Euphoria Engine Breathes Life Into New Football Game With Fully Interactive, Non-Canned Tackles.AGEIA Technologies, Inc., the pioneer in hardware-accelerated physics for games today announced that NaturalMotion has integrated AGEIA PhysX technology in its euphoria motion synthesis engine to power its upcoming, highly anticipated football game for next-generation platforms, Backbreaker. Using the euphoria engine with AGEIA PhysX, NaturalMotion’s Backbreaker is the first football game to focus on hyper-realistic, non-canned tackling that will virtually showcase every shove, hit, and stumble.
“Backbreaker is more than just another sports title; it’s an entirely new experience. Using full real-time simulations of the athletes’ motor nervous systems and bodies enabled us to produce a fantastic, realistic sports experience that captures the riveting excitement of the American favorite past time,” said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. “By utilizing PhysX as part of our euphoria engine in this title, players in Backbreaker will never make the same tackle twice, giving them an intensely unique experience every time they play the game.”euphoria is a novel run-time technology for synthesizing interactive animations on next-generation hardware platforms. It is designed to replace canned animation data in a selective and non-disruptive way, and is capable of creating unique game moments during game play. At the heart of euphoria are real-time behaviors, which are AI motion controllers that adaptively drive the character’s muscles in response to sensory input. euphoria behaviors are not based on animation data. Unlike canned-data approaches, euphoria behaviors are fully procedural and are capable of creating new experiences for the player.
“Backbreaker is a fantastic example of the future of PhysX technology and gaming, itself. With AGEIA PhysX and the euphoria engine, game developers are able to seamlessly create characters that move, react and interact naturally in any situation,” said Manju Hegde, CEO of AGEIA. ”Backbreaker exploits PhysX to feature powerful physics-based gameplay with pervasive interactivity and realism. The on-the-field football action with different tackles every time provides a pure, realistic football experience that will truly change the shape of gaming.”
About AGEIA
AGEIA Technologies, Inc., is the pioneer of hardware-accelerated physics for PC games and has developed the world's first dedicated physics processor, the AGEIA PhysX processor. The AGEIA PhysX processor powers massive and pervasive real-time interactive worlds that for the first time obey the laws of classical physics. AGEIA provides a world-class cross platform software development kit to simplify advanced physics programming for the PhysX processor, as well next-generation gaming consoles. AGEIA is changing the face of gaming by working with more than sixty leading developers and publishers to deliver the next generation of physically immersive entertainment. The company, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is privately-held.
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 behaviors and artificial intelligence to simulate the human-nervous system. Based on Oxford University research, 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. In addition to licensing its technology, NaturalMotion is developing Backbreaker, an American football title for release in 2008.