THQ Taps NaturalMotion for morpheme Animation Middleware
Teams Including Kaos Studios to Take Advantage of Tight Integration of morpheme and NVIDIA® PhysX™
SAN FRANCISCO and NEW YORK – April 15, 2009 - NaturalMotion, the animation technology company behind the euphoria engine, today announced that publisher THQ Inc. has licensed its morpheme animation middleware for use on future projects, including an unannounced title by Kaos Studios. The publisher recently announced that it has also licensed NVIDIA® PhysX™ technology, which is tightly integrated with morpheme’s character animation to produce dramatic results.
morpheme is robust animation middleware designed to give developers and 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. Since its launch in 2007, morpheme has seen rapid adoption in the games industry, including customers such as Bioware, Eidos and Disney.
Kaos Studios, the development team behind Frontlines™: Fuel of War™, will be one of the first THQ studios to make use of morpheme. The studio recently announced that it will be expanding its workforce as it continues development on an unannounced project.
“morpheme offers unprecedented control over run-time character animation. With version 2.0, its graphical authoring capabilities extend to physics, and character interactions with physical environments,” said Christian Staack, vice president of sales for North America at NaturalMotion. “THQ sees value in this powerful combination, and we will work closely with any of the publisher’s studios that take advantage of this deal.”
“NaturalMotion’s technology is invaluable to animators and developers, and the seamless integration of morpheme and PhysX helps to cut down production times and costs on these parts of the development process,” said Roy Tessler, vice president of production, worldwide at THQ. “Kaos Studios chose morpheme as their character animation solution after an in-depth evaluation, and we are glad to be able to make this purchase part of a wider licensing deal across THQ.”
 THQ licences morpheme for future projects press release
Autodesk and NaturalMotion Work to Integrate AI and Animation Runtime Solutions
SAN FRANCISCO, Game Developers Conference, March 25, 2009 -
Autodesk, Inc., (NASDAQ: ADSK) and NaturalMotion Ltd., today announced that the companies are working to build an advanced integration between their respective popular game development products — Autodesk Kynapse artificial intelligence (AI) middleware and morpheme animation middleware engine.
“Animation and AI have become increasingly linked in modern game development, said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. “Pathfinding algorithms, for example, require reliable execution by the animation network; in turn, believable motion requires precise timing and steering by the AI system.”
“Autodesk and NaturalMotion believe there is tremendous potential to simplify the interaction between AI and animation for game developers, and to significantly enhance the user experience,” added Marc Stevens, Autodesk vice president, Games Technology Group.
NaturalMotion’s morpheme is robust animation middleware designed to give developers and 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. Since its launch in 2007, morpheme has seen rapid adoption in the games industry, including customers such as BioWare, Eidos, Disney and many other leading publishers. The latest version, morpheme 2.0, adds natively integrated physics support for flexible addition and authoring of character dynamics.
morpheme is designed to integrate with euphoria, NaturalMotion’s revolutionary motion synthesis engine which recently debuted in “Grand Theft Auto IV” and “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.”
Autodesk Kynapse middleware is a world leading AI solution for games. This unique, high-performance, AI engine supports 3D pathfinding in destructible environments, including large-crowd pathfinding in complex terrains. It also delivers dynamic 3D topology analysis, team co-ordination, and efficient tools that help automate production. Kynapse has been adopted for more than 80 AAA titles, including “Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning,” “Fable II,” “Alone in the Dark 5,” “Crackdown,” “Medal of Honor: Airborne” and “Sacred 2: Fallen Angel.” Autodesk also offers Autodesk HumanIK middleware, a solution for procedural motion adaptation and correction that helps to enhance existing animation engines.
Autodesk and NaturalMotion Work to Integrate AI and Animation Runtime Solutions press release
NaturalMotion At the 2009 Game Developers Conference
NaturalMotion, the animation technology company behind the revolutionary euphoria engine, is heading to the 2009 Game Developers Conference to bring partners and members of the media up to date on the company’s product offerings. NaturalMotion recently released version 2.0 of its morpheme animation middleware, with tight integration of NVIDIA PhysX technology.
The company is taking meetings with game developers and publishers of all platforms, as well as technology and games industry press that are interested in how NaturalMotion’s technologies bring game characters to life.
Interested game developers should contact Christian Staack (U.S.) at christian.staack@naturalmotion.com or Andy Payne (UK) at andy.payne@naturalmotion.com
Additionally, NaturalMotion CTO Simon Mack will be presenting two sessions in the conference’s Visual Arts track:
Authoring Runtime Animation and Character Physics with morpheme 2.0 - Wednesday, March 25 at 10:30am – Room 3005, West Hall
morpheme & PhysX: A New Approach to Combining Character Animation and Simulation – Thursday, March 26 at 4:30pm – Room 3002, West Hall
NaturalMotion is also participating in the Game Connection America event.
NaturalMotion At the 2009 Game Developers Conference press release
NaturalMotion Releases morpheme 2.0 with NVIDIA PhysX
SAN FRANCISCO and OXFORD - Jan. 27, 2009 - NaturalMotion, the animation technology company behind the euphoria engine, today announced the immediate availability of morpheme 2.0 together with integrated NVIDIA PhysX™ technology.
morpheme is robust animation middleware designed to give developers and animators intuitive, 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. Since its launch in 2007, morpheme has seen rapid adoption in the games industry, including customers such as Bioware, Eidos, Disney, and CCP.
morpheme 2.0 introduces full integration with NVIDIA PhysX technology, encompassing both graphical authoring in the morpheme:connect tool, as well as the animation runtime engine.
