Mixamo building ‘free-to-play’ animation tool Fuse

Mixamo is building a new ‘free-to-play’ toolset named Fuse that allows developers to use the tech without paying an up-front fee to access it.

The tech, which is covered in the latest issue of Develop in our character animation special feature, has been created in collaboration with Stanford University and is currently set for release in January 2013.

The tool itself will be free, with users paying for the particular models and assets they need.

Although keen to stress the tool was still in an experimental phase, with some of the exact features still to be ironed out, users will be able to create custom characters by assembling and seamlessly stitching together body parts.

The tool will also enable a direct integration with Mixamo Auto-Rigger and animation services, with further content packs to be released in future, essentially bringing the free-to-play model to games technology.

Mixamo CEO Stefano Corazza told Develop that Fuse has been designed to help alleviate the problem of high-costs versus high quality in 3D character modelling.

“This is a product that is going to complete the Mixamo offerings for character animation and it will go from character creation to texturing to rigging and all the way to animating the character,” he said.

“We are really excited, we’re only in beta on the product but the response has been really good and now we’re plugging in the material and texture component and we are going to be ready for launch in January.”

Corazza added that the company was also looking to allow the community to create its own marketplace of developer-created assets, where users can swap their creations and help keep the tool constantly updated with new animations.

For more information on Mixamo Fuse, which is currently underoing beta, visit the official website.