A certain mystique and self-possessed flair surrounds the concept of martial arts in today’s culture. Some who actually practice martial arts do so for a constructive relief of physical or mental tension, to learn meditation and self control, or purely for self-defense purposes. Others only observe and enjoy the flamboyant cinema interpretations shown in theaters—such as The Matrix, and now in the virtual world with The Matrix Online.

This article concludes our two part series about the inside designs and creation of the martial arts for The Matrix Online. You can find part one here!

The Stunt Team of ZeroGravity

With all the different combinations of attacks, counter attacks, and defenses inside of The Matrix Online, the stunt and coordination work was immense. ZeroGravity founder Kerry Wong talks about his team, and the work they produced to bring the Martial Arts to The Matrix Online.

KW: The Matrix Online team has done research about not only what styles to incorporate, but also which movements from each style were appropriate for combat that reflex the content the most. Our main goal was to make the movements and fight choreography dynamic, unique, and hard-hitting.

KW: All martial arts styles have their own balance of hard and soft techniques, yet each style may have more hard techniques than soft, and vice versa. Karate is known to have not only more hard techniques than soft, but the hard movements in Karate are distinct to other styles that have hard techniques, using a more linear, hard-hitting, no-nonsense approach.

A direct opposite of Karate would be Aikido, mainly a soft style combat system. A very defensive martial art, it can still deal a great amount of damage by countering attacks thrown by the opponents. The Matrix Online team has introduced a couple of attacks in Aikido that will help balance out the style, not restricting it to be a defense-only style.

Kung Fu has a good balance of hard and soft techniques. As some techniques are linear, akin to Karate, the rest of the techniques encompass a more circular attribute to them. Even though the attacks and defenses are circular, they are not necessarily soft, as some of those techniques are considered to be quite powerful in the game. An example of this is the comparison between Changquan (referred to before as "Longfist"), a northern based style, versus Nanquan, a southern style Kung Fu.

KW: Changquan is comprised of techniques that are circular attacks and defenses, and acrobatics. Nanquan utilizes strong stances, and powerful punches. Both styles of Kung Fu are dynamic, lightning fast, and agile.

KW: To my knowledge, there are many martial arts styles in existence, and about so many more that were in existence in the past, that are now either no longer taught, or lost in history. With so many martial arts styles, techniques, and theories of combat, The Matrix Online team took advantage of this and utilized some movements to elaborate more on the essence of the martial art styles for The Matrix Online.

KW: Aspects of Capoeira, Taekwondo, and Muay Thai were used, for its unique feel on various attacks, aerial techniques, and style of movement. With Capoeira, movements flow with efficiency and grace. Taekwondo incorporates kicking combinations and aerial techniques that offer a different "snap" to their attacks. Muay Thai offers similar movements from other martial arts styles, as it is a form of kickboxing itself, yet the emphasis on power, speed, and other fighting techniques set it apart.

KW: The Matrix Online team did a great job in choosing which movements to use for each style. Incorporating the martial arts into the gameplay to not only make it fast-paced and entertaining, but also duplicate the essence of combat from the Matrix Trilogy, is quite an undertaking.

KW: Attack names were influenced by the way the attacks were executed, what type of damage the attacks did, and the overall look of the attack itself. For example, one of my favorite attacks in the game from the Kung Fu style is Piston Kicks. This reminded me of how pistons in a car's engine would move in a cylinder. You take 2 pistons next to each other, and they move up and down in a staggering fashion; as one goes up, the other goes down. Hence with the attack the feet act like pistons, kicking the opponent on top of the head alternately just as pistons in an engine would.

Another example is the Machine Gun Fist. The name, which is borrowed from a Wushu fighting style, FanZhiQuan (which translates to "Machine Gun Fist") places emphasis on lightning-fast punches. The Matrix Online team elaborated on this by throwing in other punches that weren't exactly true to the FanZhiQuan style, but retained the feel of a machine gun using fists as bullets to rattle an opponent.

KW: Kung-Fu = Piston Kicks; Karate = 540 Kick; Aikido = Most all counters.

The Monolith Art and Animation Team

Although the Monolith art team is still hard at work putting finishing touches on the game, Daryl Affleck, the lead animator for The Matrix Online was able to give us an excellent insight into how the art team approached the challenge of “Matrixifying” combat and how the martial arts style designs were executed upon.

DA: The goal was always to make Matrixy, dynamic, and acrobatic combat animation, but that works great only in a wide open courtyard with plenty of space.  The moves didn’t work in tight spaces.  So we’ve supplemented the dynamic moves with versions that don’t take up as much space or gain distance, for when, say, you engage in combat inside a closet. However, that shouldn’t be a frequent problem, as our environment artists jumped to the challenge of manipulating rooms to add lots of space for combat. 

