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Unity just announced the acquisition of Ziva Dynamics, developpers of character creation, muscle simulation, deformation and machine learning tools. In other words, Ziva Dynamics technologies helps artists create more believable CG humans and creatures.
This acquisition follows other similar announcements in the last few months. Unity recently acquired Weta Digital ‘more precisely, their tools, technologies and developpers), SpeedTree, SyncSketch, Pixyz, and RestAR.
Unity vs Epic Games
Unity reminds us that Ziva Dynamics technologies have a wide range of applications, but highlights a specific use case: digital humans. This can of course be interpreted as an answer to Epic Games and MetaHumans.
Which is why the announcement is presented by Emma, a digital human “powered by state-of-the-art machine learning” running in real-time in Unity. Unity explains that “her model was trained with over 30 terabytes of unique 4D data using the ZRT Trainer, which enables her to emote over 72,000 trained shapes and achieve entirely novel face poses”. Last, but not least, Unity tells us that this technology will soon be available to “artists and creators of all levels.”
Ziva Dynamics technologies will soon be more accessible
Unity gives us some hints about what we can expects from this acquisition. The company intends to make these tools available to more artists.
Moreover, Unity explains that “through this acquisition, Unity can also accelerate the process of bringing Weta tools to real-time 3D through the cloud with the power of machine learning”, because “Ziva has already solved the challenge of bringing complex film-quality simulations to RT3D”. However, Unity doesn’t give us any clue as to when the launch can be expected.
Our take on this acquisition
It is clear that Unity intends to use external growth, when needed, to stay at the forefront of the technological race.
Moreover, Ziva Dynamics will help Unity become stronger in various markets: videogames of course, but also CG/VFX, animation.
We can expect more big announcements from Unity and Epic Games in the coming months of years. We will of course keep you updated.
