GTA IV To Use NaturalMotion's euphoria Engine?

27
Feb
2007
By Chris | 27th Feb 2007 at 19:34 GMT in GTA IV | 34 Comments

The news comes after it was announced that Rockstar Games became the second licensee to utilise NaturalMotion's euphoria technology. A short excerpt from the press release spells out the facts:

Oxford, UK-Feb 27 2007- NaturalMotion today announced a partnership with Rockstar Games, Inc., the world-renowned publishing label, to integrate NaturalMotion's revolutionary euphoria engine into upcoming next-generation Rockstar Games titles. Rockstar's integration of euphoria is well advanced, with today's announcement following several months of close collaboration between the two companies.

Announcements regarding specific titles will follow at a later date.

It's important to note that as of yet no specific titles have been confirmed, though it appears we'll be getting seperate announcements on those in the near future. Whether or not "several months" of collaboration is enough for Rockstar to have been using this, after all there are only 10 months until the release of the game, it should be very interesting to see this technology used. This paragraph of text should help to explain why this is quite exciting news:

Based on NaturalMotion's DMS technology, euphoria uses the processing power of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to simulate the human body and motor nervous system, thus creating fully interactive game characters that act differently every time. With euphoria, games move away from canned animation, towards a much richer, life-like experience that is unique to the player.

So essentially, you shouldn't see the same movements twice from characters, it will always be different just like in real life. It would certainly make for some very interesting game experiences. We may also see this technology used in some of Rockstar's other upcoming games such as LA Noire.

Links:

NaturalMotion

Press Release (pdf)

pyr0man1ac's photo
pyr0man1ac 28th February, 2007 @ 10:26 - Permalink

Wow... this is going to be amazing if they use this in the game. I can't wait!

K9 Krew's photo
K9 Krew 28th February, 2007 @ 10:43 - Permalink

YES.... This means the game will be the best thing ever IMO, Thank you Chris for this news update

2003's photo
2003 28th February, 2007 @ 10:53 - Permalink

Nice graphics.

CroScorpion's photo
CroScorpion 28th February, 2007 @ 10:54 - Permalink

Thank you Chris in one way in another now I can't sleep, man. I can't wait, when is beta version out :D

Gycu's photo
Gycu 28th February, 2007 @ 12:58 - Permalink

Great news.I already posted this info yesterday on another GTA4 topic but only 1 person read-it.What it means that the player movement will always different?

Gycu's photo
Gycu 28th February, 2007 @ 13:13 - Permalink

Sorry 4 duoble posting.I just foun what this Natural Motion can do.

I think it`s good,infact it`s damn amazing!!!.Check`it out ,it`s a must see video if you want to compare it with GTA4.

Adriaan's photo
Adriaan 28th February, 2007 @ 15:41 - Permalink
While we were all thinking that Rockstar were using their in-house RAGE technology in GTA4, it turns out this may not be the case after all.

euphoria is not a game engine in one, it's basically just an add-on or plugin, like Alias' Motion Builder.

CroScorpion's photo
CroScorpion 28th February, 2007 @ 16:15 - Permalink

Plugin in or not it's still greate.

I'm not sure is this real game screenshot but if GTA 4 gona look like this I can't say nothing anymore.

Gta 4

And its look like GTA 4 will be in London

Chris's photo
Chris 28th February, 2007 @ 16:26 - Permalink
Sorry 4 duoble posting.I just foun what this Natural Motion can do.

I think it`s good,infact it`s damn amazing!!!.Check`it out ,it`s a must see video if you want to compare it with GTA4.

Well that's showing off endorphin, which is a different product, though I'd imagine they're using the same engine anyway, so it's a nice demonstration.

Plugin in or not it's still greate.

I'm not sure is this real game screenshot but if GTA 4 gona look like this I can't say nothing anymore.

