Ninja Theory launches Senua Studio division
New business arm dedicated to provision of "Virtual Characters for Stage, Film, Broadcast, Games and VR"
Cambridge studio Ninja Theory, currently hard at work on Hellblade, has launched a new business called Senua Studio, which is dedicated to providing realtime virtual characters for TV, film and stage.
The proof of concept for the new branch came at GDC earlier this year, where Ninja Theory demonstrated a realtime virtualisation of a scene in Hellblade by having it acted out onstage and rendered directly in front of the audience. Later, at SIGGRAPH in July, the team showed off another example of the process by acting, capturing, editing and rendering a scene within minutes - something which would "normally take months."
Co-founder Tameem Antoniades expects the new tech to be used for live performances, realtime cinematography, pre-virtualisation and a wide ranging slew of VR applications.
"We have demonstrated working solutions today, and want to push forward the future of realtime entertainment," he said. "Be it live performances of digital characters for stage or broadcast, shooting fully-rendered CG scenes in realtime for previs, or interacting with believable characters in VR."
The studio's name comes from the lead character in the impressive-looking Hellblade - a warrior called Senua who fights both inner and external demons.