Softimage finally revealed what it's been up to since it acquired the Motion Factory last July, by announcing the first in a series of middleware products based on the Motion Factory technology.
Softimage|RTK Motion, the first module in the series, provides components for building a powerful run-time character animation system for any game engine or pipeline. Built on the "intelligent digital actor technology" from the Motion Factory, the Softimage|RTK Motion module consists of a suite of real-time motion-synthesis libraries. The Softimage|RTK Motion module provides character animation controls such as real-time inverse kinematics, animation transitions and multiple animation mixing. In addition, the Softimage|RTK Motion module has environment processing and intelligent motion planning, accurate collision checking, and real-time obstacle avoidance and motion warping, which enables characters to interact with their environment.
The product is currently in beta testing and is scheduled to be available in May 2001. Pricing and licensing information may be obtained from Softimage by directing e-mail to
[email protected] Additional Softimage|RTK components, such as Softimage|RTK Behavior (an integrated development system for creating, editing and debugging complex game logic on multiple platforms) are expected to be available in the second half of 2001.