Gta 4

And its look like GTA 4 will be in London

You're not sure? Are you new to the whole GTA thing or something? Those are all fakes, some are even stolen from this site. It's not even a trailer it's just a slideshow of fake screens, and you fell for that? Wow.

Anyway yes this is great news, GTA4 is going to have some awe-inspiring graphics and physics by the looks of things.

Scott.'s photo
Scott. 28th February, 2007 @ 17:38 - Permalink

Thanks for the update Chris. Once again I'll say your the best person for gaming info. What would we do without Chris?!?!?!?!

CroScorpion's photo
CroScorpion 28th February, 2007 @ 18:05 - Permalink

Listen to him, gta Players.

DareDevilX's photo
DareDevilX 28th February, 2007 @ 18:07 - Permalink

Thanks Chris,amazing news really.It seems like GTA IV is gonna rock!

TM™'s photo
TM™ 28th February, 2007 @ 18:17 - Permalink

Yeah, GTA4 gonna be great, atleast for it's graphics ofcourse. :D

Ciaran's photo
Ciaran 28th February, 2007 @ 18:43 - Permalink

GTA:4 will be the best and great work on finding this, best info so far.

Harwood Butcher's photo
Harwood Butcher 28th February, 2007 @ 22:24 - Permalink

I saw this on PlanetGTA yesterday, but they got the news from someone else. Seems like pretty kick ass stuff. Rockstar might be going all out on GTAIV. Much like what they did when they went from topdown to 3D with GTAIII.

E.J.'s photo
E.J. 1st March, 2007 @ 00:09 - Permalink

A that endophorin shit is vicious. So every action of the character is going to be different. Damn, I can't wit for GTA IV to come. I'ma probably beat it in a week because I'm not gonna sleep.

tilly's photo
tilly 1st March, 2007 @ 01:37 - Permalink

OMG! are they really gunna use it?!?!? IVE been wishing for this forever!! you can see that i wrote like 200 posts on the wishlist about euphoria physics. You should see the freeroam running animation, it looks so real!

wow i just looked back at my posts, and it seems like what i sed was like telling the future! zomgzwtflol! :o

CroScorpion's photo
CroScorpion 1st March, 2007 @ 06:53 - Permalink

Endophorin stuff will make game very less boring and game will give a lot more fun.

Pandora's photo
Pandora 1st March, 2007 @ 09:47 - Permalink

Little late on this, but this looks awesome.

This is about forcing me to buy a 360. I really don't want to wait a year untill I can finally play it.

Nice graphics.

This doesn't have anything directly to do with graphics...

Sorry 4 duoble posting.I just foun what this Natural Motion can do.

I think it`s good,infact it`s damn amazing!!!.Check`it out ,it`s a must see video if you want to compare it with GTA4.

I don't think GTA IV will have it that good, somehow. But it looks great. And will require lot's of power to for PC's, that is if it ever get's a PC release.

Gycu's photo
Gycu 1st March, 2007 @ 13:32 - Permalink

In case that you don`t know there is a GTA 4 System Requirements Topic that I start,so you can talk about that there.

http://www.thegtaplace.com/forums/index.ph...=9821&st=60

GTA 4 using Natural motion will be 10 better than previous GTAs. in all motion aspects :) But is only this that will make GTA IV better than GTA 3 ,just like GTA 3 was a revolution compared it with GTA 2,without the graphic improvements?

Pandora's photo
Pandora 1st March, 2007 @ 14:21 - Permalink

Must be fun if they use this for all the shooting stuff.

And it will be fun to throw someone down the stares to, you'l see them fall like a rag-doll :P

Chris's photo
Chris 1st March, 2007 @ 14:30 - Permalink

I know what you mean but don't confuse this with rag-doll physics, they are an actual type of physics, which are similar to what euphoria has done, except it's literally like a rag-doll, movements aren't human. Unless that human is dead of course.

Also to everyone who's talking about endorphin, that's a different product. Rockstar are using euphoria. Read more about the two different products on http://www.naturalmotion.com.

And all the comments regarding system specs have been moved to the topic in the GTA4 forum dedicated to it. Please do not talk about that here, Your comments on news posts are supposed to be directly related to the story. Thanks.

Gycu's photo
Gycu 1st March, 2007 @ 14:38 - Permalink

That`s what I told them,to talk about system requirements .Yes my bad,Endorphin it`s not what GTA 4 will use,GTA 4 will use Euphoria.But are similar.

You mean like their posts about system specs were moved to my topic?

Chris's photo
Chris 1st March, 2007 @ 14:44 - Permalink

Yes their posts have been moved into your topic Gycu, mods and admins can move not only topics but individual posts too ;)

Also, back on topic yet again, here are direct links to the endorphin and euphoria pages. Yes they are similar, and you may be confused as to what the actual differences are, but unless you're working in the 3D model or animation industry you don't need to know ;)

The point is that the press release specifically states euphoria, rather than all or any other of the products made by NaturalMotion. Just to clear up any confusion.

Another point to make clear is that nowhere does it specifically state GTA4 will use it, but it is heavily implied, so that's what we're expecting.

Gycu's photo
Gycu 1st March, 2007 @ 14:51 - Permalink

So wichone is best,Euphoria or Endorphin?Chris,anyone?

Chris's photo
Chris 1st March, 2007 @ 15:06 - Permalink

Well I'm not sure if you can which is "best", but I should have linked to the FAQ, there's an explanation of their products' differences:

Q: What is the difference between endorphin, euphoria and morpheme?

A: endorphin and euphoria are both based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS). This means they are capable of synthesising animation data in real-time. endorphin uses DMS to create canned (or baked) animation data (but much faster than key-framing or mocap). euphoria uses DMS to synthesise animation on-the fly on Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

Unlike endorphin and euphoria, morpheme is not based on DMS. Instead, it is an advanced animation engine and tool chain to drastically increase the quality of canned animation in-game. morpheme is, however, out-of-the-box prepared to slot in euphoria, and natively supports endorphin animation data.

If I'm understanding it correctly, endorphin creates animation data which characters can use during a game. While euphoria generates animations just when needed, the character movements aren't scripted as such, they are unique and not created before hand, like with endorphin. I'm not an animations expert though so I may be misinterpreting this myself, so don't take my word for it.

Does it really matter that you all know the specific differences though? :P

Gycu's photo
Gycu 1st March, 2007 @ 15:10 - Permalink

So there are similar but also different :) No it was just a question,just to caompare Euphoria with endorphin.BTW I`ve heard of another Natural Motion Engine,not just endorphin & euphoria.I think it`s false but I`ll try to search something on the net.

Chris's photo
Chris 1st March, 2007 @ 15:12 - Permalink

morpheme? It's on their site and mentioned in the quote from the FAQ I posted above. But that's completely different from the two other products, so let's stay away from that before everyone gets confused.

Gycu's photo
Gycu 1st March, 2007 @ 15:16 - Permalink

Ok.I agree.So what you are saying is that they`ll use the RAGE engine combined with Euphoria(when it`s needed)?

Pandora's photo
Pandora 1st March, 2007 @ 20:38 - Permalink

Rage in the main game engine. And Euphoria is a type of plug-in to the game.

That is if I didn't misunderstand anything.

CroScorpion's photo
CroScorpion 1st March, 2007 @ 20:44 - Permalink

New engine in GTA 4 would be very nice think for us. Maybe Unreal engine strongest engine today I think.

Pandora's photo
Pandora 1st March, 2007 @ 21:18 - Permalink

It has already been announced that it will use the Rage engine. That's the same one used for Table Tennis.

Anthony.'s photo
Anthony. 2nd March, 2007 @ 22:07 - Permalink

Those motion sensing vid lokked great

Pandora's photo
Pandora 2nd March, 2007 @ 22:36 - Permalink

There was no motion sensing :mellow:

Just natural movements that get auto created everytime.