Evolver, developer of the easy-to-use web interface for building and customizing 3D character models and avatars, has announced a strategic partnership with Emergent Game Technologies to provide support for the integration of Evolver models into Emergent’s cutting-edge game development system, Gamebryo® LightSpeed™.

“The game development world is changing quickly thanks to visionary products like LightSpeed. Evolver is excited about the opportunity to deliver customizable and unique characters in a format compatible with this powerful game engine,” said Evolver CEO, Brian Nilles. “Our partnership with Emergent provides LightSpeed developers with an easy way to integrate custom 3D characters into their latest projects at a fraction of the production time, effort and costs of traditional modeling and rigging methods.”

“Emergent has shown a commitment to partnering with the most innovative companies to continually advance the tools and processes involved in game development, and Evolver is a great addition to our growing roster of partners,” said Katie Morgan, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Emergent Game Technologies. “The integration of Evolver models into the Gamebryo LightSpeed platform will allow developers to produce visually stunning results more quickly, easily and cost effectively.”

Evolver’s web-based application offers professionals and consumers an intuitive tool to design and customize unique 3D models in a matter of minutes. Drawing from an expansive collection of facial and body characteristics available on the Evolver website, or a photograph, users can create an avatar that is animation ready and fully exportable. Professional characters can also be purchased royalty free for a low price point of $39 – or $69 with 77 blendshapes ready for facial animation.

Evolver also offers a “white label” version for developers who wish to make Evolver their own 3D character generator available to their audience. Users create and customize their models in a custom branded version of Evolver, and then they are delivered completely automatically using a server-to-server delivery system.

Developed by Emergent, LightSpeed is a multiplatform game engine with an extensive set of features including rapid prototyping, rapid iteration and real-time updates. For more information about Emergent Game Technologies and LightSpeed, please visit www.emergent.net.

About Evolver
Evolver is the flagship product of Darwin Dimensions Inc., the first solution to bring together complex 3D modeling, consumer ease of use, and fully interoperable avatars. Evolver provides a central portal to design, manage and transport digital avatars that can be deployed in virtual worlds, online games, social networks and professional animation and pre-visualization projects. For more information visit www.evolver.com or contact (949) 330-6345.

About Emergent Game Technologies
Best known for its industry-leading 3D game engines, Gamebryo and Gamebryo LightSpeed, Emergent’s technologies have been selected by studios around the globe to bring nearly 300 titles across more than 15 genres to market, including Game of the Year award-winning titles like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, as well as critically acclaimed titles like Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Civilization Revolution and Bully. Emergent is driving “The New Face of AAA,” allowing studios to focus on innovative gameplay by enabling rapid prototyping, rapid iteration and rapid production with real-time on-target updates for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 system, Wii and PC. As part of the international development community, Emergent provides world class support and technologies evolved from deep relationships with its developer partners.

Realmware is pleased to announce the release of Visual3D Game Engine Beta 6.3. Come download the 30-day free trial, and see it for yourself. Visual3D provides an amazing All-in-One Game Engine and Tool set, and has been made available for those with a low budget! Built to please both programmers and artists alike!

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Assassin’s Creed II

Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) has announced that Autodesk HumanIK character animation middleware was tightly integrated into Ubisoft’s proprietary game engine for the development of “Assassin’s Creed II.” Released November 17, the title sold over 1.6 million units worldwide in its first week on the shelf.

HumanIK animation middleware is a runtime solution for creating believable, interactive character animation for games. Ubisoft first used the software on the original “Assassin’s Creed” title. As an integrated part of Ubisoft’s game engine on “Assassin’s Creed II,” HumanIK contributed to the realization of enticing game-play innovations such as climbing, flying and interactions with dynamic nonplayer characters (NPCs).

“One of the most important aspects of the ‘Assassin’s Creed II’ game play is the ability for characters to climb. HumanIK allowed us to build new climbing moves into the game and iterate them very quickly without ever having to worry about the quality of the IK solving,” explained James Therien, lead programmer, Assassin’s Creed II, Ubisoft. “Having a package like HumanIK allowed us to address our IK problems quickly without sacrificing results or performance.”

