MLB Story

Major League Baseball came to InSpeck about 2 years ago looking for 
a way to keep its image young and innovative. The league considered 
that by enhancing the level of quality in baseball video games it would 
achieve that objective. MLB also wanted to be the first sports league 
to provide their video game licensees with advanced images of their 
players and managers. The league and its player’s association realized 
that given the technological advances in digital photography and increased 
processing power of the new game systems, it would no longer be 
acceptable for video games featuring real-life athletes to deliver just a 
handful of recognizable images supported by a cast of generic, cookie-
cutter players. When they got in touch with InSpeck, it didn’t take long for 
all three parties to get on the same page and reach an agreement.

InSpeck’s baseball adventure started at Major League Baseball spring 
training in February 2001, in Florida and Arizona. It was on various Photo 
Days that close to 900 baseball players and managers sat for a quick 3D 
digitizing session. Phase 2 of the project, completed in September 2001, 
was to process the 3D data following the league’s guidelines. Finally, 
the 3D data was sold to Electronic Arts, Sony, Acclaim Entertainment 
and SEGA. These companies will incorporate InSpeck’s data in their 2003 
baseball games titles.

The project generated great results for every party involved and in the 
end, some of the most realistic 3D player models were sold to game 
publishing companies for next year’s baseball video games.   

This way, they had everything to gain from this venture; a great project 
with little investment and great results!

"The Major League Baseball Players Association selected InSpeck to 
provide 3D digital imagery of the players because we felt that InSpeck's 
state of the art technology and outstanding customer service would provide 
our licensees with a user friendly platform from which to push the graphical 
edge of the next generation video game hardware. InSpeck's technology 
will help make baseball video games the standard by which player graphics 
will be measured throughout the lifecycle of today's game systems.  
Thanks to InSpeck's technology and ability to work with our licensees, it will 
no longer be acceptable for video games featuring real-life athletes to 
deliver just a handful of recognizable images supported by a cast of 
generic, cookie-cutter players. People who see the upcoming generation of 
baseball games from Sega, EA, Sony and Acclaim will expect every player 
in a sports game to be a real-time, life-like, movie quality, 3D rendering 
of their real life counterpart."  

John Olshan
Category Director, Interactive Games at 
the Major League Baseball Players Association


And more comments!

From Game Developing Companies:
-  The game companies get high quality 3D data to work with all the 
   while saving 3D modeling time.
-  Their workflow is improved by cutting down on time-consuming modeling 
   tasks.

From MLB & MLBPA: 
-  By spearheading this project, they are very well positioned compared 
   to other sport companies on the technological front.
-  It gives the league the chance to promote the sport of baseball 
   and its players.
-  It is a chance for the League to keep its image young and innovative..