Mixamo
{{short description|Technology company}}
{{Multiple issues|
{{COI|date=July 2024}}
{{tone|date=July 2024}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2024}}
{{Infobox company
| name = Mixamo Inc.
| logo = Mixamo Logo.png
| logo_size = 300px
| type = Subsidiary
| industry = Interactive entertainment
| foundation = {{start date and age|2008}}
| founder = {{ubl|Stefano Corazza|Nazim Kareemi}}
| location_city = San Francisco, California
| location_country = United States
| area_served =
| key_people =
| products =
| revenue =
| operating_income =
| net_income =
| owner =
| num_employees = 20
| parent = Adobe Inc.
| homepage = {{URL|http://www.mixamo.com/}}
}}
Mixamo Inc. ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|m|ɪ|k|s|ə|m|oʊ}}) is a 3D computer graphics technology company. Based in San Francisco, the company develops and sells web-based services for 3D character animation. Mixamo's technologies use machine learning methods to automate the steps of the character animation process, including 3D modeling to rigging and 3D animation.
Mixamo is spun-off of Stanford University and has raised over $11 million from investors Granite Ventures, Keynote Ventures, Stanford University and AMD Ventures.{{cite news |title=Mixamo debuts Fuse character creation tool on Steam using Valve's Team Fortress 2 characters |author=Dean Takahashi |date=7 November 2013 |publisher=Venture Beat |url=https://venturebeat.com/2013/11/07/mixamo-debuts-fuse-character-creation-tool-on-steam-using-valves-team-fortress-2-characters/ |access-date=23 November 2014}} Mixamo was acquired by Adobe Systems in 2015.{{Cite web|title = Unlocking The Power of 3D for The Creative Community – Adobe Acquires Mixamo « Adobe Creative Cloud|url = https://blogs.adobe.com/creativecloud/unlocking-the-power-of-3d-for-the-creative-community/|website = blogs.adobe.com|access-date = 2015-06-04}}
History
Mixamo was founded in 2008 by Stefano Corazza and Nazim Kareemi as a spin-off of Stanford University's Biomotion Lab,{{cite news |title=Mixamo Is Building A Platform For Game Developers To Create And Animate 3D Characters |author=Kim-Mai Cutler |date=23 July 2014 |publisher=Tech Crunch |url=https://techcrunch.com/2013/07/23/mixamo/ |access-date=23 November 2014}} and started out as a cloud-based service offering animations and automatic character rigging.{{cite news |title=Evolving Characters |author=Kathleen Maher |date=21 May 2014 |publisher=Computer Graphics World |url=http://www.cgw.com/Press-Center/In-Focus/2014/Evolving-Characters.aspx |access-date=23 November 2014}} It launched its first online animation service in 2009. In 2010, Mixamo worked with Evolver to provide characters to customers. Later Autodesk acquired Evolver and made it proprietary, but Mixamo had already begun work on its own character creation service.
Mixamo released its automatic rigging service in 2011. That was followed by the launch of its real-time facial animation product, Face Plus, in 2013,{{cite news |title=Face Plus Gives Digital Characters Heart and Soul |author=Rachelle Dragani |date=29 August 2013 |publisher=TechNews World |url=http://www.technewsworld.com/story/78767.html |access-date=23 November 2014}} and the official launch of its Fuse 3D character creator software in March 2014.{{cite news |title=Mixamo launching Fuse 1.0 |author=Craig Chapple |date=12 March 2014 |publisher=Develop Online |url=https://www.develop-online.net/news/mixamo-launching-fuse-1-0-next-week/0190316 |access-date=23 November 2014}} In August 2014, Mixamo launched a new pricing structure.{{cite news |title=Mixamo Offers New Pricing Structure |date=20 August 2014 |publisher=Computer Graphics World |url=http://www.cgw.com/Press-Center/News/2014/Mixamo-Offers-New-Pricing-Structure.aspx |access-date=23 November 2014}}
Mixamo was acquired by Adobe Systems on 1 June 2015.
Fuse
File:Fuse Character Creator Carousel.png
In March 2014, Mixamo officially launched Fuse Character Creator at Game Developers Conference. Fuse stems out of the research done by Siddhartha Chaudhuri[http://vladlen.info/publications/probabilistic-reasoning-for-assembly-based-3d-modeling/ Siddhartha Chaudhuri] which originated within Vladlen Koltun's research group at Stanford and Substance technology from Allegorithmic.{{cite news |title=Mixamo Fuse universal expendable 3-D character creator launches on Steam |author=Shane McGlaun |date=8 November 2013 |publisher=SlashGear |url=http://www.slashgear.com/mixamo-fuse-universal-expendable-3-d-character-creator-launches-on-steam-08304713/ |access-date=8 November 2013}} An early version of the service had been released in November 2013.{{cite news |title=Fuse adds easy character creation to Steam |author=Kris Ligman |date=8 November 2013 |publisher=Gamasutra |url=http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/204434/Fuse_adds_easy_character_creation_to_Steam.php |archive-url=https://archive.today/20141123235036/http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/204434/Fuse_adds_easy_character_creation_to_Steam.php |url-status=dead |archive-date=23 November 2014 |access-date=23 November 2014}}
It allows users to create a 3D character by assembling customizable body parts, clothing and textures together.{{cite news |title=Mixamo builds out to end to end products, adds upgrade in time for GDC |author=Kathleen Maher |date=12 March 2014 |publisher=GraphicSpeak |url=http://gfxspeak.com/2014/03/12/mixamo-products-upgrades/ |access-date=23 November 2014}} Those characters can then be exported into other 3D model software packages or game engine.
