Old School Patching Question

[robothobo]

Hey I was looking into some patching stuff, and I noticed something on the wiki having to do with the way patching used to be done. The quote refers to the methods pre-dating cyberface where a lot more fantastical stuff was produced by the community, and is as follows:

Theme & Fictional Roster Patches
"Although popular in early editions of the game, special theme and fictional roster patches are generally rare and not as highly sought after. They usually involve emulating a fictional league (sometimes completely filled with generated players) or a theme such as teams made up of NBA Live fans, fictional characters, celebrities or a mixture of all three. Perhaps one explanation for their decline in popularity is the advancement in graphics; the use of cyberfaces has made such projects longer tasks to complete with the expectation that all players utilise a realistic face. However, the decline in popularity may simply be the result of players becoming more interested in a realistic emulation of the NBA as well as other projects such as retro seasons and international league patches. "

I was curious if anyone experience here could explain in detail how patches used to be done. Was it a more 2-dimensional method? Are there any examples kicking around of these older patches? I('m picturing something akin to NBA Jam style sprites where crazy characters such as werewolves, aliens, etc, were layered onto a basic character model to produce new characters.) Any insight?

Thanks

[Andrew]

Well, before NBA Live 98 the series was not yet using 3D graphics which meant there were no cyberface patches. In fact, art patches were pretty limited so simply making a custom roster with celebrities and the like, with passable "faces" created from the game's CAP facial parts, was sufficient. It was somewhat entertaining to play with those special rosters simply because the player's names were there and the faces were good enough for what was available. It certainly wasn't a matter of having more sophisticated tools or options at our disposal. It certainly wasn't anything like NBA Jam's special faces; quite the opposite.

Lutz's old NBA Live 95 Roster Patch Package is probably the best example that's still readily available. The entertainment was in the concept, not the visuals.

[robothobo]

Interesting, thanks for the info. When you say CAP facial features what sort of system are you refering to?

[Andrew]

A very basic one. NBA Live 95-97 essentially used different player heads with very basic, generic facial features. For example, you saw a player with dark skin, a flap-top haircut who was seven feet tall and wore #33 for the Knicks, you knew it was Patrick Ewing even though there wasn't much more facial detail than that. Other players with a flat-top hairstyle used the exact same face, but you knew who it was supposed to be so for the time, it worked.

In that sense, the old "theme" patches could really take advantage of a "less is more" approach. Because the graphics were nothing like they are today, nobody expected miracles or for a celebrity to look that much different from a regular NBA player with a similar hair colour/style. We kind of accepted the limitations and rode the novelty factor. If you were making such a patch these days, you'd have to go ahead and make special jerseys and real face patches, making it a much larger and time-consuming project.