It's well know that 3D character animation presents one of the toughest challenges for desktop animators. Usually considered the domain of high-end products like Wavefront and SoftImage on expensive workstations, demand for this technology has been increasing steadily, especially since the release of Disney's Toy Story. Inverse Kinematics (IK) has been the primary technology used in providing joined motion for control of movement of the body and limbs. However, character animation has had limited success on the desktop. Most desktop IK implementation have been difficult to learn and use and have often produced strange results such as limbs being placed in unrealistic positions. Compounding this is that the skin at bend points doesn't look natural because it is either wrinkled or has a severe line of intersection.

Animating facial expressions and lip syncing to spoken words and sounds provide an even greater challenge. Changing facial expressions can be a time consuming task. To make the expressions match spoken words makes this task even more difficult. With Presenter 3D, VIDI brings more powerful character, facial, and lip sync animation capabilities to the Macintosh than are available on high powered workstations. The real-time Multi-Target interface allows you to easily select, see, and change the blending of targets in real-time and get the desired expression at any point in the animation.

VIDI's Presenter 3D and Presenter 3D Lite let you create the individual targets that are blended into a character, facial, or lip sync animation. Since all key target deformations are preset and the blended targets have been previewed in real-time, the resulting morph animation provides more predictable motion and smoother surfacing at the bend points then is possible with most applications using only IK technology. For a more in depth analysis of Multi-Target Morphing, Lip Syncing, Directional 3D Sound and other powerful features, see the Tech Reports provided by VIDI on its web site at http://www.vidi.com/techstart.html.

For a users perspective of Multi-Target Morphing, visit VIDI's user site at http://www.webnation.com/vidirep/. There in the Animators section, you will find a description of the process used in simulating the flight of geese similar to the effect used in the movie Fly Away Home, except that it took only a few hours to create.