San Francisco, Calif. - 3D character animation service Mixamo Inc. announced more seamless support of Autodesk Maya 2011 software Full Body Inverse Kinematics (FBIK) Control Rigs, developed for the character animation space.
Using an FBIK rig based on Autodesk HumanIK technology, Maya software users can now apply any animation in Mixamo's online collection directly onto their FBIK control rigs. Consequently, Maya FBIK users can animate their characters more efficiently than previously possible. Furthermore, because the control rig is preserved, users can make additional keyframe adjustments to the applied animations. With these advancements, Mixamo can help to significantly reduce the time it takes to create high quality animations using Maya software.
"We are seeing more casual and mobile game developers move from a 2D to a 3D pipeline with Autodesk Maya software, as a way to differentiate their games in an increasingly crowded market," said Marc Stevens, Autodesk vice president, Games. "Mixamo's support for Maya FBIK control rigs will be valuable to these developers. It helps to simplify the animation process and makes quality animation more attainable for smaller game development teams working with tighter budgets and on shorter deadlines."
Mixamo provides animators, game artists, and 3D professionals an improved character animation pipeline that fits into their existing 3D projects. Users simply upload their own FBIK-rigged character to Mixamo and select and customize animations from an extensive production-quality collection, which are then automatically applied onto their character. Finally, users can download the animations and import back into their Maya scenes. This improved workflow results in significant time and cost savings.
The Mixamo online service leverages the freely available Autodesk Maya FBX plug-in, and can be used with Autodesk Maya 2008 or later.