With just a few minutes left, and desperation sapping already weary feet and minds, Sanluque?o stage an epic breakaway, and are victorious 4-2. As the players race off in celebration and the Gerena team slumps down on cheap FUT 22 Coins their backs. Some turn their heads and gaze up to heaven. They're aware of the significance of this match means - it will be remembered as one of the most significant moments of soccer to ever be played. But it will never be found in the record books.
In lieu of club colours the teams are sporting motion capture Xsens suits. The touchline is where the crews are hunching over laptops. The devices that signal short distances, capturing players' movement in millimetres, sit in the stands with technicians studying tablets with live data. Some thousands of kilometers away, an animation director is carefully monitoring the action on Zoom. But this isn't the job of a space-age team of scouting or the most recent coaching innovations.
They are the creators of FIFA 22. For the first time ever, EA motion-captured a live 90 minute football match, recording players' movements to an extremely precise level. This data could then be added to its animation database.
The gaming publisher looked for the biggest details down to the minute details, from how a fullback strikes the ball using their laces, to how a playmaker instantly glances over their shoulder when they receive a ball. "Ultimately it's about realism, which is what makes a better game," declares Gareth Eaves, senior animation director at EA who was the leader of the live session. "We thought about doing it for a while, but the technology hadn't been available."
Typically, EA uses optical capture actors and occasionally a superstar footballer, like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, to write new animations. However, it is a tiny area that is occupied by only two or three players at one time - making it difficult to hit the ball in a fast pace or pass it from one wing to the other. It is also difficult to play with motion capture in FIFA 22 Coins restricted areas like keepie-uppies or one on-one dribbles, have to be transformed by FIFA animators into fluid movements that mimic 11-a-side football.
