To PC gamers who are into modding, either creating or downloading, and generally just into user created tools, this will come as great news. Mixamo has just released a brand new update in the form of a direct download feature that will enable anyone creating a 3D character with the latest version of its character creator software Fuse (which just launched today on Steam), and animating it with its Animations, to import those characters straight into Source Filmmaker and Garry’s Mod.

“Gabe Newell noted in a Reddit AMA earlier in 2014 that the biggest improvements [to its engine technology] will be in increasing productivity of content creation. Today’s feature release is the realization of that concept for the creation of game characters,” said Stefano Corazza, CEO of Mixamo. “Our entire pipeline is predicated on the same notion that user-generated content should be easy to create and get into games. We’ve now simplified that process for the tens of thousands of developers and modders using the Source engine and for the over 6 million users of Garry’s Mod. As far we know, we’re the first-ever 3D modeling and animation service to do so.”

This is certainly great news to all PC players who are more enterprising and creative, and it should be a boon to the PC gaming community as well. Remember, some of the most popular PC games of all time- Counter Strike, DayZ, League of Legends- all started out as mods originally.

Remember one of the original promises of Kinect, back when it was revealed as Project natal at E3 2009? Microsoft showed us how the advanced camera sensor could basically scan objects from the real world into the game. It looked amazing and led to questions of infinite possibilities, but it also did not ever happen, at least not in the way that we were expecting.

Well, now, Kinect is enabling something like that, but taking it a step further- today, Mixamo Inc. announced that using the new Kinect for Windows, players can scan 3D models of themselves into Mixamo’s character creation software.

“It is Mixamo’s mission to democratize 3D content creation and to make the process accessible for everyone, and this is another step in that direction.” said Stefano Corazza, CEO of Mixamo. “Kinect for Windows v2 and Mixamo make it easier than ever for game developers and modders to put their likeness into a game. The new depth sensor more accurately creates 3D body and facial scans, which can then be customized in Mixamo’s character creator solution Fuse. In minutes, the 3D version of you can be running around in a 3D scene.”

“Developers and businesses worldwide are using Kinect for Windows in innovative ways to address challenges across a wide variety of industries and lower the barrier between humans and computers,” said Alex Kipman, Technical Fellow, Microsoft Corp. “Mixamo’s workflow for creating characters with Kinect for Windows v2 is a great example of that. Mixamo lets people without 3D modeling expertise add their user-generated content to games and game development projects.”

This is certainly one of the more exciting (from a games perspective) uses that Kinect has so far been put to. A pity, really, that at least so far, this seems to be limited to the Windows version of Kinect only.