Backbreaker Dev Diary #2: Morpheme

While tackles are a huge focus of Backbreaker, they are only part of the story. Movements such as running, passing and catching all have to be animated and we wanted to ensure these were of an equally high quality. Like other studios we use motion capture data for these non-euphoria animations. However, that is only the beginning. To create a believable and smooth experience in the game, it isn't enough to simply trigger motion capture clips at the appropriate point; the game needs to constantly blend, transition, modify and touch up the clips in real-time. For this we use morpheme, an animation engine that our company developed in addition to euphoria (and which we have also licensed to developers such as IO Interactive and Bioware). The morpheme technology allows animators to take all the motion capture clips and define how they blend and sit together. This may sound a little abstract, so let's look at an example. The first video clip shows a running animation, followed by a sudden directional change. The clip uses no transitions and as a result the change looks very abrupt (and certainly not like a real football player).