David Barton appointment
Facial animation expert joins specialists.
Cubic Motion, a leading studio for human and character facial animation, today announced that David Barton had joined their specialist team as a Producer, with specific responsibility for the company’s growing list of high-profile video game projects. David is a highly experienced executive from the video game industry, joining the team from his previous position at Activision (Bizarre Creations) where he played a leading role in developing ‘Blur’ and ’007 Blood Stone’. Prior to working at Activision, David spent 8 years with Image Metrics, where he opened their US studio and was responsible for all of production at their Los Angeles base. David has worked on numerous high-profile video game projects including Grand Theft Auto IV, Midnight Club: LA, Unreal Tournament 3, Devil May Cry 4 and the ‘Emily’ project for Siggraph 2008.
David explained his reasons for joining Cubic Motion: “We’re at a breakthrough point in video gaming where every developer can have access to great facial animation, whether we’re talking about stunning photo-real characters or highly stylized fun characters. In both cases, creating a compelling visual experience has to be an artist-driven process. Cubic is a truly unique service provider to the industry. Every pipeline is custom built, but put together in just a few days. The animation processes are completely unlike anything I’ve previously experienced – everything is designed purely to serve, rather than replace, the artist. The accelerated keyframe service in particular is a great example of what can be achieved even without performance capture, allowing studios to commission amazing animation with nothing more than an audio file. The biggest attraction to Cubic is the breakthrough in price and delivery speed – we can take world-class animation to projects which would have been unable to afford it in the past.”
Mike Jones, Cubic’s Director of Production added: “David has great experience of delivering large quantities of animation on major projects in video game development. He’s a very welcome addition to the team and we look forward to working with him as he takes our innovative approach into new projects with studios across the world.”
About Cubic Motion
Cubic Motion www.cubicmotion.com is a unique studio specializing in products and services for world-class facial animation. Cubic is run by a mix of scientists, artists and producers - all with extensive experience in movies, video games and television. The studio uses advanced technical processes and expert artists to produce animation from any data source, including video, audio and motion capture. Recent projects include EA’s Medal of Honor and Eidos’ Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Rates start at ten dollars per second for production quality animation. The company's advisers include Professor Chris Taylor FrEng OBE, Associate Vice President of Research at Manchester University, and Andy Wood, a games industry veteran and director of Peter Gabriel's Real World.