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What was Media Molecule thinking with their Move tech demo?

superbank

The definition of front-butt.
Going by the first page many people thought this was a wii music copy. Are you blind? It's basically a puppet show toolbox.

1. Sculpt your character and environment.

2. Record your performance.

3. Share your creations, videos and sculptures.

Yes, one of the things you can record is a music related video but that isnt anything like wii music. The music was pre-recorded and they were acting as it played. Animations are procedural, move the controller around the screen and the character walks with it. You'll probably have to setup a skeleton (which shouldn't be too difficult). They'll have predefined moods you can choose that determine their animation. Press a button to interact with objects like the guitar (I think I saw one of them obviously press a button to interact with something).

There's nothing resembling a traditional game there but it does look to be an interesting interactive software. It looks pretty cool. I love the idea of creating sculptures but I wonder how difficult it will be with the move. Depth tracking and all that, could prove to be difficult. Basically MM goal is for people to create videos with this software, users upload it to youtube and it has a very obvious "made with MM sculpture software" look and that generates buzz. Like the user creativity around LBP but without traditional game trappings.

LBP first sold me on a PS3 because they were actually trying to do something interesting. This doesn't exactly give me the same vibe as LBP but it looks very cool and I look forward to seeing what direction MM take it.
 

Jonnyram

Member
I can see the sort of directions they'd go with it, certainly, just not sure unless they really flesh it out it'd be worth the time, unless it's just a cheap PSN goof around title, as I said
OK, you really can't see what could be done with it?
You know how you can pretty much make any kind of game with the tools that Little Big Planet provides? Well what if you could add your own cutscenes to them, and create those cutscenes using this tech. Wouldn't that be simply wonderful?
 

Ploid 3.0

Member
I didn't get the WII music reference at all other than the fact that the puppets were playing instruments.

This is what I got from it.

Create a 3d model, a sculpture of sorts.
5561970636_a23984780e.jpg


Then bringing the creation to life, giving it a purpose, controlled character in this case. A character that animates, has a skeleton, something that can play a guitar and dance.
tumblr_lzt7gk6LU41qm6oc3o1_500.gif
 

Stampy

Member
Basically MM goal is for people to create videos with this software, users upload it to youtube and it has a very obvious "made with MM sculpture software" look and that generates buzz. Like the user creativity around LBP but without traditional game trappings.

I think you are seeing this too narrow. MM is using the term “recording your dream”, but not in a way to record the music video, but rather to materialize any idea you have. He hinted that they are creating a tool that can enable creation of games, music, videos, etc, whatever you dream of.

This is what I got from it.
Create a 3d model, a sculpture of sorts.

Then bringing the creation to life, giving it a purpose, controlled character in this case. A character that animates, has a skeleton, something that can play a guitar and dance.

Totally this. I don't understand how people even though MM was going the wiimusic way. From what Alex was saying it is clear that he wants to give even more powerful tools for creating your “dreams”. Rock performance is just an example of something you could achieve.
 

superbank

The definition of front-butt.
I think you are seeing this too narrow. MM is using the term “recording your dream”, but not in a way to record the music video, but rather to materialize any idea you have. He hinted that they are creating a tool that can enable creation of games, music, videos, etc, whatever you dream of.

Oh? Didn't catch that. I'll have to watch again.

edit: He referenced creating "game worlds" and using it for "gaming". Didn't say anything about music but it is more than just videos it seems. Ok he did say music. That music wasn't created on the spot though. I would be impressed if they made it easy to create music like that easily with their tools.
 

kaching

"GAF's biggest wanker"
I don't know the numbers, nor would I even know where to check for stuff like this, but I'd be willing to bet the LBP user-created levels worth playing through were made by less than 10% of the people who own and played the game, and none of them would have bothered if the it had been terrible.
Yes, I'm sure that's largely true. All the more reason to cast as wide a net as possible for content creators. 10% of a million is better than 10% of a thousand.

My point is that the people that would make good use of the tools is much, much smaller than the ones looking for a game to play, so why show the tools without the game? They exist to complement the game, not the other way around.
I'm not sure their intent here is to create a specific game, as in one packaged with pre-made levels, a set storyline, etc. The creative tools could very well be the central play (emphasis on PLAY, vs. gameplay) mechanic, moreso than LBP. It's pretty clear that their "Eureka!" moment was when they finally settled on using the move wand for realtime 3d sculpting and everyone in their studio started having so much fun just doing that. That's the base unit and catalyst for everything else.

