Ubisoft Montreal Licenses Morpheme, Inks Long-Term NaturalMotion Deal

NaturalMotion says Ubisoft Montreal has licensed its Morpheme animation middleware for an unannounced game in development, part of a long-term deal the two companies forged at the same time. Ubisoft Montreal lead programmer Charles Jacob says the studio chose Morpheme after an "in-depth evaluation" from both the tools and runtime perspectives. "We were very pleased with the technology as well as with NaturalMotion’s support, and are looking forward to working together," says Jacob. NaturalMotion says Morpheme is intended to allow developers to author and preview blends, blend trees and transition graphs in real time. It's available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PC and iPhone, and developers like Zen Studios are using it in Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network titles. The company says it continues to see a "rapid adoption rate" for Morpheme; in July of 2009 it attributed an 80 percent rise in revenues for its first half to rapid adoption of Morpheme among game developers. "Ubisoft’s animation quality standards are famously high," says NaturalMotion CEO Torsten Reil. "We are extremely proud that the Montreal studio has chosen morpheme as the foundation for further pushing the boundaries of believable characters. We look forward to supporting this and future Ubisoft titles through a long-term partnership."