By Andrew Ball

Formed at the University of Surrey’s Space Centre, with the support of the Surrey Research Park’s, SETsquared Partnership, Dr Alexandre Pechev's innovative research into creating natural on-screen behaviour has been used to produce IKinema - a new tool that allows game developers to use real-time, natural, human and non-human character animation and movie producers to view and manipulate motion capture data in real-time.

IKinema is a groundbreaking solution for fast, interactive, multi-player, multi-character game animation. Its real-time animation is at least 200 times faster than existing animation, and therefore produces more natural character behaviour. Unlike competitors' systems that barely manage to control one character, IKinema can animate dozens of characters for a much more interactive experience.

“The future of video games is about more believable characters and environments. With the next generation of game platforms, the focus is going to be on runtime simulations, where all movements are calculated during the game play,” says Dr Pechev. “This approach will not only reduce game development time, but will also bring movie-like realism into games. SETsquared has allowed us to make enormous progress in the development of these new ideas, and in bringing this research to the gaming industry.”

Based on the Surrey Research Park, SETsquared supports the growth and success of new business like Dr Pechev’s through a combination of spin-outs, licensing and incubation. The area in and around the Surrey Research Park has become home to a cluster of other well-known computer games companies over the years, including Electronic Arts, Lionhead Studios and Microsoft Games Studio, some of the world’s leaders in this sector.

IKinema was launched as a spin out from the University of Surrey and the Surrey Space Centre. The key technology behind IKinema is IP-protected in the areas of robotics, spacecraft control and animation.

Dr Pechev is currently seeking investment for the next stage of product development, marketing and events. His discoveries have already been recognised by The Royal Academy of Engineering, and he has received its entrepreneur award for the IKinema computer games technology.

About the author

Andrew Ball is PR for the Surrey Research Park.

About The Surrey Research Park

A major centre of excellence in technology, science and engineering, The Surrey Research Park is widely regarded as the best of its kind in the UK. Owned, developed and managed by The University of Surrey as a 70 acre (28.33 ha) low density, development close to its campus in Guildford, The Surrey Research Park provides a high quality, working environment for a wide variety of companies engaged in a broad spectrum of research, development and design activities. For more information please visit www.surrey-research-park.com

About The SETsquared Partnership

The SETsquared Partnership consists of four leading UK research universities - Bath, Bristol, Southampton and Surrey. Between them, the 6,500 academics working at these universities are responsible for 7 per cent of the UK's research budget. The Partnership supports the growth and success of new business opportunities through spin-outs, licensing and incubation. It also works with industry through research collaboration and consultancy. The SETsquared Partnership develops new businesses from university research (‘spin-outs') and supports early-stage, technology companies with high growth potential from the wider business community. The Partnership also provides access to UK and US markets through international collaboration.

Relevant link

iKinema website: www.ikinema.com.