3D Character Animation Service Becomes First Online Platform to Enable Application of High-quality Motions Directly onto Biped System Control Rigs

Mixamo Inc. announces support for Autodesk 3ds Max biped system control rigs, significantly streamlining animation workflow for 3D artists and game developers.

3ds Max users are now able to utilize Mixamo’s online collection of customizable, motion-capture quality character motions and bake them directly onto their bipeds, an alternative to traditional motion-capture and keyframing processes to animate biped characters. Mixamo’s new biped system support, combined with its existing automatic retargeting capabilities and advanced real-time customization controls, significantly boosts productivity by allowing the creation of premium 3D character animations up to five times faster than current industry averages.

“Our goal is to continually raise the bar for 3D character animation technology, so that artists and game developers can skip the time consuming tasks involved with motion-capture and keyframing processes and instead focus their energy on the creative stylization of their character movements, ” explains Mixamo Co-founder and CTO, Stefano Corazza. “Providing 3ds Max users with an improved workflow for their biped character animation needs is a natural step toward this goal. Mixamo extends the convenience and power of 3ds Max’s biped system by providing an easier way to apply motions directly to these characters.”

With an accessible and intuitive interface, Mixamo allows animators, game artists and 3D professionals to browse through an extensive collection of production-quality 3D character motions developed from actual motion-capture data. After selecting a desired animation, a user can customize the motion using director-level, slider-based controls in real-time. Users may then upload personal biped characters to Mixamo, which automatically retargets the motion to the character. Once customization is complete, the user may download the motion directly into their production pipeline using standard FBX format.

The Mixamo online service leverages the 2010 version of the freely available 3ds Max FBX plug-in, and can be installed on 3ds Max 2008 or later. Mixamo’s support of Autodesk Maya control rigs is forthcoming. For additional information, tutorials and pricing information, please visit www.mixamo.com.

About Mixamo

Mixamo Inc. is a Silicon Valley, VC-funded company founded by 3D pioneers Stefano Corazza, CTO, and Nazim Kareemi, CEO. Based on research from Stanford University’s BioMotion lab, Mixamo offers the first online 3D character animation service that provides 3D game developers the power to customize and create professional-quality character animations at unprecedented speeds. Mixamo currently employs a team of outstanding computer vision experts, 3D animators, software engineers and serial entrepreneurs from around the world.

For more information, please visit www.mixamo.com, or follow Mixamo on Twitter.

Contact Information

Mixamo

2415 3rd Street
Unit 239
San Francisco, CA, 94107
USA

tele: 415.255.7455
fax: 415.255.7477
contact@mixamo.com
http://www.mixamo.com

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 12:05 pm and is filed under News.