I recently had a chance to visit a motion capture session for MLB 2002 PlayStation 2 at 989 Sports' studios in sunny San Diego. Troy Percival of the Angels, Jim Parque of the White Sox, Mike Sirotka of the White Sox and John Rocker of the Braves, who most people know by now, showed up for the event. In wanting to create a realistic game, each of the pitchers were asked to do a "T" pose. After that, they were asked to go through the motion of their wind-up as if they were in a game. The "T" poses are used for two reasons. The first for the editors to see the start and end of each motion. The second reason is for the software to properly identify all of the markers effectively on the body. The stance ensures that every marker is visible to the cameras. Each of the players had a bunch of white balls stuck to their whole body. Those white balls, as seen in the pictures, are reflective balls that are recognized only through the cameras. The cameras send an infrared beam to the markers which is interpreted within the cameras and converted into a digital point on the body. The markers are round for 3d visibility to the optimum number of cameras. The points on the body are strategic points which provide "hot spots" of rotation, movement, etc., to make the motions within the animated character as real as possible. When I arrived, Troy Percival was all dressed up already doing the motion capturing. The players performed pick-off throws, nodding pitches off, their own unique celebrations or tendencies. For instance, Rocker will have a couple of celebrations where he pumps his fist in approval and Percival does a little kneel down similar to a catcher's position before he takes the mound. There is no doubt that 989 Sports wants to make their game as realistic as possible in transfering the baseball experience to your living room. We did not get a chance to play the game as it was too early in the developmental stages. The two-day motion capturing featured mostly only pitchers as the development team will be able to re-use the motion capturing from previous years. I inquired about whether or not they have to use different motion capture sequence for players of different heights and weight. Here was the response from one of the guys working with the motion capture, "The data retrieved by one particular player, or actor, can drive any animated model of any size, human or not (dragons, lizards, birds, whatever). " It appeared the players were having a good time doing the motion capturing, especially Jim Parque. Parque was like a child on the platform mound doing all sort of stuff such as kicks and sword fighting. He was particularly amazed that every movement he made was duplicated by the computer generated figure, which was shown on a huge screen. All in all, from the motion capturing, it looks like the game is headed in the right direction as the makers of the game showed they cared by making MLB 2002 as realistic as possible and having each player do their own unique habits as they do in reality when they are in the game. The game is due out just around the start of the baseball season for PlayStation 2. No word yet on whether or not the game is going to be released for PlayStation or not.

Rocker Delivers Here it comes! Wazsup now! Hmm, what does Parque like?