Euphoria and endorphin animation technology developer NaturalMotion has announced that Firefly Studios (Stronghold) has licensed its morpheme animation package for the forthcoming Gamecock published PC and Xbox 360 title Dungeon Hero. The morpheme engine is made up of two core components: morpheme:runtime and morpheme:connect. morpheme:runtime is a run-time engine optimized for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, and ships with full source code, as well as support for customizable blend nodes, rigid body dynamics, and IK. morpheme:connect is a 3D authoring application that allows animators to graphically author blend trees and transition logic (based on hierarchical finite state machines), modify and edit parameters through sliders, and view the results in real time. morpheme:connect includes 2D and 3D viewports for authoring and visualization, support for live game pad control, script support (Lua), and is fully extensible through plug-ins. First announced in June, Firefly Studios promises “a fresh take on the classic dungeon based game” with Dungeon Hero, including an in-game world that is “a totally functional, living, breathing community in every way.” Said Firefly designer Simon Bradbury, “In Dungeon Hero we’re creating an environment that needs to feel real and alive to the player. The game features a lot of fearsome monsters, and we wanted to ensure that their movements are natural. morpheme gives us that amazing degree of animation control, enabling us to produce very realistic-looking behavior.”