Nival Interactive to use LifeStudio:HEAD, LifeMode’s advanced facial animation engine in a new turn-based strategy game Silent Storm
Moscow – April 12, 2002 – Nival Interactive and LifeMode Interactive announce the conclusion of a licensing agreement which grants Nival the rights to use LifeStudio:HEAD, a high-end real-time facial animation package provided by LifeMode Interactive, for creating amazingly lifelike characters in Nival’s innovative 3D combat tactics RPG, Silent Storm.
Silent Storm is a true 3D game combining turn-based tactical combats and role-playing, set against the background of World War II. Silent Strom profits from a unique combination of hi-end technologies to make the gameplay both utterly realistic and user-oriented.
Fully deformable geometry allows arbitrary destruction of any obstacles in the game to give players more tactical freedom than the level designer has.
Bullet physics simulation, real-time “chain reactions”, advanced animation system featuring inverse kinematics ensure a realistic combat experience. Open architecture enables players to modify and construct their own settings and campaigns.
Thanks to LifeStudio:HEAD package, the game now will also give players the benefits of fully customizable game characters’ looks and movie-quality facial animations. Silent Storm will be released worldwide by Fishtank Interactive in 2003.
“We dedicated a lot of time and effort to make Silent Storm as customizable and open-ended as possible.
Beside other things, our intention was to enable a gamer to actually create the main character: not just playing with the statistics, but easily molding his face, up to achieving total likeness with the user.
This clever touch will further help creating empathy with the game characters.
LifeStudio:HEAD is a mighty package with an open architecture which will empower Silent Storm players to fashion their characters and provide them with automated quality lip-synch and facial animation.” – says Serge Orlovsky, President of Nival Interactive.
For LifeMode Interactive, Nival is the first among the, hopefully, growing community of LifeStudio:HEAD users. The commercially available version of the program was showcased at this year’s GDC for the first time, and has already attracted a lively attention of many strong game developers and animation houses.
LifeStudio:HEAD has been in development at LifeMode Interactive since the beginning of 2001.
The package features character creation facilities, including shaping of head mesh, blending of face textures, and hairstyling, as well as automated lip-synch, multi-layer facial animation, animation of eyes, etc., and run-time control over all the said functionality using API.
The program is built around an original macro-muscles technology employed in both modeling and animation processes.
About Nival Interactive
Nival Interactive, the leading Russian game developer, is a privately held company targeting the international games market.
Since the company’s inception in 1996, Nival has firmly established its presence in the international gaming industry through constant innovation.
Past titles include original role-playing/strategy games like the Rage of Mages series and Evil Islands, as well as the 3D turn-based strategy Etherlords.
A premier developer with three development teams and staff of 90, Nival Interactive continues to challenge the world of interactive entertainment.
Press contact: Elena Churakova, PR manager,
elena.churakova@nival.com, +7(095) 363 96 30
More information about Silent Storm can be found at http://www.nival.com/eng/s2_info.html
About LifeMode Interactive
LifeMode Interactive was incorporated in 2001 in Belmont, California. Its LifeStudio:HEAD is the first in a series of high-end software tools for game developers. The fast growing company aims at establishing itself as a leading technology and research brand in the games market.
Press contact: Bradford Brown, Director of Business Development,
brad@lifemi.com, +1 (650) 592 9229
