How to enable new technologies to enable college football

On June 1, 1988, the very first Madden video game was published for the world. The players had to load either a Commodore 64/Commodore 128, Apple II or MS-DOS to start the game. When they did, they were greeted with 8-bit animations of the most popular NFL teams and controlled their favorite players to win a great bowl. And at that time it was amazing.

Thirty -seven years later and EA Sports did not stop playing Madden and our American football games.

Most recently, we launched EA Sports Madden NFL 25 and College Football 25, which are tent poles of our beloved American football ecosystem. Nevertheless, our football games are no longer blocked pixels and four-direction controls. They are among the most realistic sports simulation titles in the world. We even celebrated the youngest Super Bowl weekend with these titles and our own Madden Bowl with championship games and incredible music in the heart of New Orleans. This is not least due to the incredible teams and their mission to make our games better every year. And technology plays a crucial role to achieve this.

Technology has made graphic progress possible and players from the field of birdsing in the field so that they can see drops of welding. The technology has introduced dynamic and real -time weather events that affect player movements and ball handles. And Boom Tech in Madden NFL 25 introduced the dynamic tackles from Crushing -Tackles.

And for our developers, the technology has enabled the development of more than 150 unique stages and thousands of unique players – a core part of the unsurpassed authenticity and immersion that our players and fans loved – for the start of titles such as College Football 25.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFBED5MXOE8

“If I gave them a flipbook with 240 heads, they would be amazed. At 58 you lose your mind. So we used machine learning to return to the artist with 10 options … ”

Empire developers with new technology

Richard Burgess-Dawson, a 20-year-old veteran at EA, was the franchise art director for College Football 25. To Richard, 2025, organized some of the most exciting technological updates of all times that made it possible to publish content that would otherwise have been impossible thanks to machine learning and AI.

“From the point of view of the development, there were four incredible technological innovations: how we built stadiums, how we have built uniforms, Gibs lighting technicians and carry out the lights of terms instead of pre-baking and our character creation,” says Richard. “And of course machine learning and AI played a key role.”

Machine learning and AI for the generation of players

For the creation of players and stadiums, everything was about assets. For College Football 25 there are more than 11,000 players who had to insert our developers into the game. Historically, a team of artists would have meant that more than 11,000 player photos have passed through and the players have been released one after the other.

The process was remarkably accelerated with machine learning and AI, so that artists could spend time in other parts of the game.

“We wanted to find out which ingredients we had to do. In order to present the 11,000 athletes in the game precisely and realistically, we used machine learning to identify 240 head forms that we would best fit for every player, ”says Richard. “AI could then help with pattern recognition. We searched for human patterns and made our heads for them. This created the basis for all player heads. “

With a batch of 240 heads, which allegedly all 11,000 players were able to represent in any form, was the next thing that combined the points between the submitted photo of a player and the heads of the heads.

“If I gave you a flipbook with 240 heads, you would be surprised,” says Richard. “They lose their minds at 58 a.m. So we used machine learning to return to the artist with 10 options and then have the artist decided. The AI ​​is assistant to a person. There would be his best guess and we would go in and optimize ourselves. “

With these options in hand, the artist had everything he needed to create the recessions of the head forms, skin tones, hairstyles, beards, etc. Then it was about applying their expertise, experience and craft to enable these college athletes the best possible representation.

Concentration on the unique

This technology based on ingredients was not only used for athletes in the game. It also helped developers and environmental artists to create more than 150 unique stadiums found in the United States in the United States.

“In the past, the artist went into it and made a soup out of content – run through, tunnels, lights, etc.,” says Richard. “If someone had to be made a mistake or change, it had to be a lot of time and effort to choose what every artist did to adapt. Let alone the time it took to create the stadium at all. With our newly developed stadium tool kit, this eliminated so many challenging steps. “

The toolkit worked in a similar way to player development when it came from everyday areas from the developers' assets and parts that they would escape in every stadium, entrances, tunnels and fire.

“These are only cared for procedural,” says Richard. “And then the artist spends time for what is really unique. Almost every stadium has a jumbootron and a press box that is unique for this stadium. It is your signature. This meant that we were able to work on the unique, iconic parts of each stadium without changing the everyday aspects. “

This means that instead of spending time to build every step one after the other, the artists could instead concentrate on the logo of the unique Michigan stadium in the end zones, the Rose Bowl Stadium, the blue and golden color scheme of the UCLA/USC scheme and its surrounding mountains or emergency brace and 'Touchdown Jesus' Mural. All of these are what fans and players remember, and the artists should concentrate on Richard.

And the best thing about it? This technology is not only used for future rates by EA Sports Madden NFL and College Football, but for another EA sports game when the developers choose this.

“The cool thing is that this is not only for College Football 25. From here it can be integrated into every iteration, including Madden, and hopefully other teams in our EA Sports catalog also see the strong use,” says Richard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-5ZGZEAAC

“Almost every stadium has a jumbootron and a press box that is unique for this stadium. It is your signature. This meant that we were able to work on the unique, iconic parts of each stadium without changing the everyday aspects. “

View into the future

Technological advances are a win situation for players, fans and developers alike. With the strengthening, acceleration and expansion of historically labor-intensive projects such as players and environmental modeling, our first-class developers can concentrate on areas that are most important in the most player experience, gameplay innovations, updates and more.

EA continues to drive innovation, including the addition of new tools and technologies. EA recently agreed to acquire Tracab technologies and enable teams to provide improved realism and to explore more and more EA -Sport experiences to search for exceptional experiences (Seep) that further research, build and determine the future of interactive entertainment. Frostbite, the engine of which shapes the future of the games. And many, many more.

EA creates

This is the fourth chapter of EA Createes, our special limited series, in which we deal with the art behind the production of authentic characters, immersive worlds, remarkable technologies and unforgettable experiences. At EA, our mission is not just millions of players worldwide. It should reflect your stories and enrich your life through our games.

Stay tuned for more.

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