There is also a restriction of time; if a move exchange happens too quickly, there is no time for the player to pick the next move, and if we make the move too drawn-out then the game doesn’t feel immediate.   Also, to make the most of combat, we had to convey the sense that the attacker is digging into, and pushing back, the defender.  Typical MMP combat is fairly static, and you end up with a bunch of attackers hovering around a defender.  In The Matrix Online, if someone is getting a pummeling, you’ll see the combatants slowly work their way down the street, down a hill, into an alleyway, across the bridge, etc.

Our animators are not only masters of motion, but, when needed, they are also great at making the most of the moves within the game’s limitations of time and space. 

DA: The animation team uses reference from anything they can get their hands on, but mostly, we use a combination of motion capture and video capture.  Each of our Martial Arts moves are video captured from three angles, to ensure we’ve got all aspects of major poses, and compiled onto a single video. 

We started out working exclusively with motion capture, but found that animating by hand was a much more flexible and organic process to meet the demands of our combat system.  With every type of attack, our martial arts expert, Kerry Wong, provided the animation team several alternatives to performing the same move.  This was immensely helpful especially when performing combo attacks within a certain timeframe or space constraint.

DA: Fortunately, we could follow most of the form and stances as outlined by our Martial Arts experts and other reference very closely.  There are some rare exceptions, like Aikido.  As I’m sure some Aikido scholars will testify, it is normally seen as a passive discipline that uses the momentum of the attacking opponent to defeat them. We had to alter parts of our “Aikido Style” by adding some aggressive attack schemes to keep our established combat selection congruent.  But we overcame this by making the Aikido defensive choices more prominent.

Animating by hand, instead of relying 100% on motion capture, is a big part of “Matrixifying” the combat content.  Real human movement, like raw motion capture, is sluggish when compared to the superhuman look of Matrix movie combat.  But it’s not just a matter of “speeding things up”, it’s knowing when to speed certain actions up, when to slow certain actions down, when to defy gravity, and when to add just a little more time on certain poses.  There is a visual narrative to combat, a jazzy rhythm, and you’ve got to know when to dazzle people and when to slow down to let them take it all in.

DA: An often overlooked aspect of “selling the punch” is the victim animation.  The way a victim reacts can add character to even the dullest of attacks.  The attack can seem powerful if the victim is sent reeling through the air.  The attack can appear superior if the victim reaction is one of humiliation.  The attack can appear unstoppable if the victim responds like they are trying to right themselves.  The attack can appear quick and unexpected if the victim acts like they were trying to make a move or is caught off guard before being hit.  Fortunately, our attacks aren’t dull, and our victim animations only saturate the Matrixy, superhuman feel of MxO combat.

DA: The animators make all their moves at normal game speed, and, as usual good animation practice, create animation initially by establishing active and dramatic poses.  BULLET-TIME™ is later tagged to specific combat moves (which contain animation segments), and when activated, the animation time is slowed and you see a 3-D spin of the characters in their brutal ballet.  Our extensive combat system makes it possible to use an animation segment in more than one move, so it was better to tag it on to the combat move than the combat animation.  Also, with a little practice, anyone can capture some of our dramatic combat poses through screenshots as well.

DA: There’s so many I like.  The “punt to the groin” is probably one of the most amusing.  “Triple Front Kick” is cool.  There is a “Body Shot” weapon attack that is over the top, but I love it.  Any attack where the aggressor leaps from the walls is a nice surprise. 

The context of the move makes all the difference.  At times when you’re being pummeled, and your health is on its last drop, and you feel like you are not going to beat your opponent, then you make a choice you weren’t sure was going to work and it does. That’s the time when a move seems all the more satisfying and dramatic.

I’ve looked at a lot of our animation, but I doubt I’ve seen every possible combat move.  Here’s why.  We have over 4,000 animation segments.  We have a tool that takes the segments and creates every possible attack combination.  Then it generates every possible reaction animation (blocks, hits, dodges, etc.).  Then the tool combines every possible attack combination set, with every possible reaction combination set.  Let’s just say it’s a large list.  The system works great and it continues to grow as we add more moves and combat styles.  I look forward to seeing more move combinations that I haven’t seen yet, as I experience more of our game, or see player screenshots and other fan art.

Although most of us will never become skilled martial artists in real life, The Matrix Online allows one the chance to pretend, just for a moment… that “I know Kung Fu.”

Take advantage of it.

Posted by The MxO Team