In any case, why did they _need_ to show an actual, fully-formed game concept, 9 months out from the earliest likely availability of the box it could play on? There were plenty of other devs on hand at the meeting doing just that, why is there no tolerance for promising tech demos alongside that?

Also, I'm sure no real game developer will ever use the tools shown, at least not in any real, game-developing way.
I wasn't suggesting they would build full-fledged, standalone games with this. But maybe they create assets, components, levels, etc.

The larger point here is that you asked who cares about this stuff and I'm just pointing out there's a rather important niche in the gaming ecosystem that does and there's ample evidence that you can crowdsource that interest when you can democratize the creative tools. You don't have to be the type that likes to create stuff themself. But, if you like to game, this will still be indirectly important to you because you reap the rewards of those efforts.
 

Laranja

Member
Yes, I'm sure that's largely true. All the more reason to cast as wide a net as possible for content creators. 10% of a million is better than 10% of a thousand.

I'm not sure their intent here is to create a specific game, as in one packaged with pre-made levels, a set storyline, etc. The creative tools could very well be the central play (emphasis on PLAY, vs. gameplay) mechanic, moreso than LBP. It's pretty clear that their "Eureka!" moment was when they finally settled on using the move wand for realtime 3d sculpting and everyone in their studio started having so much fun just doing that. That's the base unit and catalyst for everything else.

In any case, why did they _need_ to show an actual, fully-formed game concept, 9 months out from the earliest likely availability of the box it could play on? There were plenty of other devs on hand at the meeting doing just that, why is there no tolerance for promising tech demos alongside that?

I wasn't suggesting they would build full-fledged, standalone games with this. But maybe they create assets, components, levels, etc.

The larger point here is that you asked who cares about this stuff and I'm just pointing out there's a rather important niche in the gaming ecosystem that does and there's ample evidence that you can crowdsource that interest when you can democratize the creative tools. You don't have to be the type that likes to create stuff themself. But, if you like to game, this will still be indirectly important to you because you reap the rewards of those efforts.

Yeah, I see what you mean. I wasn't trying to imply that no-one will care about the sculpting tools they showed, but that most of us won't, especially because there's still no game to go with them.

My point was that it seemed strange to demo tools that are aimed at such a niche ecosystem (as you pointed out) on an event aimed at such a broad audience, its vast majority being people who like to play games.

I think Media Molecule's presentation would have made more sense at GDC, for example, rather than on the PS4 announcement party.
 

extralite

Member
Don't get the bad reactions here. Was the highlight of the conference for me, along with The Witness. Needed more Move in general.
 

superbank

The definition of front-butt.
You could make music in LBP, maybe since they have so much ram now LBP creators can create more complex music that isn't limited by a small thermometer.

Stuff people did with the limitations of LBP PS3.

Jarassic Park Machinima
http://youtu.be/mQIBQIM0aik

Custom Music The Shinra FF7
http://youtu.be/QWD7J3QEAhs

Smooth Criminal Machinima + Custom music
http://youtu.be/Si0qgR_dByo

It'll be impressive if they can go from the midi-sounding instruments displayed in your LBP2 examples to the real instrument sounds and nuances featured in the demo. I look forward to it.
 

Angry Fork

Member
First part just looked like some sculpting mini-game for artists and children, don't know what else it's intended for.

I had no clue what that music/characters come to life shit was though.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
First part just looked like some sculpting mini-game for artists and children, don't know what else it's intended for.

I had no clue what that music/characters come to life shit was though.

It was just to give an idea of something you could create. In this case a puppet-y music video thing.

MM wasn't presenting a game here. It was said clearly before hand that it was just a glimpse into some ideas, in the same vein as David Cage's presentation.

I think the play-doh tool is a part of their next project, but hangs on a bigger idea, in a bigger framework. Evans briefly cited collaging work together to make videos, game levels, whatever. So I think there will be a game framework around this and other tools suggested by the presentation, just as LBP was a game framework around its own set of tools.
 
