New Madden 11 Changes Highlighted By Lighting

Earlier this week EA Sports Lighting Artist Patrick Cowan wrote a blog sharing improvements made to the lighting approach in Madden 11. Cowans blog informs us on improvements that will focus on increasing the broadcast fidelity in this year’s game.

Cowan writes about lighting improvements made to stadiums, stadium lights, jumbotrons & ribbon boards, self-shadows, and daytime lighting in his EA Sports blog. It appears that the patterns of light and shadows will be unique to the individual stadiums to better emulate how they appear in Madden 11.

Developers began their vision of improvement with when the exposure on the field is set for the action. In previous versions of the video football game, night and dome stadiums were lit to maximize the visibility of the crowd. This caused a lack of consistency with typical broadcast camera exposures, check out the improvement in lighting inside the stadiums from Madden 10 to Madden 11 below:

M & T Bank Stadium in Madden NFL 10

M & T Bank Stadium in Madden NFL 11

In the picture above Madden 11 shows “a more dramatic shadow-to-light contrast, more shape and depth to the lighting, and a visual presentation which is truer to the photographic and broadcast appearance of the actual stadium.”

Be sure to check out Cowans blog for the FULL details on Lighting Improvements in Madden 11.