wondertouch Releases particleIllusion Professional Emitter Libraries

Designed by Talented Trio of ParticleIllusion Artists, Collection of Six Bold New Libraries Features 'Out-of-the Box' Access to Astonishingly Complex, High Quality Particle Effects

ST. LOUIS (February 22, 2006) - wondertouch™, (www.wondertouch.com), a leading software developer of high performance particle effects creation tools, today announced the release of the Professional Emitter Libraries, a collection of six new particle emitter libraries for the company's award-winning particleIllusion™ 3.0 software - widely regarded as one of the most artist-friendly and powerful software solutions for creating high-quality, complex particle animations. The Professional Emitter Libraries (Pro Emitters) have been developed by three digital artists - Tom Granberg, Sasha Milica and Phalkunabba Rath - who exhibit outstanding command of the particleIllusion software application, distinctive creative styles and superior aptitude in creating intricate particle-based effects intended to embellish the 'palette' of effects choices for professional particleIllusion artists.

Each of the six individual libraries contains 30 emitters that feature sophisticated, complex and ready-to-use particle effects covering popular themes including real-world effects such as explosions, auroras, and breaking glass; motion graphics and artistic backgrounds; text and abstract effects - a range of effects that are useful for nearly every conceivable creative professional and prosumer project. The Pro Emitter Libraries can be purchased individually or as a complete set for both the Windows and Mac platforms. (Editors' note: see pricing and availability section below)

Alan Lorence, president and chief developer at wondertouch, explains that the Pro Emitter Libraries allow a particleIllusion user to supplement the already impressive selection of more than 1400 different preset emitters that ship with particleIllusion 3.0 (as well as the additional emitters that the company releases free-of-charge each month) with a set of extremely high-quality particle emitters.

"While particleIllusion ships with a comprehensive variety of preset effects that is updated each month, and customizing the emitters or creating entirely new ones is relatively simple, some artists don't have the time, desire, or ability to experiment with creating new or complex effects.

"Because I'm the primary creator of the emitters in particleIllusion, I tend to work in a specific way with pretty heavy constraints on the amount of time I can spend on them, which limits the types and complexity of effects I can create. To address the need to bring artists an even greater selection of more artistic and complex particleIllusion effects, I've drawn on the immense talents of Phalkunabba, Sasha and Tom. They have mastered particleIllusion's simple yet powerful engine in creating this new collection that features hands-down some of the most innovative, stunning and incredibly intricate particle effects ever developed for the application," Lorence elaborated. "We are confident that particleIllusion users of all skill levels will be impressed by the incredible content and enhanced productivity that each library has to offer so they can hit the ground running on any project requiring advanced particle effects."

Customers Enthusiastic for Pro Emitters
"Once again the team at wondertouch has come through for us with a uniquely versatile blend of creative and technical flexibility. Instead of a major code change, the wondertouch team was wise enough to lean on the amazing talents of some of their most creative users," exclaims Robert Taylor, executive producer and president at Pendulum Studios. "No matter how well we think we know particleIllusion, and how cool the FX are that we're able to create with it, these new 'Pro Emitters' are absolutely breathtaking. If you can't find something inspiring, useful and exciting in this potent new collection of emitters, then you're definitely in the wrong industry!"

"As a motion graphics artist working under tight deadlines in a broadcast environment, the bottom line for me is that these emitters are innovative and sophisticated with motion that is beautiful and eye-catching, and are immediately useful for production work," states Nathan Shipley, animator, IMS (Indianapolis Motor Speedway) Productions. "Those that may not present an obvious use right away quickly inspire spin-off ideas for ways they can be customized. You WILL see these on broadcast network television!"

"This collection of pro emitters demonstrates the wide range of possible applications for particleIllusion. From pyrotechnics to graphic design, this collection has a taste of everything," says Mike Shand, VFX supervisor, Frantic Films.

Unparalleled Particle Effects Complexity
Each Professional Emitter Library contains 30 emitters that cover a specific theme and reflect the stylistic influences of each of the artist creators, as follows (Editor's note: a brief bio on each contributing artist is available at www.wondertouch.com/pro_emitters.asp)

Abstract - This library includes very creative, organic, and beautiful emitters useful in composing backgrounds and adding graphics elements. Most of these emitters involve flowing, wavy, colorful designs that change over a very long period of time. (Created by Phalkunabba Rath)

Text and Logo - In this library, "logo emitters" - some of the most asked-about emitters available for particleIllusion - feature text or a logo that rotates, streams, converges, etc. (Created by Phalkunabba Rath)

Artistic Backgrounds - This library features a wide variety of animated background emitters, covering a range of styles from slow and subtle to wild and wavy which can be used alone or combined for added variety. (Created by Sasha Milica)

Graphics and Distortions - This library shows off the diversity of effects possibilities using particleIllusion and contains "graphics" elements and amazing examples of "distortions" - effects meant to be used on background footage. (Created by Sasha Milica)