In morpheme 2.0, NaturalMotion believes it has solved several fundamental problems holding back the combined application of physics and animation. As a result, morpheme 2.0 allows for the seamless mixing and matching of animation and physics methods within and across animation skeletons, thus providing a whole new toolset for creating lifelike characters.
“In previous animation solutions, physics has often been an afterthought, often only allowing for the addition of ragdolls or other basic physics methods as an ‘all-or-nothing’ effect at the end,” said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. “With morpheme 2.0, we have developed a method to give programmers and animators much more targeted and differentiated control over physics and animation. It is now possible to add arbitrary physics modes to different parts of the same body – all graphically. We’re also giving animators intuitive 3D tools to graphically author physics joints, joint limits and parameters. We believe this new method of treating animation and physics in tandem will become a fundamental requirement for more believable characters.”
morpheme 2.0 is a major release featuring many enhancements in addition to physics. In summary, version 2.0 provides the following new features:
• Physics integration powered by NVIDIA PhysX™ technology
-- Graphical authoring of physics skeletons, collision shape and joint-limits
-- Mixing of animation, hard- and soft-keyframing and active animation in the same skeleton
-- Support for different physics modes on different body parts
-- Transitions between animation and physics
• Enhanced multithreading model for runtime performance
• Enhanced animation compression methods
• LiveLink library to simplify connecting application to remote runtime target
• Pass-down pins provide support for animation network referencing
Availability
morpheme 2.0 is available starting immediately.
* NVIDIA PhysX is licensed separately, and is not required for licensing morpheme 2.0.
morpheme 2.0 with NVIDIA PhysXrelease press release
Trinity College Dublin Selects NaturalMotion’s morpheme
Animation System for Metropolis Research Project
OXFORD AND DUBLIN. - September 25, 2008 - NaturalMotion, the animation technology company behind the revolutionary euphoria engine, today announced that Trinity College Dublin has selected morpheme to power character animation within its Metropolis research project. Metropolis, under development by the university’s Graphics, Vision and Visualization Group (GV2), part of the School of Computer Science and Statistics, is a realistic, computer-generated ‘Virtual Dublin,” with functioning, large-scale simulated crowds.
morpheme is robust animation middleware designed to give developers and 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. Since its launch in 2007, morpheme has seen rapid adoption in the games industry, including customers such as Bioware, Eidos and Disney.
”morpheme is an excellent animation engine with great tools support. In Metropolis we’re aiming for very high fidelity character movement, for large numbers of characters, employing blending of motion captured data and real-time inverse kinematics. The morpheme animation editor tool allows us to quickly sequence motions at a high level and seamlessly deploy these in our engine run-time which means we can focus on the research problems of behavior simulation and motion planning,” said Dr. Steven Collins of the GV2 Research Group in Trinity College Dublin.
“The fact that morpheme is being used in an academic pursuit is very fulfilling for NaturalMotion, because the research behind our technology originated in academia,” said Andy Payne, VP NaturalMotion. “The researchers who will have a chance to use morpheme at Trinity College will be experiencing the same tools professional developers are using in AAA game titles.”
Trinity College Dublin chooses morpheme for Motropolis project press release
NaturalMotion Launches morpheme 2.0 at NVISION 2008
with Integration of NVIDIA PhysX Technology
SAN JOSE, Calif. - August 21, 2008 - NaturalMotion, the animation technology pioneer behind the revolutionary euphoria motion synthesis engine, today announced it will launch morpheme 2.0 at the NVISION 08 convention in San Jose. The new version of morpheme, the company’s multiplatform, graphically authorable animation engine, features tight integration of NVIDIA PhysX™ technology.
The integration of PhysX gives programmers and animators direct graphical control over how characters and objects interact in their games, whether it be through ragdolls or animation-driven physics. Continuing morpheme’s ultra-flexible paradigm, animation and physics can be blended and combined across body parts, authored via graphical nodes and controlled by user-defined parameters.
Moreover, morpheme 2.0 introduces a powerful graphical character authoring tool, allowing users to set up and edit physics rigs including collision surfaces and joint angles.
morpheme is currently licensed by an array of top-tier developers, including Bioware, Eidos, Ninja Theory, 38 Studios, Futuremark, Total Immersion Software, CCP, Gearbox Software, and many others.
“The goal of morpheme has always been to streamline the animation production pipeline, offering faster development times and higher fidelity,” said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. “We selected NVIDIAs PhysX technology because out of all commercial physics engines, it offers the highest character-grade fidelity, an essential requirement for creating believable characters.”
"NaturalMotion's technology marks a turning point in gaming. Its fidelity of movement makes characters seem so real that you want to touch them. And the PhysX integration lets you do just that," said Manju Hedge, vice president of PhysX technology at NVIDIA.
In addition to unveiling morpheme 2.0 at NVISION, NaturalMotion is also demonstrating Backbreaker, the company’s upcoming American Football game powered by euphoria, morpheme and PhysX.
morpheme 2.0 at NVISION 2008 intergrates with NVIDIA PhysX press release
Total Immersion Software Selects NaturalMotion’s morpheme
Animation Solution for DARPA’s Simulation Platform
SAN FRANCISCO and ALAMEDA, Calif. - August 7, 2008 - NaturalMotion, the animation technology pioneer behind the revolutionary euphoria engine, today announced that Total Immersion Software has selected morpheme as its animation middleware solution for the RealWorld simulation platform.
