wondertouch's particleIllusion 3.0 Continues to Gain Foothold Among Leading Entertainment Facilities as Particle Effects Tool of Choice

Rise in Feature Film, Television and Interactive Game Projects Renews Optimism Within Visual Effects Community

LOS ANGELES (August 10, 2004) - At the Siggraph 2004 convention, wondertouch™, a leading software developer specializing in affordable, high performance particle effects tools for the visual effects industry, today announced that adoption for its 2D, sprite-based particle effects software application particleIllusion™3.0 continues to escalate. Cited for its power, speed and ease-of-use, and easy integration into existing workflow, visual effects professionals leverage particleIllusion 3.0 as a solution to efficiently deliver groundbreaking particle effects in real- or near-real time. It is also being used increasingly as a key pre-visualization production tool.

"In the past year alone we have seen an increased demand for tools that help game developers re-create realistic cinematic experiences and an overall need by visual effects professionals across the spectrum for pre-visualization tools that help them make smarter production choices," said Alan Lorence, president of wondertouch. "Alongside improving economic conditions, visual effects professionals remain challenged to create dazzling effects while meeting budget realities and relentless deadlines and wondertouch remains committed to offering a quality, affordable particle effects solution designed to enhance the creative productivity for our community of users."

Since its introduction in May 2003, the software is now installed at more premier facilities and independent boutiques than ever before including DKP Studios, Eagle Films, Eden FX, Electronic Arts, Frantic Films, HATCH, Northern Lights Post, Pacific Title & Art Studio, Pendulum Studios, Pixel Magic, Radical Entertainment, Rainbow Studios, Raven Software, Ritual Entertainment, Turner Studios, VCE, and many others.

Recent projects shaped by particleIllusion include feature films "The Manchurian Candidate" (HATCH), "Van Helsing"(Pacific Title and Art Studio), "Hellboy" (Eden FX, HATCH) and the forthcoming "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" (Pacific Title & Art Studio); the Beastie Boys "Ch-Check it Out" (Northern Lights Post) HD music video; interactive games "The Simpson's Road Rage" (Radical Entertainment) and "MX Unleashed" (Rainbow Studios); and television shows "Star Trek: Enterprise" (Eden FX), "The 2003-2004 NBA season on TNT" (Turner Studios), and the upcoming "NASCAR on TNT" (Turner Studios).

According to TrendWatch, a respected market information company for the pro-video, visual effects and graphics markets, new business projects are driving the renewed optimism among visual effects studios and facilities. "Many studio owners are more optimistic than they were during the summer of 2003. In fact, the number of US studios and facilities that say they expect business in 2004 to be excellent, much better than in 2003, jumped by 18 percent to nearly half (49 percent in the past six months). Areas that show promise include Web and interactive media companies, broadcast and cable studios, animation and effects studios and postproduction facilities." (Source: Trend Watch Visual Effects/Dynamic Media Report, Issue # 4, Winter 2003-2004)

Customers Rally for particleIllusion 3.0

Vancouver-based Radical Entertainment has relied on wondertouch's particleIllusion for the past four years for pre-visualization and full motion video effects on its top-selling game titles including the "The Simpson's Hit and Run," "The Simpson's Road Rage" and the "The Hulk."

"Using particleIllusion allows us to consistently deliver incredible gaming graphics and interactive experiences on many of our most popular entertainment products," said Fernando Medrano, art director, Radical Entertainment. "particleIllusion's user interface is so user friendly, that we made its workflow the basis for creating our in-house runtime particle tool. It is one tool that I can't do without when developing the art direction for a game."

At Atlanta-based Turner Studios, the full-service broadcast production and post production division of Turner Entertainment Group, particleIllusion played a starring role in recent projects including "Star Wars: Clone Wars" on Cartoon Network, the 2003-2004 NBA season on TNT, and NASCAR on TNT coming up later this summer.

Ken Brady, manager of post production explains, "particleIllusion gives our editors an added toolset that none of our editing platforms provide, including Avid, Discreet, and Quantel. The software is very easy-to-use and quickly delivers CG quality particle effects that we could not previously have taken advantage of without stepping into a CG suite. In our world, speed equates to high value and particleIllusion is the answer. Two years ago Turner Studios began with a single installation of particleIllusion and because of its solid performance and feature benefits, we increased the number of seats this year to seven."

HATCH, a Los Angeles-based visual effects house, used particleIllusion on recent films like "Hellboy," "The Chronicles of Riddick" and "The Manchurian Candidate."

"particleIllusion was featured in each of the three key shots we produced for "The Chronicles of Riddick" to create smoke, haze and fire effects that provided atmosphere and mood to our multi- layered composites, including the opening sequence which showcases an exploding planet," said Deak Ferrand, visual effects designer/matte painter. "We also took advantage of the software in the opening shot - a mixture of live action elements and CG - on "The Manchurian Candidate" when we pan down to the desert with burning oil wells to reveal Denzel Washington sitting in a Hummer."

Rainbow Studios located in Phoenix, Ariz., produces some of today's most exciting action game titles including: "MX Unleashed, " "Splashdown: Rides Gone Wild," and "Star Wars Racer Revenge." The studio began using particleIllusion in 1999 where it played a key role in the popular animated TV series, "Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles." Since then, the software has been part of every studio project for straightforward particle effects content creation, as a means to prototype effects for games, and to enhance aspects of film and video work.

For Tom Granberg, senior artist at Rainbow Studios, particleIllusion offers unparalleled visual flexibility and is an ideal tool for fast-paced production environments. "One of particleIllusion's main workflow benefits is that it permits various production team members such as vfx artists, art directors or production leads to track the visual progression of a shot to gain immediate feedback about how the finished effect will look, not only in terms of aesthetics, but with regards to motion flow, etc.," said Granberg. "With this information we can decide on-the-fly what areas need more work, or at least have an indication about how we will need to solve an effect."

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 over 1100 preset effects such as smoke, fire, explosions, water effects, sparkles, colorful artistic effects, and many others. particleIllusion features OpenGL hardware acceleration to provide real-time (or near real-time) previews of most effects and ultra-fast rendering of final output. Installed at leading worldwide production facilities, particleIllusion has been used in hundreds of feature films, television episodes, broadcast commercials, computer game titles and Web graphics projects.

About wondertouch

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

wondertouch software products are available directly from wondertouch. Additional information on wondertouch can be obtained on the Web at www.wondertouch.com