SPOTLIGHT Virtools
by David Bishop in Develop

Virtools, a new French company has just the answer to your development woes. Called Virtools, it's set to rapidly speed up the time it takes to get your ideas from paper play to proper play. David Bishop investigates.

Development costs are escalating - that's fact. To prototype a new game idea can cost a small fortune, and if that project does not get out of the starting blocks - for whatever reason - then you may just as well have poured the funds down the can yourself.

But there's a new solution. Virtools recently unleashed Virtools Dev, a one stop SDK that enables developers to quickly and easily test out design ideas in a real-time 3D environment. But not just that - once the idea is up and running, the Virtools Dev suite can be utilized to develop the game to whatever stage suits you, right down to a finished gold master, if that's your preference.

It's a system that will win as many enemies as friends, mainly because there is a large degree of skepticism whenever Development tools are provided as finished articles, rather than being created to handle specific tasks. Of course, there's no denying that building your own bespoke editing tools is the perfect solution - but time spend tinkering with editors is time that could be spent working on the game.

François Dujardin, Virtools' Sales and Marketing Manager, thinks that the time is right for the Development community to consider applications are designed to help them quickly and efficiently work their ideas into games. " Why an off-the-shelf Development tool?" he ponders. "Well, it's just the natural way any industry evolves, finding way to rationalize and optimize production. It's happening in every field of the software Development industry. Game Development used to be mainly low level programming like ASM, and everything could he handled by a simple person. But it is now getting so complex, that programmers really don't mind higher layers like C++, or even DirectX.

"Looking at if from a financial point of view it's becoming too risky to reinvent the wheel every time. This induces a situation where publishers would rather see you write another Quake-alike than pitching them your new revolutionary idea that you'll never be able to show them anyway, since it would take months to develop a decent prototype - and they don't want to pay for that unless you are Peter Molyneux." Which, it's worth pointing out at this point, we're not.

So there is, clearly, a need for a quick and efficient way to present ideas to potential publishers that doesn't require a huge investment - and François is convinced that Virtools is it. "Game Development is shifting from craftsmanship to an industrialized process, and it's a good thing if releasing the pressure of technical constraints unleashes creativity."

Then Virtools created...
Virtools Dev is currently an only child. But Virtools is a good six months pregnant, and a new addition to the family is planned for May 1999. They've already picked the name: Virtools Creation. François explains the difference: "Virtools Dev is a comprehensive package for real-time 3D games Development. It includes a SDK and end-user interface.

Virtools Creation is basically Virtools Dev without the SDK. It is based on the same technology, has the same user interface and features, but your are bound to the standard behaviors library. Virtools Creation comes with a standard player that you can distribute freely, as an .exe file or as an ActiveX web plug-in. It is very well suited for start-up companies which want to put together prototypes and try out ideas with a very low cost.

These two products are just different forms of the very same technology. If you want to get a game prototype up and running quickly, then use Virtools Creation. If you want to refine that game prototype, push it into full production and customize and optimize everything down to the root, then you'll want the SDK: go for Virtools Dev."

Some will say that a Dev kit 'in a box' will not be as powerful as one generated by the development team - primarily because those tools are designed with a specific job in mind. How would Virtools counter these arguments? "Virtools does not pretend to replace anything", says François. "It's a complementary solution to existing methods. Most Development teams have very good Development kits designed in-house for a specific type of product. These are efficient if you stay with in the limits inherent to the type of products these tools were created for. But it gives you very little chance to experiment with new ideas."

Quake, rattle and roll
"Look at the Quake engine", he continues. "It's great if you want to create a Quake-alike game, but try to implement a flight simulation with it - it just doesn't make sense. Virtools offers a generic approach to game design, and lets you specialize it in the way that you need. I have shown Virtools to quite a few brilliant game Development studios, and they were all interested in the approach. If you are good at what you are doing - that is creating games - then there is no reason to fear Development kits in a box. You just take advantage of what they can give you, and still do the hard part yourself: being creative; Look at Lionhead Studios. They are currently working on one of the most eagerly expected games ever. One could think that they don't need to take a look at what's available in terms of Development tools. Well, they did contact us to see what Virtools was about, I'd say, just to give it a fair chance. It's always good to know what's out there. And you might be surprised."

