April 27, 2006
New euphoria Technology to be Used in Upcoming
Indiana Jones Title
All in-game characters act like real people
with this revolution in behavioral simulation, ensuring a different experience
every time you play
LucasArts announced today that Indiana Jones’
first expedition on Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft
and PlayStation®3 will feature the revolutionary euphoria behavioral-simulation
engine from NaturalMotion Ltd., creators of the award-winning Dynamic Motion
Synthesis (DMS) technology. For the first time ever, euphoria enables
interactive characters – from Indiana Jones himself to the foes he pulverizes –
to move, act and even think like actual human beings without the limitations of
traditional animation. Characters move and adapt realistically to their given
situations on the fly, resulting in a series of experiences and payoffs that
will never be the same twice. As one of only two publishers with early access to
the technology, LucasArts is well advanced in integrating euphoria into Indiana
Jones’ 2007 next-generation adventure.
Imagine a swaying rope bridge. With euphoria in
action, characters visibly attempt to balance themselves, their feet stumbling,
their arms flailing, and their hands reaching for security as the unpredictable
movements of the bridge threaten to send them plummeting to their doom. Perhaps
they all survive. Perhaps they all fall. The use of euphoria means the action
isn’t scripted – it’s simulated – so you’ll never be able to predict exactly
what will happen, no matter how many times you’ve experienced a certain
scenario.
“With euphoria, A.I. drives character behaviors
so that there’s a different payoff every time. The depth of this character
interaction gives us true next-gen gameplay that you simply couldn’t do with
earlier generations of hardware,” said Peter Hirschmann, vice president of
product development at LucasArts. “We’ve been working with NaturalMotion since
2004 to help bring their groundbreaking technology to games, and there’s no
better character to demonstrate it than Indiana Jones.”
“We have big plans for euphoria, and we are
absolutely thrilled to be able to show it off in the first next-generation
release from LucasArts,” said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. “LucasArts is
an excellent partner with a real passion to raise the bar for next-gen games,
and we look forward to working with them to apply euphoria technology to its
games for years to come.”
LucasArts will demonstrate euphoria in action
when it debuts its next-generation Indiana Jones game on May 10-12 at the E3
Expo in Los Angeles, CA.
