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FM25 is set to be a massive year for the Football Manager series, and at the very centre of that is the move to a new engine – Unity. According to developer Sports Interactive, this new engine is going to let them deliver, among other things, the huge visual upgrade that fans have been begging for over the last few iterations. None of us are playing FM for the graphics, but I’m not going to pretend I love looking at those highlights in FM24.
One aspect of that visual upgrade that has gone under the radar for a lot of players is volumetric player animations. Now, if you’re like me, this probably just sounds like some nonsense buzzwords used to make the new graphics sound flashier and more impressive than they actually are. But thankfully, there are people around who are far smarter than I am, and YouTuber FM Console put together an excellent video explaining exactly what volumetric animations are, and how big a deal this could be for FM25.
A few top clubs in England and Spain have set up a bunch of high-tech volumetric cameras in their stadiums that record a game from any angle. This data can then be used to create a 3D replay of a specific part of a match that can also be viewed from any angle. Put simply, thanks to these volumetric cameras, SI now have access to motion-capture footage of some of the best players in the world playing in competitive matches, and this footage will be used to create a brand-new player animation system in FM25.
While we don’t know exactly what that will look like in FM25, as we haven’t seen any gameplay footage yet, we do have an idea of how this will work because, since FC 24, EA has done the exact same thing with the game’s HypermotionV feature. By using AI to analyse the volumetric data captured by these cameras, it can replicate the motions of real players in the game, giving us far more realistic animations than in previous years. What EA has created with the Frostbite engine is likely to be somewhat more advanced than what SI can create in Unity, but this gives you an idea of what the SI team are aiming to achieve.
Let’s face it, FM has been in need of a visual overhaul for a while now, and if this is implemented well, it could be a major leap forward for FM’s visuals. It’s not going to look as good as FC 25 – it’s not that kind of game – but I’m not sure anyone is asking it to be. If FM25 can do away with the clunky animations and weird movements that have made more recent releases seem so dated, then SI could really be onto a winner here.
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