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BUILD | ANIMATION TOOLS KEY RELEASE Will Freeman uncovers the workings of Mixamo’s new Autodesk Animation Store


WHAT IS IT? A new animation asset store within Autodesk’s 3ds Max COMPANY:Mixamo www.mixamo.com


THE RECENTLY RELEASED 2013 iteration of 3ds Max introduces the new Autodesk Animation Store, which provides developers with a vast collection of rigged characters and thousands of animations. Powered by online animation service outfit


Mixamo’s CEO Stefano Corazza (above) says the Animation Store offers users a chance to spend more time applying artistic style and less time developing technically accurate cycles


Mixamo, the Autodesk store content can be automatically applied to any biped and CAT- rigged character, offering a streamlined animation workflow well-suited to today’s greatly varied range of games development studio models. “Users simply select their character, choose an animation, and download it immediately onto their character all from within 3ds Max,” says Mixamo’s CEO and co-founder Stefano Corazza of the animation store’s key selling point; its simplicity. “Mixamo’s dedicated R&D and engineering


team designed and built the store for 3ds Max with the support of Autodesk’s engineering and testing teams,” He adds.


ON THE FAST TRACK Within Autodesk’s famed tool, as well as as a service in its own right, Mixamo’s automatic animation service strives to drastically speed up the flow of 3D animation pipelines – apparently processing workload at five-times the pace of other existing methods, saving towards 70 per cent of cost. “Animators can download animation onto their characters and tweak the animation data even further using layers and keyframe in 3ds Max,” explains Corazza of the store’s process. “This allows the animator to spend


60 | MAY 2012


more time applying artistic style to animation and less time developing technically accurate cycles. Many teams find that the animation provided by Mixamo is production ready for their characters.”


Users simply select their character, choose an


animation, and download it immediately onto


their character. Stefano Corazza, Mixamo


Motion clips in the store can also be


customised in real-time and previewed for no charge in the 3ds Max scene, so users can rapidly test multiple animations on any given character, allowing them to see how the motion will perform before making a purchase. With the clips bought, users can then take advantage of 3ds Max Software’s support for animation layers to non- destructively edit the animations as needed. Maximo’s new collaboration with Autodesk


also see’s the former’s offering subtly tweaked and refined to fit the Animation Store. Hundreds of specially rigged 3D characters are available both free and for purchase at the front-end, having been designed by world-renowned modelling professionals, while the back-end has been polished to provide a purely automatic


animation pipeline for CAT and Biped rigs, ensuring an experience that promises to be both robust and seamless.


A LASTING RELATIONSHIP Mixamo’s partnership with Autodesk in fact reaches back to the animation service company’s foundation in 2009. Back then Corazza and his colleagues worked closely with the Autodesk tools team to ensure that Mixamo’s 3D animation services work seamlessly inside the Autodesk suite of creative products. And it was that history that inspired a deeper integration that the organisations are sure will be beneficial to both Mixamo and Autodesk customers. And there’s a wider opportunity that could


see Mixamo’s service used by more creative studios from outside games development, or with those that combine making games with other mediums. “We see direct applications of the


Autodesk Animation Store for broadcasting, architecture, 3D training, and pre- visualisation professionals,” explains Corazza. “3D modellers can also use Mixamo’s Auto-Rigger plus Auto-Biped/Auto-CAT scripts along with the Animation Store to create rigged, animated versions of their 3D models in minutes. The Animation Store is useful for virtually anyone using character animation inside their project.“ With more partnerships between the two outfits in the future a distinct possibility, it seems the Autodesk Animation Store is just the beginning for the team at Mixamo.


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