After watching their section again and assuming this wasn't mentioned, I think the idea is for everyone to be able to make a full fledged game using the Move as a modeling tool for models and their tools for game logic..etc. I'm sure the Ds4 will be supported, but you would probably mainly use the Move to make your models. Being able to actually sculpt your model is actually pretty cool if you ask me.
 

Xenon

Member
What they showed would've been okay if I was an investor and they were trying to explain why should continue to fund their current project. I think it was a mistake to show potential customers since it lacked focus. The whole thing reminded me of the initial move presentation where they were putting up concepts just to have something to show.
 

cakefoo

Member
Don't get the bad reactions here. Was the highlight of the conference for me, along with The Witness. Needed more Move in general.
A lot of the bashing wasn't even valid; and I think it's because people weren't devoting enough attention to the presentation. It's not thumbsticks and buttons or a lightgun shooter, so it's automatically a low-priority presentation for them and an opportunity to instead bash motion games.
 
This thing has huge promise, can't believe people aren't seeing the possibilites. I imagine it to be a better version of minecraft mixed with a freer version of LBP.
 

Stampy

Member
I am surprised at how some people are just dismissive of this tech demo.

They will most likely base a game around it. But the question is what kind of a game will be their focus since they are following the idea that you can create anything. I wonder if there will even be any specific type of game they camouflage this tool in (such as a platformer). But they will have to think of something, because tools for games just don’t have mass appeal.

Also, I watched the music video multiple times, and I am truly stunned by how precise the movement of characters is with the motion controller. The walking part is most likely determined by some logic which sticks leg of the objects to the ground (when they raise the move, the characters elongate, but don’t separate from the ground). The orientation of the character (and relative movement) is also predetermined (at the beginning the characters watch each other, then when a button is pressed they stare at the screen, and with another button press the old man stares and orients his body to the guitar, once again, probably preset invisible logic, such as “look at”. So if the creator would circle in 3d space with Move the character would probably do a 360 circle around the guitar). Also in this case the Move movement was mapped only to the body of the character. Then, when holding a guitar you can see that a button is pressed to grab the guitar, while the motion of stringing the guitar is activated by the trigger. The range of upper hand movement was defined in advanced, linked to the trigger button, and depending on the intensity of press, the hand would be aligned in that range percentage. Since the press was quick, the hand raised quickly to the pre-defined limit, followed by a motion of the move which aligned the body to make it seem like the character is bending upwards with guitar. Thus there were two actions, motion with move and pressing a triger. There is probably a lot of mapping behind it that is not apparent like this, but man how can you all not be excited, I mean this is really complex stuff they are making.

This is not motion gaming in any way similar to what is known to us. This is motion creating, which is precise and logical and highly sophisticated, and has nothing to do with preconceptions of motion gaming revolving around aimlessly flailing hands.
 

noah111

Still Alive
This thing has huge promise, can't believe people aren't seeing the possibilites. I imagine it to be a better version of minecraft mixed with a freer version of LBP.
People never do see the possibilities, at first. I can't wait to see what MM comes up with. It seems they might actually be jumping into full gown 3D world creators, which would be incredible.

Basically Minecraft on crack would be possible. Not to mention the actual 'gameplay' seems like it could be anything (or that's the goal) i.e. sculpting these puppets, creating the joints and whatnot, and then being able to animate them. Oh and the ability to make intractable objects (see music tools). I don't know how they're going to pull it off, but I'm ready to buy a Move just for it.

The Move has always had great potential, it's just no one ever REALLY took advantage of it in a way where the experience is built for the controller rather than the other way around.
 

Ploid 3.0

Member
I too was impressed with the manipulation of the characters and how they got it to look so fluid. Like I said, to me it was like watching puppeteers and marionettes put on a show but with technology.

Craig Schwartz would be proud.
being-john-malkovich_420.jpg
 

kaching

"GAF's biggest wanker"
My point was that it seemed strange to demo tools that are aimed at such a niche ecosystem (as you pointed out) on an event aimed at such a broad audience, its vast majority being people who like to play games.

I think Media Molecule's presentation would have made more sense at GDC, for example, rather than on the PS4 announcement party.
I'm not using the word "niche" to mean small here. I mean it in the ecological sense, i.e. the role played in an overall ecosystem. A gamer also fills a niche in the gaming ecosystem. Obviously you wouldn't say that's a small group. niche=role, not size.

