Nichimen Graphics Inc., a company known for helping developers build 3D animation into such games as Super Mario, Final Fantasy VII, and MediEvil, has announced its latest suite of software development tools called Mirai.

　　The suite is being shown publicly for the first time this week at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif. The name of the game, derived from the Japanese word for "prosperous future," is the next evolution of the company's popular high-end animation suite N-World.

　　"Mirai's depth and work flow provide users unmatched ease-of-use." says Bay Raitt, Mirai product manager at Nichimen. "With Mirai, users finally have the chance to freely explore and experiment with their work without the technical headaches that are all too common in this industry. Nichimen has, in effect, created a pain-free system for content creators."

　　Features in the suite allow animators a fully functional 3D operating system where one can control object visibility and sensitivity on a per-editor basis with the ability to open multiple editors. Mirai also combines an animation system with a standard nonlinear motion editor using object keyframing and morphing allowing animators more control. The suite boasts advanced skeletal inverse kinematics and integrated biomechanical motion editing, which will give game makers a nonlinear method of building animation sequences.

　　Mirai is scheduled to ship in March for around US$6,495 and will ship with complete online documentation and texture library.