MAX PAYNE 3 - Euphoria for the Masses

By Michael Shelton / December 5, 2011

Chances are you€™ve played a recent Rockstar Game (Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead Redemption, L.A. Noire), and if you have then you have already seen the Euphoria Engine in action. It should be no surprise then that they€™re bringing it back. You can cheer now, because the Euphoria Animation engine is going to thrive in Max Payne 3.

Maybe you haven€™t actually seen this engine in action, and if you have not yet, it€™s okay. I hope you at least have a space heater underneath your rock. It€™s time to slowly step out and witness what I believe is very well going to be one of the best games of 2012. The use of Euphoria in Max Payne 3 is unique for the sole fact that it is purely a cinematic action game. Euphoria was created to add dynamic and realistic animations to character models. To achieve the thousands of different dynamic animation reactions, the engine creates the movement in real-time, combining physics, animations, and artificial intelligence. Each character model is based on a skeletal structure which has a set of muscles on top. After this is created, the character model is blended in and behaviours are created. With such a tight focus on cinematic gunplay, the behaviors used in Euphoria are going to be evolved, and used in a highly effective manner. Euphoria€™s set of behaviours are determined by developers, which they can alter and change in manners effective to their projects. The combining of artificial intelligence with the physics of the game world is what allows them to create animations on the fly in order to simulate real-life reactions. Each behaviour acts as an intelligence module that allows for individual character movement. One of the most impressive feats of this animation engine lies within the idea that it allows for characters to want to live, providing each character with behaviours that will force them to react to survive. If you combine this with a set of artificial intelligence based on individual sets of enemies, you create enemies that will react differently. Think of a trained police swat member vs. a common street thug. Wouldn€™t you expect each to react differently to taking gunfire? With behaviours, this is exactly what Rockstar can accomplish. Using these behaviours, Rockstar is going to be able to create a much more immersive action experience. Even from watching Max lie on the ground and shoot you can see that they€™ve combined animations of Max diving with the physics in order to allow Max to remain sighted on his targets, while continuing realistic movement in his environment. Max now collides with walls, slides along floors, and even moves 360 degrees while lying on the floor, all while fully reacting to the environment. Truly one of the most important aspects of how Euphoria will be used is the next iteration of hit reactions. One of the first things I did when I picked up Grand Theft Auto IV was marvel at how realistically characters reacted to gunshots. Shoot them in the leg and they never just fell straight to the ground, characters were limping away, or crumbling under their own weight. An enemy on a set of stairs was helpless as a shot to the leg caused them to tumble down flights of stairs. In Red Dead Redemption, I laughed at how characters flailed around as I dragged them across the Western Frontier lassoed behind my horse. Tell me you didn€™t laugh too. Yet, I can only imagine how much more weight each bullet will have in Max Payne 3, and I can€™t wait to find out.