wondertouch Plays Partnership Role in New Game Center at The Art Institute of California - Los Angeles

Company's Award-winning particleIllusion Software Application to Serve as Key Educational Tool for Game Developers and Enthusiasts

ST. LOUIS, MO - (January 23, 2006) - wondertouch™, a leading software developer of high performance particle effects creation tools, today announced it has joined as a partner in the new Game Center at The Art Institute of California - Los Angeles. The Game Center will be open to (IGDA) International Game Developer Assn. members, professionals in the fields of game development and animation, members of the media and students of game art to examine the latest state-of-the-art game development tools and software. wondertouch particleIllusion™, now serving as an important particle effects software application at leading game development studios around the world, among them Radical Entertainment, Rainbow Studios and Electronic Arts , will be featured at the Game Center alongside other industry leading game development applications.

wondertouch will also participate in the Game Center grand opening ceremony and EXPO taking place at the The Art Institute of California - Los Angeles on Thursday, January 26, 2006. Demonstrations of the particleIllusion product line will take place from 4:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. (Editors' note: for further details on the opening celebration and EXPO, please visit, http://www.aicala.artinstitutes.edu/news_detail.asp?nid=3949)

The Game Center will be located at The Art Institute's campus in Santa Monica and provide access to game center workstations, the hottest new video games, a motion-capture system and related educational and informational material including books, board games, magazines and DVDs. According to Bijan Tehrani, industry liaison to The Art Institute of California - Los Angeles, the Game Center will serve as an enhancement to the Art Institute's Game Development degree program as well as a vital game development resource for students and the game development community at large. - more -

"We welcome the partnership support of wondertouch in the opening ceremony and their participation in the months to come in ongoing programs and events that will provide value to game development professionals and enthusiasts," said Tehrani. "particleIllusion is reputed as a quality game development tool that saves developers time and animators and students new to the field who have a hard time learning particle tools in 3D programs will be surprised by the ease and practicality of this standalone application. We look forward to Game Center visitors learning more about this exciting tool!"

"We could not be more pleased about partnering with The Art Institute of California - Los Angeles and its new Game Center," said Alan Lorence, president of wondertouch. "particleIllusion is now used by professionals in all stages of the game development cycle - prototyping and designing effects that will be recreated in the game engine; generating textures for the game; adding effects to cinematic sequences; even in creating commercials for the finished game product. We think the application is an ideal fit for educational environments in general, and the Game Center specifically, and look forward to future opportunities to work together."

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 1400 preset effects such as smoke, fire, explosions, water effects, sparkles, colorful motion graphics 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.

About wondertouch

wondertouch, headquartered in St. Louis, Mo., is an award-winning software developer specializing in particle effects for the visual effects industry. The company's flagship product particleIllusion, a sprite-based particle effects application, is designed to provide the most comprehensive effects creation tool and efficient workflow. Considered one of the most popular solutions for effects creation, particleIllusion is now used worldwide by creative professionals working in film post-production and pre-visualization, standard and HD video, commercial broadcast, motion graphics and game content creation.

A spectrum of recent entertainment projects shaped by the software include feature films "North Country," "Stealth," "Wedding Crashers," "Sin City," "The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D," and "Fantastic Four;" the hit soap opera, "Passions;" syndicated entertainment news program "Access Hollywood;" interactive game titles "Crash Tag Team Racing," and "MX vs. ATV Unleashed;" episodic television series' "Battlestar Galactica," "JAG," and "Navy/NCIS;" various sports programs including: "NBA on TNT", "NASCAR on TNT;" national commercials including Kellogg Company, NAMCO and Cadillac/Saab (GM); music video projects for Dave Matthews Band, and many others.

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