Gearbox Software Licenses NaturalMotion's morpheme Animation Engine For Upcoming Titles
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - 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 it 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 a 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.
"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."
About morpheme
morpheme consists of two components: morpheme:runtime and morpheme:connect. morpheme:runtime is a run-time engine optimized for PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii, 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, 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. Unlike euphoria, morpheme is not based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis. Instead, morpheme complements euphoria's advanced real-time behaviors.
About Gearbox Software
Gearbox Software, located in Dallas, TX, is respected industry-wide for their ability to create award-winning, best-selling interactive entertainment. The company has established itself as an industry leader, developing games for many of the industry's top franchises, including Halo: Combat Evolved, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Aliens and Tony Hawk, as well as developing their own blockbuster franchises in Brothers in Arms and Borderlands. The company is currently developing multiple original titles for next-generation video game consoles and Windows Vista. Additional information regarding Gearbox Software can be found at www.gearboxsoftware.com.
About NaturalMotion
NaturalMotion Ltd. Is the first company to create 3D character animation software based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS), a technology that utilizes Adaptive Behaviours 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 360 TM and PC, thus creating unique game moments and previously unachievable interactivity. NaturalMotion's other DMS product, endorphin, creates off-line animation an order of magnitude faster than traditional techniques, and is widely used in the film and games industries, with customers such as Sony, Giant Killer Robots, The Mill, Capcom, Namco and Konami. NaturalMotion's third product, morpheme, is the industry's first graphically authorable animation engine designed to give animators full control over the look of their animations in-game.
For further information please visit NaturalMotion's website www.naturalmotion.com, or join the 80,000 endorphin LE users at community.naturalmotion.com.
® morpheme, euphoria, endorphin and Dynamic Motion Synthesis are trademarks of NaturalMotion Ltd. All other brand names, product names, service marks or trademarks belong to their respective holders.
Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox Live are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
CONTACT:
Wes Phillips
Kohnke Communications
415-955-8500
wes@kohnkecomm.com