Apple has acquired the British startup IKinema. He specializes in motion capture and animation, as well as AR/VR gaming technologies.
This acquisition is reported by TechCrunch. The amount of the transaction is not called.
As usual, Apple does not disclose plans for its new asset. It follows from the portfolio of the British IKinema that it works with capturing movements and creating realistic character models in a digital environment, especially in a gaming environment.
The startup had a hand in creating RunTime, a tool integrated into the Unreal Engine. This development of IKinema has been used in game projects by Disney, Microsoft, Capcom, Respawn and Square Enix. Others, for example, Tencent, used Orion software from IKinema to create character animations.
Which of these could be useful to Apple?
At WWDC 2019, the Apple Company presented several tools related to the digital environment at once. Among them:
- RealityKit for displaying and rendering objects in augmented reality;
- Reality Composer for creating interactive scenes in the same AR environment;
- ARKit 3 to improve the camera on iOS devices and display people and virtual objects in real space.
In light of this, buying IKinema is a logical step for Apple. The achievements of the British startup will help improve its tools (ARKit 3, for example, contains a motion capture function) and create new ones related to the virtual environment.
In addition, IKinema provides a cheap method of animating digital characters. The results can be seen here. Apple can use this to create its own games and movie projects.
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