NaturalMotion Releases Morpheme 1.3

Developer NaturalMotion has announced the release of its latest version of animation middleware morpheme, adding features including animation sets for the creation of multiple characters or LODs and IK nodes. The company says the morpheme middleware 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 state machines in real time." The package is available for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and PC, and, with version 1.3, will be integrated with Epic's Unreal Engine 3. Specific new features in the latest version include: 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, and a fully scripted user interface. "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."