IKinema, the company that specialises in full-body inverse kinematics, has announced today that developer Supermassive Games (Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, The Inpatient) has been using its middleware animation technology for its latest virtual reality (VR) titles on PlayStation VR.
IKinema RunTime, which is integrated with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4, procedurally animates 3D characters of any shape or size during real-time, so that the end result means that avatars respond with life-like, natural movements ensuring better immersion in VR. The middleware also enables studios to significantly reduce animation assets to slash production time and cost.
“We’re delighted Supermassive has leveraged RunTime to create triple-A caliber games for both the traditional and VR markets – it’s testament to the middleware’s power of flexibility and why our cutting-edge technology is already integral to so many high-end animation pipelines. We’re proud to work with such talented teams, and we look forward to working with many more,” said Alex Val, Clients Partner, IKinema in a statement.
“By integrating IKinema’s RunTime tech we have been able to take our character movement to a higher level by giving them a more solidly human look and feel as they interact with the world around them,” said Stephen Goss, Director of Design and Technology, Supermassive Games. “It has enabled us to maintain our high quality cinematic style and introduce new layers of simulation, movement complexity and realism into our characters. With this runtime solution, we can manipulate character animations at a new level of fidelity and our production time and cost is reduced. IKinema’s middleware is now solidly integrated in our project pipelines.”
Last week IKinema revealed that Linden Labs, the studio behind the upcoming social platform Sansar, would also be using its animation technology to make Sansar’s avatars as life like as possible.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of IKinema, reporting back with any further announcements.