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Product: BioWare Chooses Morpheme For Next-Gen Projects
by Jason Dobson
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July 18, 2007
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MMO focused studio BioWare Austin and NaturalMotion, developers of the Endorphin 3D animation creation software, have announced that the developer has chosen to integrate NaturalMotion’s morpheme run-time animation technology into multiple upcoming next-generation projects.
The middleware allows developers and animators 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 realtime. While the number of games expected to take advantage of the technology was not revealed, a statement announcing the partnership noted that morpheme will be used to develop assets for “several undisclosed next generation game titles.”
morpheme consists of two components: morpheme:runtime, a run-time engine optimized for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC that ships with full source code, and morpheme:connect, a 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 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, and is also designed to integrate with other middleware and DCC applications.
“morpheme is a key component in our goal to develop a deep and complex animation pipeline,” said Gordon Walton, Co-Studio Director at BioWare Austin. “We wanted a powerful solution that would give animators the freedom to build and edit assets within the animation pipeline, which frees up the programming team for other tasks.”
“Some of morpheme’s features that have been useful in our development thus far are the innovative viewport, which provides the development team with immediate feedback on realism and accuracy of animation blending,” continued Walton. “We’re also pleased with morpheme’s drag and drop interface; it is great for quickly setting up trees and connecting state machines. We also anticipate morpheme’s animation building state machines to be beneficial to our project in the long run.”
The news marks the latest major developer to choose the company's animation packages for next gen products, following June's announcement that NaturalMotion's euphoria software was being used in Rockstar's highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV.
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