Wednesday, February 20, 2008

EVE Online to use latest animation engine technology

As it's been mentioned on numerous sites over the course of the day (Gamasutra, IGN, GamesIndustry, Voodoo Extreme), CCP has chosen NaturalMotion's Morpheme animation engine to render the avatars, aka player characters (and NPCs I guess) in full 3D, as part of it's Ambulation project (see this EVE Forum thread for the whole story).

From the various videos available on NaturalMotion's site (a 69mb video requires registration), on Youtube, as well as an earlier video post on this blog, I'm very impressed to see the length to which our favorite Viking devs are going, to offer us an immersive game. There has never been better rendered motion in any MMO, to my knowledge.
"CCP has shown that they have the ability to take virtual worlds to new places," said Andy Payne, NaturalMotion's VP of Sales, Europe/Asia. "With NaturalMotion's morpheme technology, CCP will be able to blaze even more trails through the MMO space."
Ambulation looks very promising. Don't you think?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my god I wanna walk round in a station, meet up with some corp members and then go see my ship in dock, huge!
That would be awesome.

Anonymous said...

Ambulation seems to be dividing players into two distinct camps, those that welcome it with open arms and are excited about the possibilities it offers, and those like my wife, who don't want it as they feel it might lower the tone.

Personally I think my wife is being a bit of a snob, she seems to believe that EVE players are a better class of people than those who play WoW or Second Life, and wants to keep the 'riff raff' out. I am incredibly excited about Ambulation, some of the proposed features of coroporate offices look like they'll allow for a new level of tactical planning. Imagine standing in your corp/alliance conference room and calling a meeting, holograms flicker into life as members join the meeting and a representation of the galaxy flickers into life floating above the table. Onto this map all sorts of data can be projected, from fleet movements, enemy movements, battle plans, economic data, known trade routes, traffic density, the list goes on.

I'll stop now, suffice it to say that I think its a good thing and the wife doesn't, its causing alot of tension :)

Kirith Kodachi said...

I'm dying to see ambulation if only for the gambling and other money making prospects.

CrazyKinux said...

Seeing my Vexor or Myrmidon docked will indeed be sweet. Can't wait to post some of these screenshots.

I think that we can all agree that whatever CCP delivers, it will (1) be visually stunning, (2) will fit within the look and atmosphere of each race and (3) will add value to the game-play.

Kirith, see you in station, where I'll kick your butt at Amarr black jack! =)

No said...

I am not afraid of ambulation because the Eve community and CCP has set the tone for the new population that may or may not come to Eve Online. The entire culture of the game will remain as the majority.

Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat said...

I am really excited about Ambulation, I think it will add a whole new dimension to the game that wasn't there before!

I am a carebear, not a PvP pilot, and I think Ambulation will finally make carebearing and just getting tons of money much more viable because it will be a new place to spend your iskies rather then just on a new PvP ship!

I can't wait to play poker with millions of isk at stake!

Anonymous said...

Here's a link to your Econ post you was wonderin about.

http://ccp.vo.llnwd.net/o2/pdf/QEN_Q4-2007.pdf

Found it while bored at work. Outo