She may have missed small details before, but we found it hard to resist telling you guys about Surfer Girl's latest batch of rumors. This time, an announcement of Diablo 3 was mentioned and other intriguing  games were brought to light. Head over to the full article to find all the details.

Lego Indiana Jones won't include the latest Indy movie in its game plot, but perhaps we'll see different in LucasArts' new Indiana Jones game. The studio has announced that the game is now in production, but unfortunately won't be coming out this year. Check out the full article for more details.

NaturalMotion Ltd. has announced that it has shipped morpheme 1.3, a middleware solution for popular consoles such as the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, and the Wii This version of the application adds support for Epic's Unreal Engine 3, live debugging of remote runtime targets, implementation of Inverse Kinematics and more. If you want to find out what else this middleware solution can deliver, head on over to the full article for more information.

We all know there's a huge disparity between games based on movies and vice versa. A movie based on a game (or the other way round) inevitably falls short of expectations because it was only riding on the success of the first. In the last SIGGRAPH, this is the gap that LucasArts and Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) are aiming to bridge.

In a panel between the two companies, the discussion held shows that there's been huge progress in that area.

Film and game collaboration is a commitment they have stuck to for years and has increased in speed ever since the two have moved into the same building in San Francisco two years ago.

The panel in SIGGRAPH discussed a number of things, including a huge advance in the tech they use for the collaboration between film and games. The programs stem back from years ago and have evolved to cater to the collaborative process, so it's exciting to see how this would affect The Force Unleashed.

They also emphasized a move on simulation-based gameplay. They have expressed that a number of future games will be based on NaturalMotion's engine "Euphoria," the same engine that powers the Rockstar Games. They also demonstrated Pixelux, a program that simulates the manipulation of objects according to the material it's made of, allowing for 3D effects even more faithful to its real-world counterpart.

We can expect a lot more from the collaboration of these two giants. We should see more solid proof of their progress once Star Wars: Force Unleashed (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PS2, DS) comes out so watch out for that one.

 

We've previously reported on the NaturalMotion's Morpheme Animation Package for the PS3, 360, and PC. Well, here's a little more on NaturalMotion's animation package that's supposedly set to improve work-flow for next-generation game developers.

NaturalMotion has announced that it will demonstrate Morpheme publicly for the first time during the 2007 Game Developers Conference at booth number 118.

Anyhow, just in case you folks were to lazy to click on that link to the previous report, Morpheme consists of two components: Morpheme:run-time and Morpheme:connect. run-time, is a run-time engine optimized for Sony's PS3, Microsoft's Xbox 360, and the PC, and ships with full source code. :connect, on the other hand, is the much touted 3D authoring application, that will streamline production work of videogame animators.

Morpheme is designed to seamlessly integrate with other 3D middleware technologies, and is even set to complement NaturalMotion's Euphoria Engine - which Rockstar loves oh so much, by the way.

Morpheme, Euphoria, Endorphin - is it just us, or does NaturalMotion have a habit?

NaturalMotion recently signed a deal with critically-acclaimed developer Rockstar Games involving its Euphoria engine. This time, the 3D character animation maker is proud to announce the release of Morpheme Animation Package for the PS3, 360, and PC.

The package is composed of two core components namely morpheme:runtime and morpheme:connect. NaturalMotion clarified that this is entirely separate from Euphoria. CEO Torsten Reil explained,

We developed Morpheme to improve the workflow for next-generation game developers. By backing up a next-gen animation engine with a strong 3D authoring application, animators and programmers are now able to work hand-in-hand, in real time, to create fluid in-game animation that truly reflects the quality of the source data.

We're not developers here but judging from what the CEO explained, it looks like the consoles and the PC would be happy to get a doze of this Morpheme. If you really want to know, here are the two components of the package:

• Morpheme:runtime is a run-time engine optimized for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, and ships with full source code, as well as support for customizable blend nodes, rigid body dynamics, and IK.
• Morpheme:connect is a 3D authoring application that allows animators to graphically author blend trees and transition logic (based on hierarchical finite state machines), modify and edit parameters through sliders, and view the results in real time. morpheme:connect includes 2D and 3D viewports for authoring and visualization, support for live game pad control, script support (Lua), and is fully extensible through plug-ins.