B1 Media Selects wondertouch particleIllusion to Animate Scenes of Ancient Egyptian Afterlife in Upcoming History Channel Documentary - Egyptian Book of the Dead"

ST. LOUIS, MO - (July 25, 2006) - wondertouch™, www.wondertouch.com, a high performance software developer of particle effects creation tools, today announced that B1 Media, a Los Angeles-based full service production facility specializing in DVD menu and DVD game production, selected its award-winning particleIllusion™ particle effects creation tool to help animate realistic live action and 3D scenes illustrating aspects of life in ancient Egypt, for the upcoming History Channel documentary "Egyptian Book of the Dead." Noted for its ability to allow artists to quickly preview effects in real-time, and quickly and easily customize them, the B1 Media effects team leveraged particleIllusion to create atmospheric and climatic effects including sandstorms, dust clouds, and mist vapor.

The "Egyptian Book of the Dead" tells of a young man's quest to find the true meaning behind the ancient text - a group of mortuary spells written on sheets of papyrus covered with magical texts that were placed with the dead to guide their journey through the underworld and attain an afterlife of bliss. The documentary is scheduled to air on the History Channel this Fall. It is produced by Morningstar Entertainment in conjunction with B1 Media.

Brian Metcalf, VFX supervisor and producer at B1 Media, stated that the facility completed 69 visual effects shots for Egyptian Book of the Dead, including a number of digital background matte paintings, special effects composite sequences and Maya 3D elements. "particleIllusion's intuitive user interface, fast rendering capabilities and extensive library of preset particle emitters allowed the team to quickly grasp and meet the challenges of conceptualizing and animating key ancient Egyptian after life environments, most notably sequences that involved the portrayal of deserts and temples with stunning results."

"We are thrilled that particleIllusion is a preferred particle effects creation tool at leading facilities like B1 Media," said Alan Lorence, president, wondertouch. "We remain committed to providing artists with a flexible set of tools that helps to unleash the creative process so they can realize their ideas and tell incredible stories as effortlessly as possible."

Kurt Wiley, staff animator and designer on the project, an avid and longtime user of particleIllusion, added: "The flexibility of being able to edit any of the existing particleIllusion 3.0 libraries affords incredible versatility and easily allowed us to incorporate changes on-the-fly without affecting production schedules," he said. "For the Land of the Dead Desert sequence, where one of the documentary's characters traveling through the afterlife encounters a number of desert-based Egyptian gods, multiple planes of dust clouds were required. To create a dust depth effect, we modified several stock particleIllusion emitters so that they would generate an overlapping sequence of morphing cloud shapes. These were re-tinted in Adobe After Effects and tracked to an After Effects-imported Autodesk Maya plate set-up containing our animated characters. Additionally, throughout the dolly, track mattes were also used to simulate a depth move.

"Similarly, in the Land of the Dead Temple sequence, we relied on the same procedure as the Desert sequence; using particleIllusion library emitters as well as custom-generated emitters to create realistic mist vapors which were composited using After Effects into the front planes of the Maya rendered shots."

B1 Media, along with Ratio Pictures and Blue Room Drama Films, is also relying heavily on particleIllusion for the feature film entitled "The Dreamless," now in post-production which is written and directed by Brian Metcalf.

About B1 Media

B1 Media, based in Los Angeles, is an innovative full-service design and production studio with DVD, game, broadcast design, production and pre-mastering divisions.

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. Widely regarded as one of the most artist-friendly and affordable software solutions for creating high-quality, complex particle animations, 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.

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