Mixamo rolls out Mixamo 2.0
Originally posted on 25 February. Scroll down for details of the official launch.
Online animation service Mixamo has announced Mixamo 2.0: an overhaul of its online library of stock character assets and motions, including WebGL support and improved contextual search.
The announcement was made to coincide with next week’s GDC 2015 show.
No plugins required, better contextual search
The major change visitors to the new online store will notice is that the Unity plugin is no longer required to preview animations online: the new store is WebGL-based and displays in a standard web browser.
The number of stock animation packs available has been increased from 6 to 20; and there is a new bulk download option when downloading all of the motions in a set.
Search has also been improved. “When you have 10,000 animations, they get hard to navigate,” Mixamo CEO Stefano Corazza told CG Channel. “We want [the search facility] to be as contextual as possible.”
Users can also favourite assets and share them with team members for review.
Updated 14 May: Mixamo 2.0 has officially launched. Animations can be purchased on a pay-as-you-go basis, or there are a range of subscription packages, which also include Mixamo’s other online tools.
To mark the launch, Mixamo has made it free to download characters rigged using its online auto-rigging tool, if they were originally created with its Fuse character creator. Auto-rigging was previously charged at $50/character.
As well as subscribers, the news applies to users without a Mixamo plan. Find more details in this blog post.
PRESS RELEASE (Excerpts)
Today, Mixamo, Inc announced that it will be releasing a new version of its online animation service in March 2015. Called “Mixamo 2.0”, the new version includes major updates to the user interface and user experience that make finding, creating, organizing, sharing and purchasing Mixamo’s 3D character assets and animations easier than ever.
“Our online 3D character creation service has now been operational for five years. We have collected invaluable feedback from the tens of thousands of Mixamo users on ways to make the creation of 3D characters faster and easier,” said Stefano Corazza, CEO of Mixamo. “This new release provides a far more integrated, intuitive and faster user interface, which ties together all of the steps of our service – creating, rigging and animating – into one seamless workflow.”
“It’s great to see Mixamo dedicated to providing easy and flexible tools for generating game-ready characters and animation,” said Ozan Serim, Character & Animation Lead at High Fidelity, Inc, one of the beta testers of Mixamo 2.0. “Using WebGL for model previews allows for plugin-free and fast load times. This will really speed up the pipeline of taking a static character to a fully rigged and animated one.”
New Mixamo 2 Feature List
- Streamlined User Experience
Users can now animate their 3D characters with a faster and more straightforward workflow. For example, users will be able to access the animation editing features from more screens, including the search results page. - Improved Search Capabilities
A faster, more accurate search function helps artists find what they’re looking for in seconds. In addition, search results will deliver more options, such as characters, animation packs, and individual animations together. - Expanded Animation Packs
Mixamo 2.0 adds 20 new animation packs spanning different game genres/activities. Every set is also fully customizable. - WebGL Viewer
The new WebGL Viewer was developed in collaboration with Verold for 10x faster browsing of characters and animations. Now artists will be able to search and modify assets on their desktop and mobile browsers, with no plugin required. - Bulk Download
Users can now organize and download multiple animations at once, which speeds up the work process of creating characters going through a number of different movements. - Increased User Feedback
Artists can now “favorite” characters and animations and share them with their team for review.