Mystic Game Development has officially released the Mac version of EMotion FX. The realtime game animation middleware is something that hotshot developers have been using for quite some time now, in hit games such as SimCity Societies, Warhammer Online, and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Mystic GD claims.

EMotion FX has been designed to be plugged into 3D engines, games and other products. The realtime character animation system supports next generation multi-core, multithreaded consoles and PC, as well as single threaded environments.

"The Mac platform is getting more and more market share, and as a result the Mac gaming sector is getting stronger. We are pleased to support PowerPC and Intel based Macs and are looking forward to working closely together with more Mac developers," said John van der Burg, Development Director of Mystic GD.

Some of Mystic GD's current clients include: Ubisoft, that is working on an "unannounced product" according to the realtime character animation middleware solution provider; Tilted Mill Entertainment - responsible for the popular life simulation title SimCity Societies; Electronic Arts - makers of Dark Age Of Camelot and Warhammer Online; and Piranha Bytes - the guys behind the famed Gothic 3.

EMotion FX Movies are available from Mystic GD's website, showing off Realtime Motion Retargeting, Motion Blending, Motion Capture, Blend Masks, Motion Events, Motion Mixing and Motion Based Actor Repositioning, just to name a few. There are more than 20 video examples of how the middleware can save huge amounts of time and runtime memory, specify per bone weights when playing a given motion, or mix multiple motions together.

"The runtime performance impact of the retargeting inside EMotion FX is pretty much negligible," Mystic GD also notes. Therefore, the company's motion retargeting solution has been used in many successful MMORPG titles.

EMotion FX ships with 3D Studio Max and Maya plugins. For Maya, Mystic GD supports the BlendShape system, also including its animation data. Also, support for DirectX Maya material plugin allows artists to export shader parameters and their values.