wondertouch Announces Pre-Release Availability of particleIllusion 3.0

Company's Flagship Particle Effects Software Line To Offer Powerful New Productivity Enhancing Features

ST. LOUIS (April 7, 2003) - wondertouch, a newly established software developer specializing in particle effects for the visual effects industry, today announced the pre-release availability of particleIllusion 3.0, the newest version of the company's particle effects software line. This significant release builds upon particleIllusion's trademark production-proven 2D, sprite-based particle effects technology and adds interface and productivity enhancing features including "Forces," a "Library Manager," and "Super Emitters" to render even more realistic results. particleIllusion 3.0 is scheduled for worldwide release on May 15, 2003.

"Over the past several years particleIllusion has set a standard as a powerful and flexible tool for creating realistic and spectacular visual effects, quickly and effortlessly," said Alan Lorence, CEO of wondertouch. "Based on feedback from our professional beta customers, we have equipped 3.0 with dozens of interface enhancements that improve integration into existing production environments, and added new options to facilitate higher-quality image output. In addition, many rendering engine improvements promise to provide an even broader spectrum of effects possibilities. We are confident that the commercial release next month will bring artists improved workflow capabilities and allow them to more easily achieve their creative visions."

Customers Give High Praise to particleIllusion 3.0

particleIllusion is deployed at leading production and post-production facilities worldwide where it has been used in countless commercials, television shows including "Star Trek Voyager," and "That 70's Show," feature films including "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," "Final Destination II," "Just Married," "Biker Boyz," "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever," "Ghost Ship," "Hart's War," "Rollerball," "Behind Enemy Lines," "Swordfish," "The Core," "Dreamcatcher," upcoming films, "The Italian Job," and "Torque," and many others. Praised for its power, speed and ease-of-use particleIllusion is quickly becoming the "industry standard" for the creation of dazzling visual effects. - more - 2-2-2-2 wondertouch Announces Worldwide Availability of particleIllusion 3.0 Frantic Films, a Winnipeg, Canada-based multi award-winning company specializing in state-of-the-art visual effects, 3D animation and post and live-action production, has been using wondertouch's particleIllusion since 1999.

Michael Shand, CG supervisor at Frantic Films, cites speed and flexibility as key features of the product's popularity. "particleIllusion is the industry's fastest and most cost effective particle tool. We have used it in the 2D compositing department on every major project the facility has worked on including Swordfish, and the just-released The Core. We are constantly amazed at the time savings it provides us. We typically used to wait a day or two to complete one industrial particle render iteration. We can now go through twenty-to-thirty particleIllusion iterations in a single day! Simple to learn and lightweight, it's a deadly tool in the hands of a talented compositor."

Toronto-based Dan Kresh Productions (DKP) is one of Canada's leading 3D animation, effects and compositing houses, providing high-end digital visual effects for feature films, commercials, cinematics, television series and TV movies. wondertouch's particleIllusion has been in use at the facility for over a year where it is used primarily in the special effects department as well as in both the long form compositing and commercial departments.

Since deploying particleIllusion, Terry Dale, effects artist, vice president and 3.0 beta tester at DKP comments that he has seen a dramatic increase in productivity with a corresponding decrease in cost during the production of several high-profile projects, including Dungeons & Dragons - A Scourge of Worlds, an interactive DVD movie produced by DKP FILMS. "particleIllusion turned out to be a secret weapon in meeting aggressive deadlines, while still enabling us to create spectacular 2D effects that look like they were produced in a 3D environment, but at a fraction of the time and cost," said Dale. "The new features in particleIllusion 3.0 such as 'super emitters,' 'forces' and the new color options will allow users increased flexibility to create even more realistic effects. With particleIllusion 3.0 the creative possibilities are endless."

About particleIllusion

particleIllusion is a standalone particle effects application designed as an easy-to-use, low-cost, high performance tool to quickly and simply add particle effects to any image, animation, or video footage. particleIllusion features an ever-growing collection of hundreds of preset effects such as smoke, fire, explosions, water effects, sparkles, colorful artistic effects, and many others. particleIllusion features OpenGL hardware acceleration to provide realtime (or near realtime) previews of most effects and ultra-fast rendering of final output. Using particleIllusion, creative professionals working in film post-production, film pre-visualization, commercial broadcast, standard and HD video, and Web graphics can easily customize and modify effects, or create entirely new effects.

Highlights of particleIllusion 3.0

wondertouch for the Windows platform is available now, with Mac to follow in late Q2, 2003.

Feature highlights include:

• Forces: allows for influencing particles after they are created; wind for example.
• Super emitters: allows for the automatic creation of emitters, to achieve a new level of realism and creativity.
• Rendering engine enhancements: to include high-quality motion blur, field rendering, and improved alpha channel creation.
• Area emitter "masking": allows for the use of any image or sequence as a mask for particle creation.
• Property graph improvements: to include spline curves, removal of "min/max" restriction on particle type properties, and display of current graph values.
• Color options: including "get color from layer" to allow users to simulate "displacement" effects in realtime.
• Library manager: allows easy movement of emitters between libraries.
• Thumbnail previews: allows previews for files, library files and emitters.
• Dozens of interface and productivity improvements.

Pricing and Availability

particleIllusion 3.0 is scheduled for widespread commercial release on the Windows operating system May 15, 2003. wondertouch is currently accepting pre-orders for 3.0. Customers pre-ordering will be able to download the current beta version immediately, and will be shipped the boxed version when available. A download-only version will be available at the time of release as well. (Editors note: particleIllusion 3.0 for the Mac platform is scheduled to ship late Q2, 2003.)

Pricing is as follows:

• particleIllusion 3.0 (boxed version - available for pre-order) - $374 (USD) ($399 after May 15)
  
• particleIllusion 3.0 (download-only version - available May 15) - $389 (USD)
  
• particleIllusion 3.0 upgrade from 2.0 - $75 (USD)
  
• academic pricing for particleIllusion 3.0 will also be available after May 15.
  

About wondertouch

wondertouch is a software developer specializing in particle effects for the visual effects industry. The company's flagship product, particleIllusion, is focused towards the needs of creative professionals working in the film post-production, film pre-visualization, standard and HD video and commercial broadcast industries.

wondertouch founder Alan Lorence was the original programmer for Impulse's Illusion software. After acquiring rights for Illusion in July 2002, the company was established to continue the development, sale and support of the product under the name 'particleIllusion.'

wondertouch software products are currently available directly from wondertouch. The company is headquartered in St. Louis, Mo.