Virtools is confident that both Virtools kits are relevant to all 3D games. "Virtools offers a generic approach to game design", says François. "It lets you experiment and try out just about anything that you want. And when your design starts shaping up, you can use the SDK to customize Virtools in a way that optimizes performance for the specific needs of your design. Down the road, it is still up to your code. Virtools is a framework, an enabler. If you use it right, you'll get impressive results, but if you are not a good game designer, it won't create a miracle. At this point we haven't really figured out the limits of the product yet, and we still have a lot things we want to add in. Without disclosing anything, I can tell you that our users work on very different games at the moment, ranging from action and adventure to strategy, simulation, edutainment, etc. Some of them are using Virtools only for prototyping, while some are taking it into full production. Again, if you want to do another Quake-alike, use the Quake engine."

The take-up hasn't been rapid, but there are those within the Development community that have begun using Virtools Dev, "I can mention Frederick Raynal, creator of the Alone in the Dark series, as well as Little Big Adventure", offers François. "He is using it to experiment on futures games that he has in mind. And Cendant Software is producing four games with Virtools at the moment." Other big names are close to singing up, but François is reluctant to single them out until the take-up has been confirmed. "We launched Dev in October, but the Christmas season wasn't the best time for people to evaluate it. There are many studios considering it at the moment, in the UK, France and the US, but I can't disclose anything at this point."

Licensed to make games
The licensing deals for both Virtools kits have been designed to offer flexibility to the user, be it a single-seat license, or an entire Development team. "Virtools Creation is the entry product." François elaborates. "For $990, you can start creating game prototypes and distribute your content freely using the Virtools Player. It's a one-seat license, with Web-based tech support. It's the cheapest way to get into real-time 3D games.

"Virtools Dev is the complete production platform. For $3,490, you get the full product, with the SDK, e-mail and phone tech support, and that's a one-seat license, too. So for approximately the price of a 3D Studio Max license, you get a comprehensive 3D Development kit. You can create impressive interactive 3D content and distribute it freely using the Virtools Player."

"If you want to use the Virtools engine to publish your game, you go into a technology licensing agreement. You have the ability to do whatever you like with the code, integrate whatever part of Virtools in your application. Most of the time, this happens when you sign a deal with a publisher. In return, we agree on a flat fee, which you can integrate in your business plan. That flat fee depends on the type of product that you are working on. The maximum is $45,000 per title, and that would be for a world wide 3D game. The reason the flat fee is negotiable is because Virtools also appeals to multimedia studios, that want to easily integrate a bit of real-time 3D into their published titles. In that case, it's obvious that the flat fee has to be adequately calculated. If for some reason you are using it for purposes other than publishing - say professional services, for instance - then it's free of charge."

Whether you intend to use the Virtools range for full development or not, even the most cynical coder could not doubt the advantages of using the system to prototype an idea quickly and easily. François - who has very little experience as a programmer - details how quickly he, with fairly basic programming skills got a WipeOut-style game up and running within a matter of days: "Using traditional Development techniques, you could say that the demo is working after you have written the 3D engine, the game logic, and implemented the first level of your game, with rough 3D models. That's probably a few months' work if you start from scratch. With Virtools, you can consider the demo is running from day one. As soon as you drag and drop a 3D model into the 3D scene, and start applying behavior to it, you are in contact with what will become your game demo. Then it's just a matter of incrementally adding more interactions, and refining the content.

Virtools has been conducting one-on-one trials of Virtools Dev to a number of European Development teams. So far, François has been pleased with the reaction. "To date, everyone has been interested in Virtools. Most programmers we have shown it to think it's the way games should be made in the future: reusing the basics as much as possible and focusing on the neat stuff. Some are skeptical and won't even look at it. But I think they are missing something. I'm not saying that they should use it, I just feel it doesn't hurt to have a look at it."

"Our customers use it in different ways. Some use it only for prototyping, because they have their own engines that they have been working on for years, and that they feel pretty happy with. Some see it as the engine they will use in their next game but want to take the time to become familiar with it. So they are acquiring it now, and using it for prototyping, with the idea in mind to make the move to production sooner or later. I am pretty happy with that situation. I think each team has to decide on what level it wants to use tools like Virtools. Some will never use Virtools for full production, but that's okay if it's already very useful for prototyping. The investment is still worth it - it can save them an awful lot of time and money."

"We know that it is important for game developers to have maximum control of what they are doing. That is why have made Virtools as open as possible. We offer standard ways to do things, but we also make it possible to bypass these standard features if they don't suit your needs.

Another example is the 3D engine we provide. It is separated from the core engine and we provide the API to plug in an alternate 3D engine if you need to. Along the same lines, the standard behaviors library that we provide is to be considered as a demonstration of what you can do with Virtools and we actually provide the source code for all these behaviors in the SDK."

We've yet to road test Virtools Dev or Creation yet, but we have to admit we're pretty excited by its potential.