Cubic Motion forges ‘creative affiliation’ with 3lateral

Facial animation studio Cubic Motion has welcomed 3lateral boss Vladimir Mastilovic to its advisory board, bringing about a creative affiliation that will see the two companies working together on developing new solutions for the game, film and VFX industries.

3lateral is a Serbian studio that specialisies modeling and rigging of advanced characters, alongside a wealth of other VFX work. Mastilovic himself has created complete facial rigging solutions for a number of high-profile games including Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption.

"We’re delighted to have Vladimir join our Advisory Board," said Dr. Gareth Edwards, CEO of Cubic Motion. "It’s vital for us to work with the best technical experts in this industry. In Professor Taylor we have one of the greatest exponents of advanced computer vision over the last three decades, and now with Vladimir, one of the pre-eminent technical artists of the last ten years.

"These fields are of critical importance at the forefront of modern animation, especially performance-based animation. Vladimir has built an incredibly strong team of technical artists at 3lateral, and we look forward to a close collaboration, offering our clients access to some of the most exciting and innovative developments in character modelling and rigging as well as our own leadership in human and character facial animation."

The two companies hope their new allegiance will allow both to benefit from each other’s respective expertise in what they describe as some of ‘the most challenging production challenges in modern facial animation’.

“Face rigging and animation is a difficult problem not only because it requires sophisticated rigging and animation tools but also due to the fact that everyone is an expert in judging your work," offered Mastilovic. "Humans are innately aware of faces to the tiniest detail – everything needs to be precise and in harmony, otherwise the illusion easily breaks. Furthermore, in order to meet today’s industry requirements, the process needs to be very efficient and with high bandwidth.

"Previously available only to high end VFX, todays face rigs and animations are used in ever higher volume productions such as video games. New approaches are needed, and Cubic Motion are undoubtedly at the forefront of development of novel technologies which dramatically improve animation productivity. Dr. Edwards and his team enjoy great respect within the industry and I’m honored to be invited to work with them as an advisor and looking forward to developing further collaborations with our own studio.”