FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CRAFT ANIMATIONS AND GAMECASTER® ANNOUNCE STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIP
Craft Camera Tools with Customized Interface to be Available for GCS3™ Users
LOS ANGELES, Calif., August 12, 2008 /PRNewswire/ -- Craft Animations and Gamecaster announced today at the SIGGRAPH 2008 conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques that the companies have entered into a strategic relationship to make Craft Camera Tools, a suite of 3D animation plug-ins for Autodesk® 3ds Max® and Maya®, compatible with Gamecaster's GCS3 virtual camera control technology in the fall of 2008. Craft's plug-ins are widely used in the entertainment industry, and were utilized to produce key visual effects shots for the summer blockbuster motion picture Get Smart.
The patented GCS3 virtual camera control is a replica of a real-world video camera. However, the GCS3 viewfinder does not display the real world but a virtual world generated by a computer. Using the GCS3, camera operators are able to use the same skills and methods of controlling a real camera to smoothly pan, tilt, truck, crane, and zoom the lens of a virtual camera within a virtual environment created with 3ds Max, Maya or video game engines.
The GCS3 enhances the production process of 3D animation by enabling digital layout artists to overcome current limitations and workflow issues, and produce cinematic live action-style shots in real-time with the precision and fluidity that a real camera operated by a human camera person offers.
In connection with the strategic relationship, Craft Animations is developing for Gamecaster an exclusive GCS3 pre-rigged camera system which will tell the Craft Camera Tools how to arrange, represent and configure its set of plug-ins as one single plug-in, with its own customized interface available exclusively to GCS3 users.
"Gamecaster and Craft Animations have been thinking along similar lines all along," said Deborah Lygonis, CEO of Craft Animations. "Whereas we at Craft have been focusing exclusively on software, Gamecaster has been focusing on amazing hardware that gives users some fantastic new possibilities. I am convinced that together we will revolutionize the way motion picture pre-visualization, visual effects, 3D animation, and video game cinematics are produced."
"Craft Animations is enhancing the way 3D animators and game developers think and work," said David MacIntosh, CEO of Gamecaster. "We at Gamecaster are excited to join forces with Craft Animations and integrate the outstanding Craft Camera Tools software with a customized and exclusive interface with our GCS3 hardware so that users can produce better content quicker and more affordably."
To request licensing information for the GCS3, email GCS3@gamecaster.com
About Craft Animations - Speed Animation™ and Desktop Mocap™
Craft Animations™ AB develops and markets Craft Director Tools, a series of plug-ins for Autodesk's 3ds Max and Maya. Craft's software is used by customers as diverse as Columbia Pictures, Toyota, Lockheed Martin and Johns Hopkins University. Craft Director Tools help users create process-driven animation, popularly referred to as 'desktop mocap'. This ground-breaking technology, based on cutting edge Swedish Research results into neural networking, artificial intelligence and autonomous control systems, gives users manual control of cameras directly inside the viewport. Through a wide range of specific methods, users can make the 3D cameras behave and look like real-world cameras, adding shakes and jitters that resemble hand-held cameras, adding over-compensation, manual-focus and zoom plus an organic, human element throughout.
www.craftanimations.com
About Gamecaster
Gamecaster, Inc., headquartered in San Diego, California, is a designer, manufacturer and supplier of virtual camera control technology for the film, television and video game industries, and an organizer and producer of video game tournaments and related television programs for broadcast worldwide in multiple media.
www.gamecaster.com
The GCS3 device, system and method of use are protected by the United States Patent No. 7,403,220; Taiwanese Patent No. I-280786; and patents pending in other countries.
The statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements."