Ion Storm to Use LIPSinc’s Automated Facial Animation Technology in Highly Anticipated Sequel to Deus Ex
 

LIPSinc’s AniMeterä Software Creates Realistic Facial Animation for Game Characters

(E3 Show – Los Angeles, CA & Research Triangle Park, NC – May 22, 2002) – LIPSinc, a leading provider of automated facial animation software for talking digital characters, announced today that Ion Storm (www.ionstorm.com) has licensed LIPSinc AniMeterä for the highly anticipated game DX2:Invisible War.  DX2 uses a modified version of Epic’s Unreal Engine and is being published by Eidos Interactive (www.eidosinteractive.com), one of the world's leading publishers and developers of entertainment software.

DX2:Invisible War is the sequel to the award-winning Deus Ex.  Deus Ex has garnered over 35 “Game of the Year” awards including the prestigious “PC Game of the Year” from PC Gamer magazine and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for PC Games.  DX2:Invisible War will continue in the tradition of the original by providing an action packed role-playing experience within an immersive 3D world.

“Our goal in DX2 is to take the Deus Ex gameplay experience to a new level. One of the ways we plan to enhance game play for our customers is through the use of the latest graphics and animation techniques available,” said Warren Spector, Director of Ion Storm’s Austin Studio.  “LIPSinc’s expertise and technology allows us to develop high-quality facial animation for game-characters – absolutely critical when you’re making a game that’s all about human characters in real-world settings.”

“Ion Storm has done a great job incorporating our technology to provide realistic facial animation for their characters,” said Matthew Langie, Senior Product Manager at LIPSinc.  “DX2 is one of the most highly anticipated games of the year, and we are excited to be working with one of the top developers and publishers in this industry.”

Using LIPSinc’s technology, developers are able to create game characters with lifelike facial movements, making the character’s dialogue seem more realistic.  LIPSinc’s AniMeter automatically generates animation data directly from audio.  It accepts audio files (and optional text) as input and generates output files containing animation data for realistic lip-synchronization.  The files can be generated in a variety of formats that are designed to be easy to use in 3D animation software, rendering or game engines, or as an aid to traditional, manual animation.  The technology is very accurate and faithfully recreates co-articulation, anticipation, and other subtle properties of speech.  It also generates information for speech gestures -- those blinks, head, and eyebrow movements that normally accompany speech.  Speech gestures generated by AniMeter model the gestures that a real human might make while uttering what’s recorded in the audio file. 

About LIPSinc
LIPSinc is a leading provider of automated facial animation software. Its software automates the lip synchronization and corresponding facial movements of talking digital characters that are powered entirely by pre-recorded, synthesized or live voice. LIPSinc's software enables applications in the entertainment, online communication, CRM, eLearning, wireless and online marketing industries. Founded in 1998, LIPSinc is headquartered in the Research Triangle region of North Carolina with an office in Southern California. More information on LIPSinc is available at www.LIPSinc.com.

LIPSinc - We Have Ways of Making You Talk

About ION Storm

Based in Austin, TX, Ion Storm is a revolutionary electronic game design studio where the designer's vision is law.  Founded in November 1996, the company strives to break down the barriers between computer and video game genres to create the most immersive and engrossing gaming experiences possible.

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