Match moves.(games)

Game publisher Microsoft Game Studios (Salt Lake City) recently teamed with developer Power & Magic Development (Paris) to serve up ultra-realistic action for their recent Xbox title Top Spin, bringing world-class tennis action into the virtual realm of computerized gaming.

Top Spin, which offers singles or doubles matches, pits players against 16 of the sport's leading tennis stars, whose signature moves were motion captured and incorporated into the animation for authenticity. A local tennis pro "played" against the ranked players, enabling the Microsoft team to acquire the most realistic movements from the stars.

According to Bruce Gil, motion-capture manager at Microsoft Game Studios, the group acquired more than 750 specialized movements during separate mocap sessions with tennis greats including Pete Sampras, Martina Hingis, Lleyton Hewitt, Elena Dementieva, Jan-Michael Gambill, Anna Kournikova, and Barbara Schett. Microsoft Game Studios secured access to the busy pros during a two-week time span as they rotated through the NASDAQ 100 tournament in 2002. As a result, the team had little notice for setting up its Vicon mocap system, attaching the light-reflective markers to each player, and then capturing a wide range of movements.

The group, which had just purchased the Vicon system for its Xbox game division, had one week of training before heading to the Miami Convention Center for its first capture session. There, the technicians positioned 12 high-res Vicon MCam 2 cameras around a 40x40xl0-foot capture area.

To create a realistic environment for the players, the team installed a tiled SportCourt surface, and taped lines on a mock half-court. So the tennis stars could move naturally within this ...