NaturalMotion Ships morpheme Animation Engine and Tool Chain
Powerful, Animator-friendly Middleware for Perfect In-game Blends, Events and Transitions
For Immediate Release
March 5, 2007
San Francisco - March 5, 2007 - NaturalMotion Ltd., developers of the highly-acclaimed euphoria and endorphin Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS) technologies, today announced the immediate availability of morpheme, a powerful new animation engine for next-generation game development. Featuring a flexible and unique 3D authoring tool chain, morpheme is designed to give animators unprecedented creative control over the look of their final in-game animation by allowing them to author and preview blends, blend trees and transition graphs in real time. morpheme is available on PLAYSTATION®3, Xbox 360TM and PC. NaturalMotion will demonstrate morpheme publicly for the first time during the 2007 Game Developers Conference (GDC), booth number 118.
"We developed morpheme to improve the workflow for next-generation game developers," said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. "By backing up a next-gen animation engine with a strong 3D authoring application, animators and programmers are now able to work hand-in-hand, in real time, to create fluid in-game animation that truly reflects the quality of the source data."
morpheme consists of two components: morpheme:runtime and morpheme:connect. morpheme:runtime is a run-time engine optimized for PLAYSTATION®3, Xbox 360TM and PC, and ships with full source code. morpheme:connect is a powerful 3D authoring application that allows animators to graphically author blend trees and transition logic (based on hierarchical finite state machines), modify and edit parameters through sliders (or even game pads), and view the results in real time. morpheme is designed as a flexible and open system and does not require the licensing of any other product. morpheme is also designed to seamlessly integrate with other leading 3D animation software and middleware technologies, such as physics engines.
Unlike euphoria, morpheme is not based on NaturalMotion's DMS technology. Instead, morpheme was designed to seamlessly complement euphoria (which is available separately through NaturalMotion's co-development program).
Key features in morpheme:runtime and morpheme:connect are as follows:
morpheme:runtime
lightweight run-time animation engine optimized for PLAYSTATION®3, Xbox 360TM and PC fully customizable blend nodes full hierarchical finite state machine euphoria support full source code suppliedmorpheme:connect
modern, fully scriptable application 2D and 3D viewports for authoring and visualization graphical authoring of transition graphs and blend trees real-time manipulation through sliders and instrument panel on-target viewer support for live game pad control script support (Lua) fully extensible through plug-ins euphoria supportPricing and Availability
morpheme is available on PLAYSTATION®3, Xbox 360TM and PC. For additional information on pricing, or to arrange a morpheme evaluation, please visit www.naturalmotion.com/morpheme.htm or contact NaturalMotion via phone (415-867-9679) or email at contact@naturalmotion.com. For additional information on NaturalMotion, euphoria, endorphin or DMS technology, please visit www.naturalmotion.com.
About Natural Motion
NaturalMotion Ltd. is the first company to create 3D character animation software based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS), a technology that utilizes Adaptive Behaviors and artificial intelligence to simulate the human-nervous system. Based on Oxford University research on the control of body movements, NaturalMotion's euphoria synthesizes 3D character animation in real time on PLAYSTATION®3, Xbox 360TM and PC, thus creating unique game moments and previously unachievable interactivity. NaturalMotion's other DMS product, endorphin, creates off-line animation significantly faster than traditional techniques and is widely used in the film and games industries, with customers such as The Mill, Capcom, Namco and Konami. For further information please visit NaturalMotion's website at www.naturalmotion.com, or join the 36,000 endorphin LE users at community.naturalmotion.com.
® NaturalMotion 2006. euphoria, endorphin and morpheme are trademarks of NaturalMotion Ltd.
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