BioWare Austin continues to license up a storm as they develop their much anticipated MMO. We do not yet know what it is - rumors say Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic themed - but we do know they've now licensed at least four technologies we know about. These two follow HeroEngine, which was their most high profile to date.
BIOWARE CORP. LICENSES PERPETUAL ENTERTAINMENT'S ONLINE TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM FOR UPCOMING MMO GAMESAN FRANCISCO, CA - July 19, 2007 - Perpetual Entertainment announced today that BioWare's Austin studio has licensed Perpetual's online technology platform for an upcoming Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) title. The agreement gives BioWare the platform to deploy and support its online titles utilizing Perpetual's industry-leading technology for online game operations, deployment, infrastructure development and community support.
"We evaluated numerous technology solutions to serve as the service backbone of our first MMO title and feel Perpetual's online platform is the best fit," said Gordon Walton, Co-Studio Director of BioWare Austin. "The Perpetual team has years of experience building infrastructure and tools for online games and we are thrilled to be working with them."
"BioWare is one of the leading developers of AAA games in the world and we know they will find the Perpetual platform provides both the functionality and ease-of-use they are looking for to support their upcoming title," said Joseph Keene, Co-Chairman and CEO, Perpetual Entertainment, Inc. "With the Perpetual platform, BioWare's Austin studio can focus on making great games while minimizing the time and effort required to deploy and support their titles."
The Perpetual online platform provides a technology backbone of modules necessary to deploy and operate any modern online game, as well as a collection of in-game features and services. Incorporating tools for player management, billing, customer relationship management, game feature extension, load-balancing, lobby servicing, patching and community management, the Perpetual online platform gives developers and publishers the tools to bring the next generation of online games to market faster, and with lower technological and logistical restrictions.
For more information please visit: http://www.perpetual.com/platform/
To top it off, yesterday, they also released the following news:
BioWare Austin Taps NaturalMotion's morpheme for Game Development
Powerful Animation Engine and Toolchain Makes it Easier for Animators to Build and Edit Game AssetsOXFORD, UK - July 18, 2007 - NaturalMotion Ltd., the developers of breakthrough 3D animation technology based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS), today announced that the Austin, Texas, division of BioWare Corp. is integrating morpheme into its pipeline and will be using it to develop assets for several undisclosed next generation game titles. morpheme is robust middleware designed to give developers and animators unprecedented creative control over the look of their final in-game animation by allowing them to author and preview blends, blend trees and transition graphs in real time.
"morpheme is a key component in our goal to develop a deep and complex animation pipeline," said Gordon Walton, Co-Studio Director at BioWare Austin. "We wanted a powerful solution that would give animators the freedom to build and edit assets within the animation pipeline, which frees up the programming team for other tasks."
"Some of morpheme's features that have been useful in our development thus far are the innovative viewport, which provides the development team with immediate feedback on realism and accuracy of animation blending," continued Walton. "We're also pleased with morpheme's drag and drop interface; it is great for quickly setting up trees and connecting state machines. We also anticipate morpheme's animation building state machines to be beneficial to our project in the long run."
"BioWare has a reputation for building amazing games," said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. "We are very pleased they have chosen morpheme as their run-time animation solution, and look forward to seeing the interactive experiences they produce with the technology."
About morpheme
morpheme consists of two components: morpheme:runtime and morpheme:connect. morpheme:runtime is a run-time engine optimized for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, and ships with full source code. morpheme:connect is a powerful 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 is designed as a flexible and open system and does not require the licensing of any other product. morpheme is also designed to seamlessly integrate with other middleware and DCC applications.
About BioWare
BioWare Corp. is an electronic entertainment company which develops computer, console, handheld and online video games focused on rich stories and memorable characters. Since 1995, BioWare has created some of the world's best-selling titles including the award-winning Baldur's Gate™ and Neverwinter Nights™ series, as well as the 2003 Game of the Year, Star Wars®: Knights of the Old Republic™. Original BioWare-created IPs include the 2005 RPG of the Year, Jade Empire™, with next-generation titles Mass Effect™ and Dragon Age™ currently in development. With studios in Edmonton, Canada, and Austin, Texas, BioWare is also hard at work on a new title for the Nintendo DS™, as well as a massively multiplayer online game. For more information on BioWare, visit www.bioware.com.
About NaturalMotion
NaturalMotion Ltd. is the first company to create 3D character animation software based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS), a technology that utilizes Adaptive Behaviours and artificial intelligence to simulate the human-nervous system. Based on Oxford University research on the control of body movements, NaturalMotion's euphoria synthesizes 3D character animation in real time on Playstation® 3, Xbox 360® and PC, thus creating unique game moments and previously unachievable interactivity. NaturalMotion's other DMS product endorphin creates off-line animation an order of magnitude faster than traditional techniques, and is widely used in the film and games industries, with customers such as Sony, Giant Killer Robots, The Mill, Capcom, Namco and Konami. NaturalMotion's third product, morpheme, is the industry's first graphically authorable animation engine designed to give animators full control over the look of their animations in-game.
