November 10, 2000 - Paris, France

Hypnotix Adopts Virtools' Real-Time 3D Technology for the Creation of New Game Release "Deer Avenger 3D"

The hunt continues! Simon & Schuster Interactive recently unleashed Deer Avenger 3D, the amusing third sequel to the 10th most popular PC Game of 1999 (PC Data). Unlike its predecessors, Deer Avenger 3D takes the hunt to new dimensions as Hypnotix engages its players with real-time 3D. This hilarious hunting parody sets a new precedent for the best-selling series, featuring Virtools in action for highly immersive, real-time 3D characters and decors.

Hypnotix, an American game development company with several renowned titles under its belt, chose Virtools as the powerful catalyst to create their first 3D production of the series. When asked why they selected Virtools, Mike Taramykin, CEO of Hypnotix replied, "After having great success with our prior Deer Avenger 2D titles, we wanted to create a 3D version. However, we only had an extremely short amount of time and needed a stable program to work with. After scanning the market for an efficient development tool, we found that Virtools offered us all the flexibility and versatility we needed. Virtools was the 3D solution we were looking for. It was easy, quick and allowed us to jump right into production. We chose Virtools Dev and didn't look back."

Deer Avenger 3D was crafted in a record-breaking time of 5 months! Not only did Hypnotix profit from a tremendous reduction of maintenance time, but Mike Taramykin was very pleased to say that he also found Virtools to be "extremely cost efficient."

Additionally, Virtools helped them stay focused on content development and eliminated many of the technical limits that often come with 3D creation. "During the production process we experienced lots of growing pains. The good news was that Virtools offered us a remarkable learning curve… it's definitely not shallow. Although we made mistakes throughout the process, we found that the software was flexible enough where we could do it again and very easily. With some systems, if you commit to something, you're done. However with Virtools, mistakes are readily forgiven," says Mike Taramykin.

President and CEO of Virtools, Bertrand Duplat commented "We are delighted to see game innovators around the world embracing the power of Virtools. A new era in richly interactive 3D is sweeping the market and developers everywhere are beginning to realize the overwhelming advantages of using Virtools."

About Virtools
Headquartered in Paris, Virtools produces a suite of interactive 3D development tools and is swiftly earning a strong reputation for itself. Creation permits non-programmers to create rich interactivity through graphs and behavior building blocks, and Dev gives cutting edge game developers access to the underlying code for the power, flexibility and control they need to bring creative ideas to realization. The tools are used extensively by industry leaders to create games, entertainment and web 3D. Both products streamline the production process, are well adapted to episodic content, and are used by industry leaders including Havas Interactive, Microids, Hypnotix, Babel@stal, Appeal and TerraTools GmbH.

For more information, please contact:

Virtools
+33 (0) 1 42 71 86 90
info@virtools.com