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38 Studios to use NaturalMotion's Morpheme engine
38 Studios, the star-studded development studio working on a mysterious MMO codenamed Copernicus, has announced that it will use an animation engine called Morpheme. Morpheme has also been used in EVE Online and Heavenly Sword. Its creator is a company called NaturalMotion, which also created the related and acclaimed Euphoria engine used in Grand Theft Auto IV and the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.Jon Laff, 38 Studios' chief technology officer, was quoted in the press release saying, "Morpheme allows us to create very high-quality character animations quickly, cutting down on a lot of intensive animation design and implementation time." Uh, good! Wouldn't want you to pick middleware that slows you down instead!So for those who are keeping track: Copernicus now uses BigWorld, Unreal Engine 3, and Morpheme. It's got the trifecta!
Get a physics lesson with this Euphoria tech demo
With the upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto IV and the building anticipation for titles such as Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Backbreaker, we're constantly asked about the Euphoria physics engine featured in said games -- and by constantly, we mean never. However, to prevent such a onslaught of queries, we present you with a recently released tech demo from Euphoria creators NaturalMotion, which exhibits some of the differences between their engine and those of the ragdoll variety. Yes, we truly have reached a new era of making Michelin Men fall down in increasingly realistic ways.
New football game Backbreaker uses euphoria tech
You've heard a lot about euphoria lately, especially from LucasArts, which is using the real-time animation generating software on everything from Indiana Jones to The Force Unleashed. You're even going to see it (someday) in Grand Theft Auto IV. Now, NaturalMotion, the company behind the software, has announced that they're working on a football game called Backbreaker utilizing the euphoria technology.Predictably, the tackling looks great, and we're assured that the the footage in the video below the jump is generated on a next-gen console with euphoria, so we're pretty confident that they've got the tackling down. In fact, if creating a football game were just about how good your tackles looked, NaturalMotion would have a blue ribbon in their future. Unfortunately, there's passing and catching and stuff, so we have to withhold judgment. (On a side note, this is one football game that can't blame EA for their lack of a license. We think the NFL would have a hard time giving their blessing to a game named for the breaking of backs.) Anyway, check out the trailer and let us know what you think.[Thanks, Christian]
E3 euphoric over Indiana Jones 2007
"Man...merman!" That's what Indy's been waiting 18 years for. The fourth installment in the big screen Indiana Jones series will find Harrison Ford on the hunt for the Opal of the Merman Prince (working movie title). Whether or not this will be the plot of the tentatively-titled Indiana Jones 2007 is anybody's guess. While at E3, LucasArts wasn't forthcoming about storylines for their next gen adventure, but they did take home a GameSpy Best Tech Demo award for showcasing the new Euphoria technology. Developed by Industrial Light and Magic, Pixelux, and NaturalMotion, Euphoria enables characters to react convincingly to their surrounding environments.Now, if only George Lucas and Steven Spielberg can convince us that the film will ever get made.
