would use a different ring area with a combination of basic translation/rotation, attack/block moves.
So what would be involved in developing a simulation or game that involves this? Firstly there is the creation of the figure and muscles - this can be done in 3DS Max (short animated sequences or triggered parts) and then there is the script/code for each move and determination of power, accuracy and speed. Then there are the 3D viewing transformations for the training ring and camera viewpoint of the action. A program would also need a primitive user interface to control the character or/and a random move and direction selector. Music would be taken and composed in real time according to the motion and impact. Randomly generated movies of practice/fights could be used as demos of what the game can do.
Extensions to this idea could be motion capture of a real person moving and fighting, the use of weapons and sparring. For actual fighting some AI could be added for the characters they could be given more personality and facial expression. Add to this more colourful environments and different fighting styles and you have something like Mortal Combat. So how to make it different? Maybe by using aliens, robots or have the flesh flexing and tensing (no skin) and at points freeze the action and have the background moving in the way of the action. Um... combat in a wheelchair.

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