SOFTIMAGE COMPLETE JOINT VENTURE

SOFTIMAGE, a subsidiary of Avid Technology and Motion Analysis Corporation, have announced the completion of a joint venture to modify Softimage|XSI Viewer technology to facilitate live, real-time 3D viewing of motion capture shoots.
The collaboration between the two companies intends to give game developers and animators a reliable method to view fully enveloped characters driven by motion capture data in real-time, without stripping or filtering the characters of any natural motion.
The combined elements of the Software Development Kits (SDKs), creates a final product that redefines the quality and cost-effectiveness of a motion capture pipeline. Michael Sheasby, Softimage’s Director of Internet Business Development, said: “Softimage are proud to collaborate with Motion Analysis on this project. As Motion Analysis technology produces skeletons as well as point clouds, the XSI Viewer can present the motion exactly as it was captured.”
The XSI Viewer connects directly to Motion Analysis’ software, EVa RT 3.0. The Viewer can precisely reproduce the motion capture streamed from the EVa RT software to deliver complete, re-targeted skeleton information for each character.
Patrick Miller, Senior Vice President of Applications Engineering for Motion Analysis, said: “XSI and the XSI Viewer are natural technologies to use as the foundations of this new pipeline. XSI is an excellent tool for 3D content creation, and the XSI Viewer gave us all the features we needed - enveloped characters, high frame rates, excellent connectivity with XSI, and true WYSIWYG motion - in a real-time viewing environment.”(AMcE)