This wouldn't have made any more sense at GDC. It's not aimed at professional full-time developers specifically, it's aimed at anyone interested in creating things, customizing and personalizing their gaming experience. We have plenty of games that have offered that kind featureset to some extent or another over the years, those features have proven quite relevant to a lot of gamers' interests. Minecraft is huge, the PC scene is rife with mods, LBP offers millions of levels, Forza 360 owners loved skinning their car models, etc.

A console unveiling is speaking to a wide audience, many niches. Developers, gamers, artists, publishers, investors, etc. That's why they provide an array of varied demonstrations in the unveiling.

What was really out of place for me at the PS4 unveiling was stuff like watching the FF "Brand Director" take up time just to tell us "expect more Final Fantasy soon" or Activision trotting out the Bungie Developer Quartet to stand around not knowing what to do with themselves for a couple of minutes.

MM demonstrated concepts that are a direct evolution of the pedigree they should already be well known for. If you appreciate the kind of work they've done thus far, I don't really see why this should seem so far out of leftfield for them.
 

wildfire

Banned
In their presentation the Media Molecule rep said they wanted to overthrow the tyranny of the polygon.

I'm wondering if this tech demo is going to end up as a full blown 3D animation application to compete with Maya and 3DS Max.

There are simply too many unknown variables.
 

The Chef

Member
It all seemed really interesting to me until they did that rock band demo thing. He was saying how they did this all themselves or something but in the end the video was just the move controller moving the puppets around and rockin out. Made NO sense.
 

Stampy

Member
It all seemed really interesting to me until they did that rock band demo thing. He was saying how they did this all themselves or something but in the end the video was just the move controller moving the puppets around and rockin out. Made NO sense.

The music was most likely previously made on the internal tools (probably something in the veins of LBP2 music tools). Characters and objects were also built beforehand by sculpting, and afterwards colored to give them life. Joints on the characters were also pre-defined, then movements mapped to buttons on Move controller (I covered this couple of posts above). And viola. The live action was only doing the motions. Everything is covered. The important part with the Move (which is only acting) is that characters will have life in them, due to the natural shaking of the hand, this is true brilliance.

I am a total believer this was created with in-game tools that they are developing (maybe minus music which was probably a set song, not a created one), which will afterwards be available to the general public in some sort of a game.
 

Ploid 3.0

Member
It probably would have been better if the end was a fighting game and they used DS4 for the fighting while possible custom music played in the background. Before changing to DS4 they could have had the characters to walk up, and bow for respect before the deadly fight. Then people wouldn't be so threatened by Move used as a tool, or used to control characters in a non game display.

The fight should end with a finishing move and blood should be represented in true Tarantino fashion.

In their presentation the Media Molecule rep said they wanted to overthrow the tyranny of the polygon.

I'm wondering if this tech demo is going to end up as a full blown 3D animation application to compete with Maya and 3DS Max.

There are simply too many unknown variables.

Maybe they meant the tyranny of polygon from their games. Small limits due to memory, simple shapes, the simple shapes you use to create the levels and your objects. The more complex you made shapes the more meter it took up in LBP.

lbp1.jpg

Darn simple polygons.
 

evolution

Member
Some people honestly didn't understand what they were doing? No wonder devs have been making their games idiot proof lately.
 

baphomet

Member
The fidelity of the move controller makes for an interesting proof of concept/ small downloadable app but not much more than that. I could see them integrating the sculpting aspect in some sort of 3d LBP-esque, build your own game. The music number was where it all went to shit. If they had shown someone wandering through a landscape similar to ps1's LSD game I think it would have come across better, even if it was just completely off the wall.
 
It all seemed really interesting to me until they did that rock band demo thing. He was saying how they did this all themselves or something but in the end the video was just the move controller moving the puppets around and rockin out. Made NO sense.

what if it has some AI routine like euphoria, so you simply move the body around with move, and the limbs are automatically animated to follow. seems doable.
 

Duffyside

Banned
You guys are just:
a) hating
b) don't know what they are showing

They are showing you can create fully 3D characters and models, and even map them to your tracked body. They controlled the pitch/yaw/direction/position of the character with the move. They also mapped specific limbs to different move controllers. One woman used her two move controllers to control the hands of a drummer while it tracked her face for general head/body movement.

It's great, and haters just hating.

Yup, really promising stuff.

