Captain Virtools
From Issue 11 of Develop

Virtools Dev is a new 3D authoring system from Virtools. It offers radical advantages over other systems.

3D Authoring System Behaves Well New 3D SDK Virtools Dev is nearing the end of beta and should be available in August/September of this year. We'll be reviewing the product as soon as we get the release version, but the bare bones look promising. The system overlays a rendering engine (which you can replace with your own, if you wish) on top of Direct3D and adds a "behavior authoring system" that enables object to be given a full range of stock and user-defined behaviors. The package enables 3D scenes and objects to be manipulated in real-time by non-programmers (e.g. game designers) who can test and modify behaviors using a GUI, hopefully saving time in development. Finally, the SDK ties everything together as a separate set of behavior libraries and a programming library. You can use it to create a standalone product (as an .exe file) or integrate it into your own environment, accessing behaviors and all other data via the programming library. The behavior library (as with the other modules) is very open so if, for example you've got expertise in voice recognition or fluid dynamics, you should (in theory) be able to create very complex specialist behaviors of your own. The company are setting up an impressive support system, including a web site where developers can exchange behaviors.