In March 2014, Mixamo launched Fuse 1.0 on Steam with the ability of importing and integrating user generated content in the character creation system.{{cite news |title=Mixamo Releases Fuse, Character Creation Tool on Steam |author=William Usher |date=30 March 2014 |publisher=Cinema Blend |url=http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Mixamo-Releases-Fuse-Character-Creation-Tool-Steam-63079.html |access-date=23 November 2014}} Fuse was updated to allow the importation and editing of character models generated by Microsoft's Kinect 2.0 in August of that year.{{cite news |title=Mixamo's Fuse makes modeling people easier with Kinect v2 support |author=Alex Wawro |date=7 August 2014 |publisher=Gamasutra |url=http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/222858/Mixamos_Fuse_makes_modeling_people_easier_with_Kinect_v2_support.php |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140810060358/http://gamasutra.com/view/news/222858/Mixamos_Fuse_makes_modeling_people_easier_with_Kinect_v2_support.php |url-status=dead |archive-date=10 August 2014 |access-date=23 November 2014}}
Development of Fuse was discontinued in September 2019. On 13 September 2020, the program was removed from the Adobe Creative Cloud and is no longer available for download from Adobe.{{Cite web|title=An Update on Adobe Fuse as Adobe Moves to the Future of 3D & AR Development|url=https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2019/09/13/an-update-on-adobe-fuse-as-adobe-moves-to-the-future-of-3d-ar-development.html|access-date=2020-12-22|website=Adobe Blog}} Version 1.3 is still available for download on the Steam Marketplace.{{cite web |url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/257400/Fuse/|title=Fuse on Steam }}
Rigging service
This service has been discontinued for keeping custom 3D models and models uploaded via fuse CC on Adobe's servers. You can still upload custom 3D models to the online auto rigging service and rig them, but they won't be kept.
Mixamo also provides an online, automatic model rigging service known as the Auto-Rigger, which was the industry's first online rigging service. The AutoRigger applies machine learning to understand where the limbs of a 3D model are and to insert a "skeleton", or rig, into the 3D model as well as calculating the skinning weights. The service can take up to 2 minutes.{{Cite news|url=https://www.mcvuk.com/development/digging-into-rigging-mixamos-character-service-explored|title=Digging into rigging: Mixamo's character service explored|work=MCV|access-date=2018-01-30}}
3D Character Animation
Mixamo's online services include an animation store featuring downloadable 3D models and animation sequences. The animations were created at Mixamo using motion capture and cleaned up by key frame animators. All its animations work with characters created in Fuse and/or rigged with Mixamo's AutoRigger.
Real-time facial animation
File:Unplugged real-time animated short.png game engine.]]
August 2013, Mixamo released Face Plus, a game development tool that allows users to record facial animation data of themselves using a standard webcam and apply the animation to a character inside the Unity game engine in real-time. Face Plus was briefly included in the keynote presentation at the Unite conference in Vancouver. The technology was developed in collaboration with AMD. and uses GPU acceleration.{{cite news |title=Generate realistic Animation using Mixamo's Face plus |date=6 September 2013 |publisher=TropicalPost |url=http://tropicalpost.com/generate-realistic-animation-using-mixamos-face-plus/ |access-date=23 November 2014}}
The animated short "Unplugged" was created using Face Plus technology and as of April 2014 has won several awards.{{Cite web|url=http://bestshorts.net/?page_id=163|title = Winners November 2013 |}}
Face Plus has been discontinued and according to a September 2017 Adobe Forum post by Adobe staff JMathews, no further work on the product was being contemplated at that time.{{Citation needed|date=August 2020}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/28/mixamo-face-plus/ "Mixamo’s Facial Expression Capturing Technology Helps Indie Developers Speed Up Character Animation"] from Techcrunch
- [http://www.mixamo.com Official site]
- [http://www.mixamo.com/unplugged Unplugged – Official site]
{{Adobe Inc.}}
Category:Entertainment software
Category:Software companies based in California
Category:American companies established in 2008
Category:Companies based in San Francisco
Category:2008 establishments in California
Category:Software companies established in 2008