RealWorld, developed by Total Immersion Software under contract to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), delivers an intelligent tool suite providing drag and drop ease to rapidly create simulations so real that it can be used to train teams of professionals to handle complex situations such as military missions, rescue operations, and natural disasters.
morpheme is robust animation middleware designed to give developers and 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.
“Because realism is central to Total Immersion Software’s next-generation military simulations, every aspect of their products must mirror reality to the largest degree possible, including character animation,” said Christian Staack, vice president of sales for North America at NaturalMotion. “morpheme delivers that aspect of authenticity while also eliminating animation development headaches, and streamlining the overall animation pipeline.”
“By adding the performance and power of the morpheme animation run-time and the ease of its authoring component to RealWorld, we will be able to deliver a more true to life experience,” said Pete Bonanni, chief executive officer at Total Immersion Software. “With the ability to easily create realistic human characters, we will be able to enhance our overall product.”
Total Immersion Software licenses NaturalMotion's morpheme press release
38 Studios Licenses NaturalMotion's morpheme
Animation Solution for Unannounced MMOG
SAN FRANCISCO. July 15th, 2008 - NaturalMotion, the animation technology pioneer behind the revolutionary euphoria engine, announced today that 38 Studios, baseball legend Curt Schilling's online entertainment studio, has licensed morpheme, the first graphically authorable animation design tool and engine.
"morpheme's time-saving qualities become even more beneficial as the scale of games increase – the bigger your game, the more time your animators and programmers save thanks to an intuitive user interface and seamless front- and back-end integration," said Christian Staack, vice president of sales in North America, Japan and Australia for NaturalMotion. "This makes morpheme an invaluable tool for the development of MMOGs, arguably today's biggest and most ambitious games."
morpheme is robust animation middleware designed to give developers and 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.
"When selecting middleware we are very careful to find solutions that enable us to focus our attention on our game," said Jon Laff, chief technology officer for 38 Studios. "morpheme allows us to create very high-quality character animations quickly, cutting down on a lot of intensive animation design and implementation time."
38 Studios licenses NaturalMotion's morpheme press release
Futuremark Taps NaturalMotion’s morpheme Animation System for its Expansion into Game Development
SAN FRANCISCO and OXFORD, U.K. July 2nd, 2008 - NaturalMotion, Ltd., developers of the highly acclaimed euphoria motion synthesis technology, today announced that Futuremark Games Studio, the game development spin-off of benchmarking software developer Futuremark, has licensed morpheme, the company’s animation engine and graphical authoring tool.
“We have progressed in the past year from creating visually stunning machinima-style benchmarks into full game development,” said Dr. Jukka Mäkinen, executive producer at Futuremark Games Studio. “Gameplay has become our number one goal, with character animation in a low-gravity environment as a critical part of the gameplay experience for our game – morpheme is a uniquely flexible and powerful time saving solution that will help us achieve that goal.”
morpheme is robust animation middleware designed to give developers and 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.
“NaturalMotion and Futuremark are both steadfastly dedicated to advancing the technology that powers gaming,” said Andy Payne, NaturalMotion’s vice president of sales for Europe and Asia. “morpheme offers tremendous benefit to developers like Futuremark who are aiming for new levels of realism in their games.”
Futuremark licenses NaturalMotion's morpheme press release
Ninja Theory Licenses NaturalMotion’s morpheme Animation System
SAN FRANCISCO and OXFORD, U.K. - June 17, 2008 - NaturalMotion, Ltd., developers of the highly acclaimed euphoria motion synthesis technology, today announced that Ninja Theory Ltd., the developer behind flagship PLAYSTATION®3 title Heavenly Sword has licensed morpheme, the company’s animation engine and graphical authoring tool.
“One of Ninja Theory’s genuine goals is to push the technology envelope and create gaming experiences that are immersive and truly next-generation,” said Mike Ball, Chief Technology Ninja at Ninja Theory. “Today’s games require more than just realistic graphics – character animations need to be smooth, lifelike and convincing in order to really bring gamers into our worlds, and morpheme delivers the level of control required for that aspect of game development.”
morpheme is robust animation middleware designed to give developers and 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.
“With Heavenly Sword, Ninja Theory demonstrated their commitment to moving levels of visual fidelity forward in gaming,” said Andy Payne, NaturalMotion’s vice president of sales for Europe and Asia. “We believe morpheme will help them continue to raise the bar for the development of their new IP by giving more power to the animation artists and developers behind their groundbreaking games.”
Ninja Theory licenses NaturalMotion's morpheme press release
NaturalMotion and NVIDIA Bring a
New Level of Realism to Games
SANTA CLARA, Calif. and OXFORD, U.K. - June 10, 2008 - NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, and NaturalMotion Ltd., the developers behind the highly acclaimed euphoria motion synthesis technology, today announced that the companies have teamed up to offer game developers and publishers easy-to-use, highly integrated solutions for adding animation and physics in next-generation games.
Starting with the upcoming release of NaturalMotion’s morpheme animation engine, NVIDIA’s PhysX technology will provide rigid body dynamics functionality across its product portfolio, supporting both console (PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii) and PC platforms. In addition, PC titles will benefit from GeForce GPU acceleration for both PhysX and future versions of morpheme, bringing additional motion fidelity to the PC game experience.
“We’re deeply impressed by NVIDIA’s commitment to push physics to new levels of fidelity and performance, and their investment in development and support infrastructure across all platforms,” said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. “NVIDIA’s PhysX technology provides a robust, high-fidelity foundation for our advanced character animation algorithms and tools. Through our close collaboration, we will help game developers bring fully interactive and believable characters to a wide range of games.”
