Nekki has announced a closed beta for Cascadeur, a new physics-based animation application that promises animators “the ability to create realistic action sequences of any complexity”. From the preview videos, it would appear that Cascadeur is a combination of a physics-based system like Endorphin, combined with the ability to keyframe poses, timing, paths and more. It is also possible to combine physics-based animations with mocap data and modify it without losing physically correct movements.
Cascadeur started life as an in-house tool with a development history stretching back ten years, it has most recently been used as part of Nekki’s Shadow Fight series.
Versions are currently in development for Windows and Linux versions with Mac OS promised in the future. Prices have yet to be announced. You can find out more about the tool and sign-up for the closed non-commercial beta from the product’s new website.
Does anyone remember Endorphin, didn’t it do exactly this?
Yes, but it was very expensive. I could never afford it, unfortunately. Don’t know where it’s gone now. I thought that we’d all be using behavioral animation systems by now.
Our plan is to keep Cascadeur free for indie-developers, freelancers and any kind of non-commercial use. So don’t worry about high costs.
I can’t wait to try it out. There’s a clear need for this. I was looking at the PL version of Endorphin yesterday, and it really is amazing. Autodesk were supposed to be doing something called Geppetto, but we waited and waited.
Hey Tom,
awesome news! That’s how you build a community… allready signed up for beta