Visuals in NBA LIVE 15

Hey NBA LIVE fans! First off, we just wanted to say thanks for all of your support around our first-look screenshot. We’re excited to be able to share that in-game asset with you, and today we’re going to dig a little deeper into the visual improvements we’re making in NBA LIVE. We’ve talked a lot about head scans and player likenesses, but we’re going so far beyond that this year. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the things we’ve got in store.

First up, if you played NBA LIVE 14 then you may have noticed a significant change in how players looked after our Title Update in February. That’s because we switched over to an image-based lighting system to better showcase our players. We’re continuing down that path in NBA LIVE 15, using these new lights to better showcase our players and arenas. This look really helps out bring the nuances in each player, and we’re very pleased with the improvement it offers over our previous lighting system. Here’s a side-by-side example of what you can expect:

One thing you might have caught in the screen is that the jerseys, stanchion and arena lighting have been touched up to more accurately reflect their real-life counterparts. We’ve scanned jerseys and other equipment the same way we scan the players so that we can accurately portray a number of fine details. We’ve looked at everything from stitching around numbers to the way the jerseys wrinkle, because we feel that these are important details that we need to get right.

While the players on the court may be the first thing you notice, there are lots of other little things that make up the atmosphere of the court and the arena. We’ve made it a point to pay attention to those little touches, and breathe more personality into the shot clock, the rim, and even the stanchion. Separately it may not seem like much; but when you see all these pieces together, it just makes the game as a whole look better.

If you’re interested in getting an even more in-depth look at what we’re building, check out this video for all the details. We hope it gives you a good picture of what we’re striving for in our visuals this year.

As always, thanks for taking the time to learn more about NBA LIVE 15; we’ll be back in August with the first gameplay details and a breakdown of the on-court action in this year’s edition.