“The introduction of NaturalMotion’s AI and Adaptive Behaviors is the next big breakthrough in gaming,” said Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA. “This technology takes us into a new level of immersion as characters roll, jump, duck and react to the players’ actions and the environments around them. We are delighted to be working with NaturalMotion to bring this new level of character animation to the world.”
NaturalMotion and NVIDIA announce partnership press release
NATURALMOTION SHIPS morpheme 1.3: NEW VERSION OF POWERFUL ANIMATION ENGINE OFFERS UNREAL ENGINE 3 INTEGRATION, INVERSE KINEMATICS, AND MORE.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA and OXFORD, U.K. - February 19, 2008 - NaturalMotion Ltd., the developers behind the highly acclaimed euphoria and endorphin motion synthesis technologies, today announced the release of morpheme 1.3, the latest version of its animation middleware. morpheme is a robust middleware solution designed to give developers and animators unprecedented creative control over the look of their final in-game animation by allowing them to author and preview blends, blend trees and state machines in real time. morpheme is available on PlayStation®3, Xbox 360™, Nintendo Wii™ and PC platforms, and version 1.3 for the first time offers developers integration with Epic’s popular Unreal Engine 3. “morpheme has been proven by our users as a robust and intuitive animation solution for developers,” said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. “Version 1.3 is even more accessible, offering an unprecedented set of features that shifts the process of animation development from tedious lines of code to an easy-to-use graphical interface, whilst maintaining maximum code flexibility.”
morpheme 1.3 features a host of new functionality, including:
- Animation sets allow the creation of multiple characters or LODs, Inverse Kinematics (IK) nodes for a range of common tasks
- Automatic constraint matching for detection of events such as footsteps
- Support for live debugging of remote runtime targets
- Fully scripted user interface
NaturalMotion Ships morpheme 1.3 press release
CCP ENLISTS NATURALMOTION'S morpheme ANIMATION MIDDLEWARE FOR EXISTING, FUTURE MMO TITLES
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - February 20, 2008 - NaturalMotion, Ltd., developers of the highly-acclaimed euphoria and endorphin 3D motion synthesis technologies, announced today that CCP has licensed the morpheme animation middleware and will be integrating it into smash-hit virtual world EVE Online and upcoming unannounced projects.
"Deeply immersive visual experiences facilitated by high fidelity motion graphics are the hallmark of our virtual worlds," said Thor Gunnarsson Vice President of Business Development at CCP. "As a valuable addition to our technology arsenal, morpheme will support CCP's drive to deliver vivid expressiveness to the avatars populating EVE and yond."
morpheme is robust animation middleware designed to give developers and 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.
“CCP has shown that they have the ability to take virtual worlds to new places,” said Andy Payne, NaturalMotion’s VP of Sales, Europe/Asia. “With NaturalMotion and the morpheme technology, CCP will be able to blaze even more trails through the MMO space.” CCP Enlists morpheme Middleware press release
GEARBOX SOFTWARE LICENSES NATURALMOTION’S morpheme ANIMATION ENGINE FOR UPCOMING TITLES
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - February 14, 2008 - NaturalMotion, Ltd., developers of the highly acclaimed euphoria and endorphin motion synthesis technologies, announced today that Gearbox Software has licensed the morpheme animation engine and will be integrating into upcoming Unreal Engine 3 titles.
“NaturalMotion's morpheme is poised to make a huge impact on the animation pipelines at Gearbox Software. Gone are the days of building countless transition and tweening animations,” said David Carter, Director of Animation at Gearbox Software. “morpheme takes care of it all, while placing the ‘look’ of AI behaviors complete in the hands of our animators.”
morpheme is robust animation middleware designed to give developers and animators unprecedented creative control over the look of their final in-game animation by allowing em to author and preview blends, blend trees and transition graphs in real time.
“Gearbox Software has a strong pedigree of AAA-titles, and we are delighted they have chosen morpheme for their upcoming games,” said Christian Staack, NaturalMotion’s VP of Sales, North America, Japan, Australia. “Employing NaturalMotion’s technology will help Gearbox continue to push the already high quality levels of their titles”
Gearbox Licenses morpheme Animation Engine press release
NATURALMOTION JOINS EPIC GAMES' UNREAL ENGINE 3 INTEGRATED PARTNERS PROGRAM
OXFORD, UK and CARY, NC – FEB. 13, 2008 – NaturalMotion Ltd. and Epic Games, Inc.
today announced a licensing agreement to incorporate morpheme, the industry's first graphically authorable animation engine for PLAYSTATION®3, Xbox 360™ and PC, into Epic's Unreal Engine 3 (UE3), the most popular game engine for cross-platform game development. Under the terms of the agreement, NaturalMotion will join Epic's prestigious Integrated Partners Program (IPP), and its technology will be immediately available to any publishers or developers licensing UE3.morpheme builds on the existing UE3 character system by offering unique features for constructing very complex animation setups. Its external tool, morpheme: connect, enables developers to preview and modify elements in real time through the strategic application of state machines and blend trees. Like other components of UE3, morpheme’s existing animation nodes can be extended to provide game-specific functions. Future feature sets developed by NaturalMotion will be incorporated into UE3 per the partnership.
Epic Games UE3 Integrated Partners press release
AUSTRALIA’S ACADEMY OF INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT JOINS NATURALMOTION’S ACADEMIC PARTNER PROGRAM
SAN FRANCISCO, CA and OXFORD, UK, - DEC. 11, 2007 – NaturalMotion announced today that the Academy of Interactive Entertainment has become the latest member of the company’s Academic Partner Program and the first educational institution in Australia to teach NaturalMotion’s endorphin product.