Eclectic 01 - This library showcases a fantastic collection of real-world effects: fireballs, explosions, and smokes; "space" effects including wormholes and cosmic phenomena; and a few "graphics arts" style emitters that utilize numbers and simple shapes in very complex ways. (Created by Tom Granberg)

Eclectic 02 - This is the second library collection of realistic and useful effects including dirt, falling debris, breaking glass, clouds, auroras, and frosts. (Created by Tom Granberg)

Expanded Benefits
In similarity to all particleIllusion emitters, every emitter in the Professional Emitter Libraries is completely customizable and can be tweaked to create a slight variant, or turned into a completely new emitter, affording limitless variations with little effort. Additionally, each Pro Emitter Library contains interesting and unique shape images (sprites) that are critical to the look of the final effect that can be re-used in other emitters and in other projects. Thorough documentation is also provided for the collection consisting of a "catalog" of all of the emitters, a thumbnail image for each emitter, a short description, and usage notes including details of how the emitter works (where applicable) and instructions on how to easily modify the emitters to create interesting variations.

"The Pro Emitters not only provide particleIllusion users with an instant and expanded repertoire of great new effects, they also "teach" new and useful tips and concepts to the interested user. By analyzing the techniques used to create many of these effects - some of which have not been seen in particleIllusion before - users will gain an insight into advanced emitter creation," adds Lorence.

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.

Pricing and availability
The wondertouch Professional Emitter Libraries are available for individual purchase for $39.00. The complete collection of six libraries is available for $175.00, a savings of more than 25 percent over the individual library purchase price. The Professional Emitter Libraries are compatible only with wondertouch particleIllusion 3.0, on both the Windows and Mac OS X platforms.

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.

The Digital Artists Behind the wondertouch Professional Emitter Libraries Collection

wondertouch software (www.wondertouch.com) introduces the Professional Emitter Libraries, a collection of six new particle emitter libraries for the company's award-winning particleIllusion™ 3.0 software - widely regarded as one of the most artist-friendly and powerful software solutions for creating high-quality, complex particle animations. To realize the collection, wondertouch has tapped the talents of three of particleIllsion's most creative users, each who not only exhibit creative versatility and outstanding command of the particleIllusion software application, but who also possess superior aptitude in creating intricate particle-based emitters. The following provides a glimpse into the background of each artist.

Tom Granberg
Tom, creator of the Pro Emitter Libraries "Eclectic 01" and "Eclectic 02", is a Norwegian graphic artist now living in Phoenix and working at Rainbow Studios producing some of today's most exciting action game titles including "MX vs. ATV Unleashed," "MX Unleashed," "ATV Offroad Fury 2," and "ATV Offroad Fury."

As a particle effects artist Tom, borrows on both his game design and graphic arts influences to create realistic emitters that are often very complex and visually arresting. His particleIllusion explosions are considered among the best available.

Alan Lorence says: "Tom has been using particleIllusion longer than anyone else except me. He was the first 'out-of-house' beta tester for particleIllusion (Illusion 1.0), and was the first to demonstrate that in the hands of a capable artist, particleIllusion could produce realistic smoke trails and be used as a tool to do more than just create sparkles. Since he's created such a wide range of effects, we named his libraries "Eclectic"

Sasha Milica
Sasha, creator of the "Artistic Backgrounds" and Graphics & Distortions" Pro Emitter Libraries lives in St. Petersburg, Russia and has fine arts training in oil painting. Oddly enough, he does not work in the visual effects or motion graphics industries, but instead uses particleIllusion as a creative outlet - it's his hobby now (or "passion" as he puts it). Sasha often spends his evening hours 'playing' with particleIllusion, creating emitter variation after emitter variation. It is this enthusiasm for creating with particleIllusion that has lead to his discovery of some really awe-inspiring techniques.

Alan says: "Sasha experiments with particleIllusion more than anybody else that I'm aware of - myself included. He'll often send me emitters with simple names such as "1147" and "2455" - I believe he just assigns the next available number to an emitter and moves on, and probably has thousands of emitters in his personal libraries."

Phalkunabba Rath
Cambodian born Phalkunabba, creator of the "Abstract" and "Text and Logo" Pro Emitter Libraries is presently studying photography in Long Beach, California. In his spare time he provides freelance work in media arts and animation and has also worked for Cambodian broadcasters KBN TV (Khmer Broadcasting Network television) and CAM-TV (Cambodian television). Phalkunabba has been using particleIllusion since the software's inception (when it was first released as "Illusion 1.0"). With no formal background in arts or graphic school training to speak of, he is mostly self-taught and uses particleIllusion for "everything".

The "Abstract" and "Text and Logo" Pro Emitter Libraries he created represent only a small portion of his work. He has created hundreds of these types of emitters over the years.

Alan Lorence comments: "When Phalkunabba first sent me a sample of his "Abstract" emitters, I was amazed - I didn't think that creating such organic and flowing effects were possible with particleIllusion. What makes his emitters even more special is the fact that most of them continually change over time, often for 30 seconds or longer, which is quite a feat!"