Station X Studios Project: Messiah 3D animation development team, composed of Station X president and co-founder Fori Owurowa, Station X co-founder Dan Milling and software developer Lyle Milton, have spawned a new Santa Monica-based visual effects production facility. The yet-to-be-named new companys business plan is to enhance and expand the character animation tools introduced with Project: Messiah at SIGGRAPH 99. The new production house will keep close ties to Station X and the three principals will remain shareholders. With a base price of US$695 per station, Project: Messiah boasts faster bones, faster expressions, easy character setup, real-time interactivity, a pre-managed interface, local/world coordinates on the fly, forward/inverse kinematics, procedural/key frame animation blending, motion-capture importing and truly interactive soft-body dynamics. With 14 years of CGI experience, Owurowa has helped design such programs as MetaNURBS®, Puppet Master, Metamation, Morph Gizmo, FreeForm 3D and several versions of LightWave 3D. During his 10 years at AT&T Bell Laboratories and AT&T Advanced Communication Laboratories, Lyle Milton served as an award-winning artist, project manager, technology visualizer and marketer. As co-founder of One and Only Media, he created LightWave plug-ins such as MacroForm and FXtremePRO, and co-wrote a book, 3D MODELING THE NATURAL WAY. Dan Milling, a former LightWave 3D programmer, was the developer of Translator 3D and co-developed Morph Gizmo with Owurowa. "In this market, anyone can be different, but our business strategy is to be better," Owurowa said. "Better services, better tools, better support, ultimately, a better product." Recently, the fledgling company launched the newest version of Project: Messiah. Version 1.5.4 has two more animation preview modes in addition to its standard 24-bit open GL: 1-bit black-and-white and 8-bit gray scale. Lyle Milton said, "These new modes will save on system memory and will improve performance on lower end graphics cards. Thats a big help to animators and game designers who may not be working with the latest systems." For more information visit www.projectmessiah.com.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