"Endorphin is one of the most exciting tools in 3D production today, and the Academy of Interactive Entertainment is genuinely thrilled to be working with NaturalMotion to give our students the opportunity to work with it to strengthen their industry-ready skills,” said Matt Curtis, Head of School, AIE Melbourne. “The AIE leads Australian training for the game industry by teaching state-of-the-art technologies that the industry uses, so endorphin is a natural fit into our professional games development course."
NaturalMotion's Academic Partner Program offers leading colleges, universities and 3D animation schools subsidized fast-track access to endorphin and select upcoming 3D technology from NaturalMotion. The Academic Partner Program is NaturalMotion's sustained effort to establish a growing network of students who are skilled in next-generation animation technologies.
As part of the Academic Partner Program, qualifying schools and universities will receive:
• endorphin licenses on all school PCs that are used for relevant courses, such as computer animation and games technology.
• Early access to select upcoming 3D technology from NaturalMotion.
• NaturalMotion technical and supervisory support for select academic projects.
Educational institutions wishing to enroll or find out more information about the Academic Partner Program should send an email to contact@naturalmotion.com.
Australian Academy of Interactive Entertainment press release
GAMES ACADEMY OF GERMANY AND NATURALMOTION TEAM UP TO CREATE
THE NEXT GENERATION OF DIGITAL ARTISTS
OXFORD, UK, - NOV. 13, 2007 –NaturalMotion announced today that they have
entered into a partnership with Games Academy in Germany to integrate endorphin into
the course curriculum. In addition to utilizing endorphin, students will also have early
access to upcoming 3-D technologies from NaturalMotion along with the company’s
support for select academic projects.
"Thanks to NaturalMotion’s support, we have the ability to integrate this exciting
technology into student curriculum immediately,” said Thomas Dlugaiczyk, principal and
managing partner of Games Academy. “Upon graduation, students will have a leg up on
the competition because we strive to provide the latest professional-grade tools found in
the digital entertainment industry. The use of endorphin will be integral to helping our
graduates create the next era of digital entertainment.”
“We are thrilled that Games Academy has chosen to integrate endorphin into student
coursework,” adds Andy Payne, NaturalMotion’s VP Sales for Europe and Asia. “The
partnership highlights our commitment to support the educational market by giving
access to our unique technology and growing the user base.”
For more information on endorphin and how schools or universities can gain access to
this unique animation tool, please contact one of our resellers listed on the
NaturalMotion website or contact Rhian Mulcrone at +44 (0) 1865 250 575 or via email
at contact@naturalmotion.com.
Games Academy of Germany press release
NATURALMOTION’S RELEASE OF MORPHEME 1.2 ADDS Wii SUPPORT
SAN FRANCISCO, CA and OXFORD, UK, - Oct. 11, 2007 – NaturalMotion Ltd., award-
winning developers of the highly acclaimed euphoria and endorphin 3D animation
technologies, today announced that morpheme 1.2, the latest version of its animation
middleware, adds support for Nintendo’s Wii™ console. morpheme is robust middleware
designed to give developers and 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. In addition to Wii, morpheme is also available on
PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.
“Support for Nintendo’s Wii console was a natural extension of the morpheme product
offering,” said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. “Wii is enjoying tremendous popularity,
and we believe morpheme can help developers further expand on the new gaming
experiences that the platform has opened up.”
In addition to Wii support, morpheme 1.2 features a host of new functionality, including:
morpheme:runtime
morpheme:connect
-
Collaborative network editing through referencing
-
Reusable sub-networks
-
Enhanced copy & paste functionality
-
New flexible layout manager
morpheme 1.2 Wii Support press release
FIREFLY STUDIOS LICENSES NATURALMOTION’S MORPHEME
ANIMATION SYSTEM FOR DUNGEON HERO
OXFORD, UK – Oct. 09, 2007 – NaturalMotion Ltd., developers of the highly-acclaimed
euphoria and endorphin 3D animation technologies, today announced that Firefly
Studios has licensed the morpheme animation system for its upcoming PC and Xbox
360 title, Dungeon Hero. morpheme is a middleware solution that affords developers
unprecedented control over the look of their in-game animations.
“In Dungeon Hero we’re creating an environment that needs to feel real and alive to the
player,” said Simon Bradbury, Designer at Firefly Studios. “The game features a lot of
fearsome monsters, and we wanted to ensure that their movements are natural.
morpheme gives us that amazing degree of animation control, enabling us to produce
very realistic-looking behavior.”
Morpheme is robust middleware designed to give developers and 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.
“Dungeon Hero is poised to be one of the biggest action RPG hits of 2009,” said Andy
Payne, NaturalMotion’s VP of Sales, Europe. “Demonstrating their usual commitment to
excellence, Firefly is creating a dark, gritty and realistic experience and we’re thrilled that
they’ve chosen morpheme to create their in-game animations.”
Firefly press release
The Mill Uses endorphin for New Guinness Spot, “Music Machine”
OXFORD, UK – Sept. 12, 2007 –NaturalMotion Ltd., the developers of breakthrough 3D animation technology based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS), today announced endorphin was used by London-based visual effects powerhouse, The Mill, for the new Guinness commercial entitled, “Music Machine.” Currently airing worldwide, the :60 spot used endorphin to generate realistic character animation for hundreds of acrobats that surge around a pint of Guinness and bash into Japanese drums, creating a visual and musical representation of the action bubbling inside the glass.
