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Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is Dynamic Motion Synthesis?
A: Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS) is NaturalMotion's proprietary technology for synthesising animations on-the-fly. Previously, animation data had to be manually created (through key-framing) or recorded (through motion capture). This is often expensive and laborious, and results in static non-interactive data.
DMS is instead based on a full simulation of the 3D character, including body, muscles and motor nervous system. This creates fully interactive animations that act and react differently every time.
Q: What is the difference between endorphin, euphoria and morpheme?
A: endorphin and euphoria are both based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS). This means they are capable of synthesising animation data in real-time. endorphin uses DMS to create canned (or baked) animation data (but much faster than key-framing or mocap). euphoria uses DMS to synthesise animation on-the fly on Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.
Unlike endorphin and euphoria, morpheme is not based on DMS. Instead, it is an advanced animation engine and tool chain to drastically increase the quality of canned animation in-game. morpheme is, however, out-of-the-box prepared to slot in euphoria, and natively supports endorphin animation data.
Q: Who are your customers?
A: endorphin is in use at game publishers (e.g. Sony, EA, THQ, Take-2, Namco, Konami), VFX houses (e.g. MPC, Sony Imageworks, Giant Killer Robots) and simulation companies (e.g. Airbus, Northrop Grumman) around the world. euphoria is currently being integrated into several AAA next-generation game titles. So far, our euphoria partners are LucasArts and Rockstar.
Q: Is euphoria middleware?
A: No, euphoria is not middleware. Instead, we have close co-development relationships with our partners, which usually involves NaturalMotion behaviour engineers assigned full-time to a project. This, we have found, allows clients to hit the ground running and create euphoria experiences tailored to the specific title.
Q: Is euphoria a physics engine?
A: No, euphoria is not a physics engine. euphoria simulates the human (or
animal) motor nervous system on Xbox 360, PLAYSTATION 3 and PC. One can
think of it as biology meeting robot control theory. euphoria integrates
with a game's existing physics engine, which provides the basic body physics
(commonly known as 'ragdoll physics'). euphoria adds life to the dead
physics simulation. In short, ragdolls are dead, floppy bodies. euphoria
characters instead are alive and adaptive.
Q: Is morpheme middleware?
A: Yes, it is. morpheme ships with libraries, the morpheme:connect tool chain, runtime source code, manuals, and demos.
Q: How did NaturalMotion start?
A: NaturalMotion spun out of Oxford University, to commercialise research on human and animal movement (carried out by Torsten Reil and Colm Massey in the Zoology Department).
Q: What does the NaturalMotion logo stand for?
A: It started out as a wave on an oscillograph, spelling out the letters N and M, and symbolising the output from the first virtual nervous systems we created. The jumping woman was added shortly after to symbolise fluid and natural motion.
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