In creating a sequel to its award-winning “Assassin’s Creed” franchise, Ubisoft sought unique ways to improve and build upon the original. Having more interesting and diverse characters, greater interaction with NPCs and a broader range of moves, including flying and complex climbing for NPCs were core differentiators facilitated in part by the integration of HumanIK middleware.

Ubisoft has been a longtime user of Autodesk solutions, tapping Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk MotionBuilder software, in addition to HumanIK, as key creative tools for its titles. “3ds Max is our main content creation package. MotionBuilder was used to clean up all of the motion-capture performance data that was used extensively in cut scenes and fight sequences,” said Therien.

About “Assassin’s Creed II”
“Assassin’s Creed II” invites players to become Ezio, a privileged young noble in Renaissance Italy who’s been betrayed by the rival ruling families of Italy. Ezio’s quest for vengeance plunges players into a captivating and epic story that offers more variety in missions, surprising and engaging new game play elements, diverse weapons, incredible depth and a profound character progression that appeals to fans of the original game, and entices players new to the brand.

About Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc., is a world leader in 2D and 3D design, engineering and entertainment software for the manufacturing, building and construction, and media and entertainment markets. Since its introduction of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk continues to develop the broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art software to help customers experience their ideas digitally before they are built. Fortune 100 companies ⎯ as well as the last 14 Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects ⎯ use Autodesk software tools to design, visualize and simulate their ideas to save time and money, enhance quality and foster innovation for competitive advantage. For additional information about Autodesk, visit www.autodesk.com.

Autodesk, AutoCAD, HumanIK, MotionBuilder and 3ds Max are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. Academy Award is a registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document.

The Japanese arm of Sony has revealed a number of the high-profile games companies that have currently signed up for licenses to develop content for the firm’s growing virtual world service PlayStation Home.

Big-hitting backers such as EA, Capcom and Ubisoft had already been announced, and Siliconera reports that they have been joined by the likes of Activision, Sega, Disney, Konami and Namco.

Also signing up are a number of more specialist Japanese firms including R-Type dev Irem, RPG innovators Nippon Ichi, Mizuguchi’s Q Entertainment and hardcore traditionalists SNK.

The full list of current licensees is as follows:

* Acquire
* Activision
* AQ Interactive
* Atlus
* Capcom
* D3 Publisher
* Disney Interactive
* EA
* Game Republic
* Genki
* Gungho
* Hudson
* Irem
* Koei
* Konami
* Namco Bandai
* Nippon Ichi
* Paon
* Q Entertainment
* Sega
* SNK Playmore
* Spike
* Tecmo
* Ubisoft

What are good things to mention in your CV when applying for production roles – and what’s not good?

You really don’t need to list much more than the basics, so on a per project basis include the project-management related activities you’ve been involved in such as planning, tracking, reporting, your place in the team hierarchy, and the scale, complexity and length of said project.

Any experience or training you’ve had with a recognised methodology is of value, too. A clear, concise CV points to the candidate themselves being organised and efficient, so try to avoid padding – it obscures the very information that could get you interviewed, and at this stage you are only trying to avoid being declined, not hired.

What skills do you look for in producers?

With the complexity and scale of projects we develop, we now look for producers to be able to do more than milestone planning and tracking and issue resolution. Producers must also be able to delegate to and drive a large hierarchy of managers to build and maintain team momentum, deal with changes in project scope, analyse and improve team working practices, and plan around project risk… and keep smiling throughout!

Are there any qualifications that you think are useful to have?

Beyond university degrees – which we do like, but certainly aren’t a pre-requisite – we’re seeing more and more people with qualifications in recognised project management methodologies such as Scrum and Prince 2. Whilst this does point to a candidate having an understanding of core concepts and a desire to improve skills, it’s only attractive to us when combined with experience in applying it to a development project.

Ever dream of creating your own games? Already tried your hand at creating a Half-Life, Quake III or Unreal engine mod, but want to make the jump to something you can actually license and publish? Don’t know how to program, but want to create your own game demo to show off to get one of the elusive designer jobs in the game industry?

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