Honestly I don't even need the pitch/yaw/etc. I'm incredibly excited about people being to create 3D spaces for me to explore. Even just from an appreciative — dare I say artistic — standpoint.

I always felt LittleBigPlanet was like watching what people could create in a shoebox diorama. Granted, sometimes that was a really big shoebox, but it was always limited to essentially a 2D space, with just three layers of that 2D.

With this I'd feel it'd be more like viewing a miniature model, whether that just be a house, or a castle, or even a city or village. And of course it doesn't need to be realistic like those things either — it could be Hogwarts castle or the Star Trek Enterprise or, best of all, something totally original.

And that's what excites me. In the same way I'd love to see the best artwork people could come up with when they have both the tools to create and the means to distribute so the entire world can see their work, that's what I can see happening here. Just give me control of the camera or a basic 3D cypher to move around, and let me explore people's "dreams."
 
The sculpting stuff was cool; everything else was utterly bizarre and not in a good way.

When they came on screen I was hoping they'd be making a 3D LBP, like in the Mario 64 style. Oh well.
 

Sealion88

Member
I think its a cool concept where u can sit together with your friends and create something big like a music video or even own video game. I'm hoping that was the point that the tech Mm shown was to allow people to make up your own game with richer LBP tools.
 

Duffyside

Banned
Maybe MM should just make developer tools and stop thinking that these make compelling gaming experiences.

They... do make developer tools... that are easy enough for normal people to use and create with, which is their entire point for existing.

A year or two from now we will be blown away by what this has enabled. Some have too narrow of view in this.

I don't think you understand — this had a motion controller, a camera, and music involved, and that makes me uncomfortable.
 
It was probably the only part of the conference that made me feel excited, like I was seeing something that would actually be fresh and exciting. I doubt it will actually turn into anything I'll enjoy, but it was fun to watch. The puppets bugged me though because it was so obviously not being controlled by the move, except for possibly the most basic movements.

Also, people saying it was the worst part are crazy. It was a million times better than David Cage shitting on silent movies because they didn't have the proper polygon count to convey emotion.
 

Gadirok

Member
I thought think that Media Molecule is going to take their credibility to shit trying to tackle as something as huge of a problem that was the move.

I don't think anyone wanted that to continue. I didn't like motion gaming on the wii, never bothered to get into it with the PS3 since I figured it would be just as gimmicky (though I heard good things about Resistance 3 and Killzone 3).

Yes, their idea was creative. Too creative. I don't imagine consumers getting behind move one more time after PS3.

I may be wrong, I just don't see it happening. Then again, I don't find Home interesting either and thats apparently a huge success for Sony so who knows.

If they can try to put that into LBP3 (making it a whole new dimension of gaming of course) that would be amazing.
 
It was probably the only part of the conference that made me feel excited, like I was seeing something that would actually be fresh and exciting. I doubt it will actually turn into anything I'll enjoy, but it was fun to watch. The puppets bugged me though because it was so obviously not being controlled by the move, except for possibly the most basic movements.

Also, people saying it was the worst part are crazy. It was a million times better than David Cage shitting on silent movies because they didn't have the proper polygon count to convey emotion.

I could see them making a game where you can control and program animations or have preset animations. Connect the legs together and make a walking animation with them would be easy. All of the music stuff was obviously just preanimated by them. But the player movement is plausable.
 

Grinchy

Banned
I'm going to assume that they were showing the new sculpting tool to hint to us that they are making a fully 3D LBP game. The creator would need a way to build full 3D objects, and maybe Move Sculpting is one of those ways. Then you can animate the objects you've sculpted by looking like a dumbass.
 

noah111

Still Alive
does everyone forget that the Move Team demoed 3D modelling with the Move 3 years ago?

imagine doing this using a 3D TV? or Sony's 3D headset, with the model right in front of u. O_O

The sculpturing looked pretty f'n simple and accurate using the regular PSEye...it should be even better with the PSEye3.
I remember, but it's still awesome when MM does it as it means it could finally come into a game.

I mean, why the hell don't we have a FPS spider-man game using two PS Move's by now? :lol
 

onken

Member
The sculpting part looked pretty cool I thought, though how you actually turn that into a game is another matter. The music bit looked awful, I don't know if they were trying to troll the Wii Music reveal or what but it ended up looking just as bad.
 
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