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Epic Games acquires facial animation firm Cubic Motion

Date Type Companies involved Size
March 13th, 2020 acquisition Epic Games Not disclosed
Epic Games acquires facial animation firm Cubic Motion

Epic Games has acquired facial animation tech company Cubic Motion.

As announced in a blog update, the team from the animation company will work closely with technology developer 3Lateral. The latter was acquired by the American firm in January 2019.

Cubic Motion's facial animation technology has been used to create various triple-A titles, such as God of War by Sony Interactive Entertainment and Insomniac's Spider-Man. The company has also been involved in Unreal Engine live-demonstrations such as Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.

"We are delighted to be joining Epic Games and look forward with excitement to this next chapter in our story," said Cubic Motion CEO Dr Gareth Edwards.

"Together, we are uniquely positioned to push the boundaries of digital human technology, bringing ever more realism and immersion to all forms of visual entertainment."

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney (pictured) added: "Digital humans are not only the next frontier of content creation but also the most complex endeavour in computer graphics.

"With Cubic Motion bringing their computer vision and animation technology and expertise to our digital human efforts, Epic along with our team at 3Lateral are one step closer to democratizing these capabilities for creators everywhere."

Epic Games CTO Kim Liberi concluded: "Facial animation that conveys the slightest nuance of human expression is essential to crossing the uncanny valley.

"We believe that holistically combining Epic's Unreal Engine with 3Lateral's facial rig creation and Cubic Motion's solving technology is the only way to answer this challenge, and ultimately, to reach the pinnacle of digital human artistry with Unreal Engine."

In 2017, the Call of Duty facial animation firm received $20 million in funding.


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