SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--3D character animation pioneer Mixamo announced today the Steam launch of Fuse, a universal expandable character creator that revolutionizes 3D modeling and texturing. With Fuse, users can browse, resize, customize and combine various body parts, textures, materials, clothing and accessories, to easily generate high-quality, royalty-free 3D characters in seconds. Through seamless integration with Mixamo’s online 3D animation platform, users can also effortlessly animate their Fuse characters.
Video demonstration on YouTube: http://youtu.be/bohAZUbKUK4
A new approach to 3D character art
3D character modeling has traditionally been a time consuming process requiring specialized skills and resources. Leveraging research from Stanford University and Substance technology from Allegorithmic, Valve and Mixamo now offer a completely new way to look at character creation, enabling anyone to easily generate their own customized models.
“The Steam community has always been extremely creative,” says Valve’s Mark Richardson. “As more and more people want to create compelling 3D and game content, there is an increasing need for new tools that are easy to use and that enable users to share assets and collaborate on their projects. Fuse is a great example of how to offer all that while also delivering high-quality assets.”
Endless possibilities with user-generated content
Fuse launches with a selection of hundreds of assets that can result in an infinite number of variations. Additionally, the character creator is built to constantly evolve through both regular DLC releases and user generated content. Soon users will even be able create, share and add their own smart textures to Fuse, making the character creation process a highly customizable experience with endless possibilities. Users will also be able to add custom-modeled body parts, clothes and accessories to Fuse.
“Mixamo’s mission is to democratize 3D character art,” added Stefano Corazza, Mixamo’s CEO and cofounder. “Today we’re excited to team up with Steam, bringing the latest technology for 3D character modeling to millions of users and making high-quality 3D character art accessible to anyone. Enabling users to add their own content to the asset collection is one of the features that keeps Fuse so unique, versatile, and always relevant. We can’t wait to see what users will create!”
Bringing characters to life
Once users complete their Fuse characters, they can either save and import them (in fully editable .obj format) into their games, machinimas, films, or 3D software; or they can take them a step further, Auto-Rig them, browse through thousands of high-quality animations, and apply motions to their models in seconds.
Including Team Fortress 2 characters
Team Fortress 2 character models will be part of the available assets included in Fuse. The popular game’s characters are favorites of the Machinima community and it will now be easier than ever to customize and animate them. Spy, Sniper and Scout are the first three to be released and are available today. The remaining six characters (Soldier, Demoman, Heavy, Pyro, Medic, Engineer) will be released in future updates. Just like any other Fuse models, the TF2 characters can be fully customized and animated.
Special launch promotion
Fuse is now available on Steam with a 50% off launch discount ($49 instead of $99) with a collection of 64 body parts (including, TF2, military, zombie, generic character assets), 57 clothing items and 25 smart textures. Fuse Basic is also available for free with 28 body parts (including TF2, some generic character assets), 25 clothing items and 10 smart textures. The two versions are released with identical feature sets. The first smart texture DLC is also available on Steam with a 57% discount ($29.99, down from $69.99).
More info is available on Steam.
About Mixamo, Inc.
Mixamo Inc. is a company founded by 3D pioneers Stefano Corazza and Nazim Kareemi aiming at democratizing 3D character art. Based on research from Stanford University’s BioMotion lab, Mixamo’s technology powers the first online character animation service that provides game developers the ability to customize and create professional-quality character animations at unprecedented speeds. Mixamo is home to a tight-knit team of outstanding animation and machine learning experts, 3D animators, software engineers and serial entrepreneurs from around the world. For more information, visit www.mixamo.com, or follow Mixamo on Twitter and Facebook.
About Valve
Valve Inc. was founded 1996, and produced award-winning games; Half-Life, Left4Dead, Portal and developed the groundbreaking social entertainment platform.; Steam.