The spot's production called for perfect synchronization between the stunning visual effects, live action filming and music composition. Imagery of three stuntmen was massively complemented by The Mill using high-end computer graphics (CG) techniques. The use of endorphin within the CG pipeline allowed for highly-realistic animation of the replicated acrobats, delivering precise, varied movements and believability to each perfectly timed action.
“We needed to avoid repetitive movement on multiple characters,” said Juan Brockhaus, senior 3D artist at The Mill and visual effects supervisor for this spot. “Once you have created one good animation or simulation of a certain action in endorphin, it is very easy to create those slight variations necessary for a realistic feel.”
Easily integrating with other off-the-shelf software applications such as Softimage XSI, Maya, Shake and Flame, endorphin’s ability to mix between pose-animation and simulating the real physical behaviors of characters helped to shorten the post-production schedule for The Mill.
“endorphin has created a new way of using animation,” continued Brockhaus. “Without it, we would not have been able to create the naturalistic movements of the CG stuntmen in the time we had to produce the commercial.”
Brockhaus served as visual effects supervisor for The Mill, collaborating with the creative teams at IIBBDO and Red Bee Media, to create the acrobatic characters.
The :60 Guinness spot was directed by Steve Cope and produced by Red Bee Media. ”Music Machine” is currently airing in Europe, the United States and Japan, and can be viewed online at http://www.beam.tv/beamreels/beamreel.php?yfZzxCsbxD.
The Mill - Guinness press release
IO Interactive Utilizes NaturalMotion’s morpheme for Game Development
OXFORD, UK – Sept. 5, 2007 – NaturalMotion Ltd, developers of the highly-acclaimed euphoria and endorphin 3D animation technologies, today announced that IO Interactive is integrating morpheme into its game development pipeline and will be using it to design assets for an upcoming undisclosed next-generation game title. morpheme is robust animation middleware designed to give developers and 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.
“We chose morpheme as our animation engine because we really liked the visual editor in morpheme:connect,” said Steffen Toksvig, CTO at IO Interactive. “We had a great experience with NaturalMotion’s support during our evaluation period and this experience continues to be an ongoing asset. We believe morpheme is a great fit for our animation pipeline.”
“IO Interactive is one of the leading studios in Europe and across the globe,” said Andy Payne, NaturalMotion’s VP of sales, Europe. “Apart from creating massive commercial successes, IO Interactive is constantly pushing the limits of game design and development and we are extremely proud that they have chosen morpheme as their animation engine.”
IO Interactive press release
NaturalMotion tackling the football video game genre with Backbreaker
SAN FRANCISCO, CA and OXFORD, UK – August 22, 2007 – NaturalMotion, the company behind the groundbreaking euphoria animation technology featured in Grand Theft Auto IV and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, today announced Backbreaker, an American football game developed exclusively for next-generation consoles. The title is slated for a 2008 release.
“Backbreaker is the first football game with truly interactive tackles. By utilizing our motion synthesis engine euphoria, players will never make the same tackle twice, giving them an intensely unique experience every time they play the game,” said NaturalMotion CEO Torsten Reil. “Backbreaker puts players in the middle of the gridiron by providing a pure, realistic football experience only possible on next-generation consoles.”
Backbreaker is more than just a new sports title, it’s a new experience. Incorporating NaturalMotion’s euporhia motion synthesis engine, Backbreaker will set the new standard for in-game animations in the football genre. In a departure from all previous football games, every tackle in Backbreaker is calculated and executed by the console in all its bone-crunching glory as it happens. Say goodbye to canned animations, and say hello to Backbreaker. For more information, please visit www.backbreakergame.com. Backbreaker press release
Red 5 Studios Adds morpheme to Next Gen Pipeline
San Diego – Aug. 6, 2007 – NaturalMotion Ltd., developers of the highly-acclaimed euphoria and endorphin 3D animation technologies, today announced that Red 5 Studios has added morpheme to its game development pipeline. Chosen for its intuitive graphical user interface and ability to increase collaboration between animators and programmers, Red 5 Studios is using morpheme for an unannounced next generation game title. morpheme is robust middleware designed to give developers and 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. NaturalMotion will highlight morpheme during SIGGRAPH 2007, booth number 603.
“We added morpheme to our pipeline because we wanted to give our animators more control over the final animations that would go into the game,” said Mark Kern, president and CEO of Red 5 Studios. “In a lot of other systems, after the animators export their work, they don't get to see how the animations interact until it is in the game. If they then need to tweak a transition between animations or states, they have to edit a text file and then run the game again, which usually tears at an animator's soul. morpheme has an intuitive graphical interface that allows animators to go in and setup all these transitions and preview them without involving much programmer intervention. It cuts down on the time that a programmer and animator need to work together to get a system working within the game, and let's the animator focus on what they were hired to do - animate.”
“The team behind Red 5 Studios has one of the most impressive track records in MMOs, be it commercial, creative or technical,” said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. “We are aware how important Red 5 Studio’s technology decisions are, and are proud they have chosen morpheme as their animation engine.”
Red 5 studios press release
BioWare Austin Taps NaturalMotion’s morpheme for Game Development
OXFORD, UK – July 18, 2007 – NaturalMotion Ltd., the developers of breakthrough 3D animation technology based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS), today announced that the Austin, Texas, division of BioWare Corp. is integrating morpheme into its pipeline and will be using it to develop assets for several undisclosed next generation game titles. morpheme is robust middleware designed to give developers and 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 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.”
