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Show HN: An 8-bit live gamecast for baseball

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Re: Show HN: An 8-bit live gamecast for baseball

#31

Post by dylan604 »

vitorbaptistaa wrote: post #28

Amazing project! I'd love to see something like this for the football world cup. Maybe a FIFA 97 style? I wonder if some kind of filter would work or we would need some data source. Looks much harder given the fast-paced nature of the game.

The thing that works for baseball is how slow the game is. There's plenty of time in between pitches to make the animation simple. With sports with constant movement like a WC match would require a lot more resources. Might as well be a game engine at that point.

Watching one of these live just brings home exactly how low activity a baseball match is. You can easily miss a pitch if you're not actively watching it and keep your attention span on it. It also brings to mind how much the commentary during a game keeps the viewer engaged. Live video and a good director cutting to different cameras also helps. Radio with out the color would be insanely boring:

Here's the pitch, low and outside.Ball 1.

30 secs of silence.

Here's the pitch, fast ball down the middle. Swing and a miss. Count is now 1-1.

30 secs of silence.

Re: Show HN: An 8-bit live gamecast for baseball

#32

Post by e28eta »

I don’t watch baseball (maybe a couple games a year), but I think it could use some sound / audio, so you can have it running while doing something else.

IDK if there’s an easy way for the average person to get a live audio broadcast feed from games, so maybe your target market would be listening to that instead.

I’m thinking it could use some sound effects, for balls, strikes, hits, etc. I only tuned in for a couple pitches and then it was between innings, so maybe the more significant events already have something, and I just wasn’t patient enough to experience them.

I was looking away when the last out of the inning happened (or maybe changing views?). Is there a display of what caused the out, and maybe an animation of the fielders coming into the dugout, or does it flash up the “between innings” screen pretty quickly?

It might be nice to have a significant event summary available somewhere. It feels hard to believe that this would catch someone’s attention well enough that they’re watching the whole thing, and without audio cues / replays, I know I wouldn’t be interested in watching it for any length of time.

Re: Show HN: An 8-bit live gamecast for baseball

#35

Post by glenstein »

Amazing, and I love every pixel of it. We know the MLB is famously understanding with creative repurposing of their data, so I wonder what live data you are using and if the rationale for use is something like small scale hobby/fair use?

I know when it comes to historical data, projects like the Sean Lahman Database have to go through quite a bit of trouble to reproduce "clean room" versions of historical data that are legally fine to use. I have to imagine there's a lot of complications when it comes to live data for anything that even has a hint of being more than a hobby project.

Re: Show HN: An 8-bit live gamecast for baseball

#36

Post by brownrout »

e28eta wrote: post #32

I don’t watch baseball (maybe a couple games a year), but I think it could use some sound / audio, so you can have it running while doing something else. IDK if there’s an easy way for the average person to get a live audio broadcast feed from games, so maybe your target market would be listening to that instead. I’m thinking it could use some sound effects, for balls, strikes, hits, etc. I only tuned in for a couple…

Couldn't find a live audio broadcast to embed, but that would be ideal. Will add some sound effects soon, and also like the idea for key plays/events recap in case you miss anything.

Re: Show HN: An 8-bit live gamecast for baseball

#37

Post by brownrout »

dylan604 wrote: post #31
vitorbaptistaa wrote: post #28

Amazing project! I'd love to see something like this for the football world cup. Maybe a FIFA 97 style? I wonder if some kind of filter would work or we would need some data source. Looks much harder given the fast-paced nature of the game.

The thing that works for baseball is how slow the game is. There's plenty of time in between pitches to make the animation simple. With sports with constant movement like a WC match would require a lot more resources. Might as well be a game engine at that point. Watching one of these live just brings home exactly how low activity a baseball match is. You can easily miss a pitch if you're not actively watching it and…

For sure. And agree it wouldn't work as well for active sports like soccer or basketball.

Have some ideas on how to make this a bit more engaging for baseball, still. But ultimately it isn't really made for active viewing or to replace a live broadcast. I think of this more for the fan who wants to keep it on in the background or on the TV while they work or multitask.

Re: Show HN: An 8-bit live gamecast for baseball

#40

Post by brownrout »

fitsumbelay wrote: post #16

this f**ng rocks Something about the way baseball itself is played seems to make recreations really satisfying -- like, more accurate? -- and fun compared to say, soccer hilights of matches on Youtube made with what looks like an EA soccer video game I also really like the idea of recreating any type of event in this format. It's almost like photogrammetry but with as much creative intention as you have documentary.…

Thanks!! Agree baseball is a great match for this and just happens to have the data available, too. Have been thinking about what other formats this could lend itself to. Golf and tennis would be great fits, but data access seems limited/controlled.

For now, still a lot of work to be done for baseball. I'd love to get full in-field animation completed at a higher quality (think those 8-bit baseball iPhone games), and more details to give life to the stadiums and atmosphere.

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