Autodesk Announces New Middleware and Softimage Mod Tool at GDC
On the heels of yesterday's 3ds Max 2010 announcement, Autodesk made several more announcements at GDC: new versions of its two runtime technologies for the game engine -- HumanIK 4 animation middleware and Kynapse 6 artificial intelligence (AI) middleware -- as well as Softimage Mod Tool 7.5 software (formerly SOFTIMAGE|XSI Mod Tool), the free 3D modeling and animation package for aspiring artists.
"Autodesk middleware products offer a solution to common runtime challenges, allowing development teams to concentrate on the creative work involved in authoring amazing new gameplay experiences," said Marc Stevens, former Softimage GM and now Autodesk Media & Ent. VP, games, under the new management restructuring. "For example, HumanIK helps to alleviate the burden of large clip libraries by enabling procedural motion adaption, which reduces the number of clips animators need to produce and maintain. With Kynapse, programmers can avoid the development time and costs involved in writing custom runtime solutions for universal AI issues, like spatial awareness.
"Softimage Mod Tool gives the next generation of game artists access to professional tools, so they can learn while making their own games or game mods.
Game developers can also use the software to extend the life of a game by building a community of modders. Game mods can go on to become commercial games in their own right, and they can be used by developers to identify talent for recruiting purposes."
In addition, Autodesk is building advanced integration between Kynapse artificial intelligence (AI) and NaturalMotion's 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 Stevens.
morpheme is 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 realtime. 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 motion synthesis engine, which recently debuted in GRAND THEFT AUTO IV and STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED.
Kynapse 6 key features include:
* Remote Debugger: The new remote debugging tool enables users to inspect the state of the game variables, with an interactive 3D view of the debug information. Users can also record and replay sequences, while retaining access to the data in the recorded files.
* New 3D Pathfinding Technology: The "flat" pathfinding technology introduced in this release offers simplified data generation workflows, more flexible runtime data streaming, and the ability to add new paths on-the-fly at runtime.
* Improved MMO support: Data resources and runtime services can now be shared across multiple Kynapse worlds, improving support for Massively Multiplayer On-line games.
* Enhanced Dynamic 3D Pathfinding: With improved CPU performance and granular control over memory consumption, characters can more easily avoid dynamic, movable obstacles.
* Hierarchical 3D Pathfinding: Characters can now plan paths that span the entire breadth of huge maps, even when those maps cannot be loaded in their entirety. The path is first computed at a low level of detail, and then refined opportunistically when more detailed data becomes available, keeping memory usage within set limits.
Meanwhile, HumanIK animation middleware frees animators from having to produce every possible animation clip by procedurally adapting existing character animation to game environments at runtime. Also, the technology's runtime retargeting enables developers to reuse banks of animation on characters of completely different scales and proportions. As a result, development teams can save time for more creative challenges.
"Autodesk middleware products offer a solution to common runtime challenges, allowing development teams to concentrate on the creative work involved in authoring amazing new gameplay experiences," said Marc Stevens, former Softimage GM and now Autodesk Media & Ent. VP, games, under the new management restructuring. "For example, HumanIK helps to alleviate the burden of large clip libraries by enabling procedural motion adaption, which reduces the number of clips animators need to produce and maintain. With Kynapse, programmers can avoid the development time and costs involved in writing custom runtime solutions for universal AI issues, like spatial awareness.
"Softimage Mod Tool gives the next generation of game artists access to professional tools, so they can learn while making their own games or game mods.
Game developers can also use the software to extend the life of a game by building a community of modders. Game mods can go on to become commercial games in their own right, and they can be used by developers to identify talent for recruiting purposes."
In addition, Autodesk is building advanced integration between Kynapse artificial intelligence (AI) and NaturalMotion's 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 Stevens.
morpheme is 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 realtime. 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 motion synthesis engine, which recently debuted in GRAND THEFT AUTO IV and STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED.
Kynapse 6 key features include:
* Remote Debugger: The new remote debugging tool enables users to inspect the state of the game variables, with an interactive 3D view of the debug information. Users can also record and replay sequences, while retaining access to the data in the recorded files.
* New 3D Pathfinding Technology: The "flat" pathfinding technology introduced in this release offers simplified data generation workflows, more flexible runtime data streaming, and the ability to add new paths on-the-fly at runtime.
* Improved MMO support: Data resources and runtime services can now be shared across multiple Kynapse worlds, improving support for Massively Multiplayer On-line games.
* Enhanced Dynamic 3D Pathfinding: With improved CPU performance and granular control over memory consumption, characters can more easily avoid dynamic, movable obstacles.
* Hierarchical 3D Pathfinding: Characters can now plan paths that span the entire breadth of huge maps, even when those maps cannot be loaded in their entirety. The path is first computed at a low level of detail, and then refined opportunistically when more detailed data becomes available, keeping memory usage within set limits.
Meanwhile, HumanIK animation middleware frees animators from having to produce every possible animation clip by procedurally adapting existing character animation to game environments at runtime. Also, the technology's runtime retargeting enables developers to reuse banks of animation on characters of completely different scales and proportions. As a result, development teams can save time for more creative challenges.
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