Virtools

"GameSpy interviews Marie-Sol Beaudry, project manager on Microid's new adventure game, Syberia," by James "Prophet" Fudge.

Marie-Sol Beaudry: "For the development of Syberia, we have built our own engine, which is based on the libraries of middleware software named Virtools. Our engine has helped us to reduce the amount of coding work to articulate the behavior of the game environment, including the characters. Finally, this tool is very responsive regarding the animations. "

From Creating Interactive 3-D actors and their Worlds, without writing code" a book and CD- Rom by Jean-Marc Gauthier, www.tinkering.net, Morgan Kaufman Publisher, www.mkp.com.

"You can create complex simulations or interact with electronic and mechanical systems without writing a line of code. For example, fourth graders and their schoolteachers program robots to play soccer by selecting modules of code that they connect together using colored threads inside Lego Mindstorm's interface. Virtual reality software such as Virtools or robotics software such as Lego Mindstorms offer a new visual way to generate code that is an alternative to traditional programming. Nonprogrammers can use these authoring tools to design their old software applications. They integrate design solutions into their projects in ways that compete with work created by hardcore programmers.

Virtool's Building Blocks or prescripted behaviors help add interactivity to a scene. The interface to the behaviors is made of containers connected by strings. The parameters for the behavior variables are visible on the container's surface. The behavior can easily be edited by right-clicking on the realted containers, and they can be edited and combined together endlessly. Each behavior can be expanded to show its elements-each of which may be edited one by one. Several behaviors can be encapsulated into a new one, possibly serving a more specialized function.

The concept of universal or public containers of code contributes to the "open code philosophy". This view encourages the exchange and creation of more effective behaviors between people. In this spirit, www.swapmeet.com allows Virtool's users to exchange preprogrammed behaviors they create. They are able to reuse this exchanged code in their own simulations and games. This ability to exchange containers of code over the internet may produce a radical shift for ways to create 3-D interactive content."