“BioWare has a reputation for building amazing games,” said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. “We are very pleased they have chosen morpheme as their run-time animation solution, and look forward to seeing the interactive experiences they produce with the technology.”
Bioware Austin press release
Full Sail Joins NaturalMotions Expanding Academic Partner Program
OXFORD, UK – June 25, 2007 – NaturalMotion Ltd.,
developers of the highly-acclaimed Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS) technology, today announced that Full Sail Real
World Education is now a member of NaturalMotion's growing Academic Partner Program. This partnership ensures
that all students enrolled in the Computer Animation Bachelors Degree Program will benefit from increased access
to endorphin, and other innovative 3D technology from NaturalMotion.
Educational institutions wishing to enroll
or find out more information about the Academic Partner Program should contact Rhian Mulcrone at NaturalMotion at
+44 (0) 1865 250 575 or via email at contact@naturalmotion.com.
For additional information on NaturalMotion, endorphin or DMS technology, please visit www.naturalmotion.com.
Full Sail press release
Digital Domain Enhances Pipeline with NaturalMotion endorphin
OXFORD, UK – June 11, 2007 – NaturalMotion Ltd., the
developers of breakthrough 3D animation technology based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS), today announced that
Los Angeles-based Digital Domain is integrating endorphin’s award-winning 3D character -winning animation
software into its production pipeline. Digital Domain, an Academy Award visual effects facility best known for
its work on “Titanic,” “I, Robot” and “The Day After Tomorrow,” selected
endorphin for its ability to create complex and realistic character animation faster and easier than traditional
key-frame or motion capture technology.
Join the 45,000 endorphin LE users at community.naturalmotion.com.
Digital Domain press release
Swansea Institute joins Academic Partner Program
Oxford, UK–May 10, 2007 – NaturalMotion Ltd,
developers of the highly-acclaimed DynamicMotion Synthesis (DMS) technology, today announced that the Swansea
Institute of Higher Education (SIHE) is now a member of NaturalMotion’s growing Academic Partner Program.
Students enrolled in SIHE’s School of Digital Media courses, including BA (Hons) and BSc (Hons) 3D Computer
Animation, and BA (Hons) Creative Computer Games Design, BA Interactive Digital Media (Hons), BSc Multimedia
(Hons) & BSc Music Technology (Hons) will have increased access to endorphin, and other innovative
3D technology from NaturalMotion.
Educational institutions wishing to enroll
or find out more information about the Academic Partner Program should contact Rhian Mulcrone at NaturalMotion at
+44 (0) 1865 250 575 or via email at contact@naturalmotion.com.
For additional information on NaturalMotion, endorphin or DMS technology, please visit www.naturalmotion.com.
Swansea Institute press release
Education - webpage
Portsmouth University joins Academic Partner Program
Oxford,
UK-April11,
2007- NaturalMotion Ltd, developers of the highly-acclaimed DynamicMotion Synthesis (DMS)
technology, today announced that the University of Portsmouth is the latest academic institution to join
NaturalMotion’s expanding Academic Partner Program. This partnership ensures that all students enrolled in
the University of Portsmouth’s BSc and BA Computer Animation and Computer Games Technology programs will
benefit from increased access to endorphin, and other innovative 3D technology from NaturalMotion.
Educational institutions wishing to enroll
or find out more information about the Academic Partner Program should contact Rhian Mulcrone at NaturalMotion at
+44 (0) 1865 250 575 or via email at contact@naturalmotion.com.
For additional information on NaturalMotion, endorphin or DMS technology, please visit www.naturalmotion.com.
Portsmouth University press release
Education - webpage
NaturalMotion Ships morpheme Animation Engine and Tool Chain
San Francisco, March 5, 2007 – NaturalMotion
Ltd. 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 Ships
morpheme Animation Engine and Tool Chain press release
Rockstar and NaturalMotion announce partnership
Oxford, UK-Feb 27
2007- NaturalMotion today announced a partnership with Rockstar
Games, Inc., the world-renowned publishing label, to
integrate NaturalMotion's revolutionary euphoria engine into upcoming next-generation Rockstar Games titles.
Rockstar's integration of euphoria is well advanced, with today's announcement following several months of close
collaboration between the two companies.
Announcements regarding specific titles will follow at a later date.
Rockstar and NaturalMotion announce partnership
press release
NaturalMotion at GDC 2007, Booth 118
Oxford, UK-Feb 15 2007- Join NaturalMotion for our busiest GDC yet. For the first time ever,
we’ll be publicly showing morpheme, our new graphically authorable animation engine for PS3, Xbox 360 and
PC.
We will also provide the first public demo of euphoria, our Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS) engine that makes its
debut in multiple titles later this year.
And finally, get your hands on endorphin 2.7, the latest release of our popular DMS 3D application (34,000 LE
users and counting).
In addition to all this, NaturalMotion is hiring. To arrange an interview during GDC send your CV to  .
Andy Payne joins NaturalMotion
Oxford, UK-Feb 5 2007- NaturalMotion Ltd., developers of
the highly-acclaimed Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS) technology, today announced that Andy Payne has joined the
company as Vice President of Sales, Europe. Andy joins NaturalMotion from Autodesk, where he served as strategic
accounts manager responsible for Maya and 3ds max sales into companies such as Electronic Arts, Sony, Microsoft,
Moving Picture Company and
Framestore CFC.
