3D World has an interview with the CEO of iKinema about the concept behind the online browser-based motion retargeting and customising platform.
"3D World: How does WebAnimate differ to other software like MotionBuilder? And are features from other mocap packages going to be added?
Alexandre: WebAnimate is a much simpler application than MotionBuilder. Having said that, WebAnimate is a very powerful application as it includes our core IKinema solvers. The IKinema marker solver and the retargeting engine enable Webanimate to perform at similar and even greater levels than MotionBuilder, especially when we include our stretch-IK engine and streaming data in real-time from Vicon and Xsens. Furthermore, we are now adding the general rigging engine so WebAnimate can be used for key-framing animation. Key differences are that we support animation and retargeting on any creature, human and non-human. We are bringing our streaming interfaces from motion-capture systems and Kinect for real-time retargeting, but still we will not include any scripting features and SDK for integration of third party extensions. We would like the users of WebAnimate to end up being the small studios and individuals who need to quickly access a tool and test their ideas or on their work for small animation or game projects. MotionBuilder would be always the high-end tool; we would like to provide another tool for the rest of the community, and in this respect we do not see an overlap.
Being in the browser, we would like to extend the features and provide abilities for shared-screen use. This would make remote demonstration and collaboration work easily achievable."