Andy Payne joins NaturalMotion press
release
Bournemouth University joins Academic Partner Program
Oxford, UK-Jan 23 2007-
NaturalMotion Ltd today announced a partnership with Bournemouth University
that will make endorphin animation software available to all National Centre of Computer Animation (NCCA)
students. Bournemouth University is the first institution to join NaturalMotion’s Academic Partner Program,
a new initiative designed to offer select colleges and universities with increased access to the award-winning
endorphin, and other innovative 3D technology from NaturalMotion.
Educational institutions wishing to enroll or
find out more information about the Academic Partner Program should contact Rhian Mulcrone at NaturalMotion at
+44 (0) 1865 250 575 or via email at contact@naturalmotion.com.
For additional information on NaturalMotion, endorphin or DMS technology, please visit www.naturalmotion.com.
Bournemouth University press release
Education - webpage
NaturalMotion announces Academic Partner Program
Oxford Dec 19 2006.
NaturalMotion announced today its new Academic Partner Program, which offers leading colleges, universities and
3D animation schools subsidized fast-track access to endorphin and select upcoming 3D technology from
NaturalMotion. The new Academic Partner Program is NaturalMotion's first step in a sustained effort to establish
a growing network of students who are skilled in next-generation animation technologies.
As part of the Academic Partner Program, qualifying schools and universities will receive:
-
endorphin licenses on all school PCs that are used for relevant courses, such as computer
animation and games technology
-
Early access to select upcoming 3D technology from NaturalMotion
-
NaturalMotion technical and supervisory support for select academic projects
Educational institutions wishing to enroll or find out more information about the Academic Partner Program
should contact Rhian Mulcrone at NaturalMotion at +44 (0) 1865 250 575 or via email at contact@naturalmotion.com.
Academic Partner Program press release
Education - webpage
NaturalMotion releases endorphin 2.7 and eLE 2.7
Oxford Dec 5 2006. NaturalMotion today announced the immediate release of
endorphin 2.7 and its free Learning Edition, eLE 2.7.
endorphin 2.7 contains a range of new features, such as fluid interactions, a control panel plug for
Autodesk Maya, improved hold behaviours, more file format options and enhanced resources.
Along with the commercial version, NaturalMotion is releasing the free Learning Edition of endorphin
2.7, which is now downloadable from the NaturalMotion website.
endorphin 2.7 press release
endorphin product page
NaturalMotion announces funding from Benchmark
Capital
 Oxford Aug 15 2006. NaturalMotion today announced that it has closed a
financing round with Benchmark Capital, the top-tier venture capitalist behind eBay, Betfair, Setanta and
Bebo.com.
The additional capital will help NaturalMotion extend its lead in the development of innovative and
interactive 3D entertainment technologies such as euphoria, a ground-breaking motion synthesis
technology for next-gen game consoles.
Full Benchmark press release
Benchmark Capital
NaturalMotion announces morpheme
Oxford July 27 2006. NaturalMotion today announced morpheme, the first graphically-authorable animation engine for Playstation
3, Xbox 360 and PC
morpheme consists of a runtime engine (morpheme:runtime) and a powerful authoring toolchain
(morpheme:connect).
morpheme provides animators with complete control over in-game animation blending and transitioning through
intuitive 3D and 2D tools. Changes to the state machines, blend trees and animation parameters are reflected in
real-time in the 3D viewport of morpheme:connect.
"morpheme puts the animator in control of in-game animations", said Torsten Reil, NaturalMotion's CEO. "The
result is in-game animation of unprecedented quality."
Unlike euphoria, morpheme is not based on DMS. morpheme does, however, support euphoria out-of-the-box.
 Official morpheme page
morpheme press release
morpheme overview
NaturalMotion wins Develop Industry Excellence Award
 Oxford July 13 2006. NaturalMotion has won the 2006 Develop
Industry Excellence Awards (category Tools and Middleware).
Competing against several other companies, NaturalMotion was selected by an independent voting panel of
developers, as well as analysts and journalists.
"It's an honour to win the Develop Industry Excellence Award," said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion.
"NaturalMotion works very hard to create advanced technology for game developers, and to have the industry
recognise this with an award means a lot to us."
Develop Awards Press Release
Develop Industry Excellence Awards website
endorphin makes a splash in Poseidon
 Oxford May 21 2006. NaturalMotion today announced that endorphin
was used by Giant Killer Robots to create several character animation sequences for Poseidon, a Warner
Bros. production.
Boyd Shermis, VFX Supervisor, said: "endorphin did exactly what I needed it to do. It simulated highly complex
character animations, and did so quickly easily and seamlessly."
Poseidon press release
LucasArts deploy euphoria in next-gen Indiana Jones
 Oxford April 27 2006. NaturalMotion today announced that LucasArts
are deploying euphoria in the upcoming Indiana Jones title on next-gen platforms.
“With euphoria, A.I. drives character behaviors so that there’s a different payoff every time. The
depth of this character interaction gives us true next-gen gameplay that you simply couldn’t do with
earlier generations of hardware,” said Peter Hirschmann, vice president of product development at
LucasArts.
Indiana Jones press release
NaturalMotion announces euphoria
 Oxford March 13 2006.
NaturalMotion today announced euphoria, a significant breakthrough in
run-time animation technology for game play and development on next-generation platforms, including
Playstation® 3, Xbox 360™ and PC.
Based on NaturalMotion’s DMS technology, euphoria uses the CPUs of next-generation platforms to synthesize
interactive animations on the fly, resulting in truly unique game moments that occur during the player’s
experience. Unlike traditional animation playback technology, euphoria is not based on canned data recall, but on
fast simulations of the game character’s actual motor control, muscles and biomechanics.
Official euphoria page
euphoria press release |
