SEPTEMBER 1999 GAME DEVELOPER MAGAZINE ON THE FRONT LINE OF GAME INNOVATION GAME PLAN DEVELOPER 600 Harrison Street, San Francisco, CA 94107 t: 415.905.2200 f: 415.905.2228 w: www.gdmag.com Fast, Cheap, and Publisher Cynthia A. Blair cblair@mfi.com EDITORIAL Out of Control Editorial Director Alex Dunne [email protected] Managing Editor his past July I was fortunate mond Rio. If major motion picture stu- Kimberley Van Hooser [email protected] to fly out to Monte Carlo for dios, television networks, radio sta- Departments Editor Medpi, a gathering of game tions, and record labels decide that the Jennifer Olsen [email protected] publishers and representa- time’s right to push their content onto Art Director T Laura Pool lpool@mfi.com tives from the largest French game dis- the Internet (I’m talking in a major Editor-At-Large tributors. In a sense it’s like E3, except way — not the half-hearted attempts Chris Hecker [email protected] that the entire Medpi exhibition area we’re seeing today), what will that do Contributing Editors could have fit within Nintendo’s E3 to game sales? Will the competition Jeff Lander [email protected] Mel Guymon [email protected] booth. During my second day at the from other forms of digital entertain- Omid Rahmat [email protected] show, I met a developer on the show ment mean opportunities for game Advisory Board floor who works for a major game developers, or will it threaten the pre- Hal Barwood LucasArts development/publishing company. As eminence of games as computer-based Noah Falstein The Inspiracy Brian Hook id Software 6 we toured his company’s booth and he digital entertainment? Susan Lee-Merrow Lucas Learning demonstrated their upcoming titles for While the current retail model for Mark Miller Harmonix Paul Steed id Software me, we began discussing movies — The games is far from dead and competition Dan Teven Teven Consulting Phantom Menace, specifically. This guy from other forms of digital entertain- Rob Wyatt DreamWorks Interactive told me that the official release date for ment is still nascent, we all need to be ADVERTISING SALES TPM wasn’t until October 13, but con- prepared for a completely wired, digital- Western Regional Sales Manager fessed he’d already seen the movie — ly integrated world. The Internet will Jennifer Orvik e: jorvik@mfi.com t: 415.905.2156 he had downloaded it from the Inter- have a major impact on game develop- Eastern Regional Sales Manager/Recruitment net. I was taken aback. ment and distribution next century, Ayrien Houchin e: ahouchin@mfi.com t: 415.905.2788 Ethical issues aside, the thought of and I’m convinced that as the Internet International Sales Representative Breakout Marketing e: [email protected] downloading a few hundred individual matures as a delivery mechanism, it will t: +49 431 801703 f:+49 431 801797 movie segments from alt.binaries.multi- continue to benefit the game industry. ADVERTISING PRODUCTION media, piecing them together, and then To what extent we’ll feel the pinch of Senior Vice President/Production Andrew A. Mickus watching the results on my 15-inch piracy and competition from other Advertising Production Coordinator Dave Perrotti computer monitor just isn’t appealing forms of media as the Internet evolves Reprints Stella Valdez t: 916.983.6971 to me. Sadly, I have to admit it’s not the is anyone’s guess. Piracy enforcement MILLER FREEMAN GAME GROUP MARKETING risk/reward ratio that deters me, it’s the itself may be too tough to overcome. It Group Marketing Manager Gabe Zichermann MarComm Manager Susan McDonald work/reward ratio. The consequences of may require gigantic changes in the Marketing Coordinator Izora Garcia de Lillard downloading an illegal movie, game, or current business model of game pub- song from the Internet are virtually lishing, or an advanced licensing CIRCULATION nonexistent. While I’m pretty sure that scheme based on advanced encryption Vice President/Circulation Jerry M. Okabe Assistant Circulation Director Sara DeCarlo the effort required to do so forces many technology not yet invented. Much of Circulation Manager Stephanie Blake people simply to use the legal channels, tomorrow’s popular software (such as Assistant Circulation Manager Craig Diamantine it’s still way too easy these days to Linux) will be a free commodity which Circulation Assistant Kausha Jackson-Crain download digital content illegally. The drives ancillary money-making busi- Newsstand Analyst Joyce Gorsuch sheer volume of pirated media available nesses, like training or consulting. In INTERNATIONAL LICENSING INFORMATION leaves little doubt that enforcing intel- gaming, the model might be to distrib- Robert J. Abramson and Associates Inc. lectual property laws is going to be one ute free games and charge a fee to par- t: 914.723.4700 f: 914.723.4722 e: [email protected] of the biggest law enforcement chal- ticipate in professional leagues or lenges in the coming century. It will against other players online. exert downward pressure on publisher Like the title of Errol Morris’s wacky CEO/Miller Freeman Global Tony Tillin revenues and developer royalties, and 1997 documentary, the Internet of the Chairman/Miller Freeman Inc. Marshall W. Freeman keep game (and probably movie and next century is going to be “fast, cheap, President/CEO Donald A. Pazour CD) prices higher than necessary. and out of control.” In that climate, CFO Ed Pinedo And then there’s the flip side to the governments must be prepared to step Executive Vice Presidents Darrell Denny, Galen A. Poss, Regina Starr Ridley coin. What happens when other enter- up enforcement of intellectual property Sr. Vice Presidents Annie Feldman, Howard I. Hauben, tainment media embrace the Internet laws, and games companies must step Wini D. Ragus, John Pearson, Andrew A. Mickus as a (or the) primary means of deliver- up to compete against (or cooperate Sr. Vice President/Development Solutions Group KoAnn ■ Vikören ing their content? Music, of course, is with) other forms of media. Group President/Division SF1 Regina Ridley well down this path already, thanks to formats such as MP3 and RealAudio, and support hardware like the Dia- GAME DEVELOPER SEPTEMBER 1999 www.gdmag.com New Products: Raindrop Geomagic simplifies NURBS, Digimation dishes out Particle Studio, and Digital Origin debuts RotoDV. p. 9 Industry Watch: Nintendo’s Dolphin strategy, Activision’s big game hunt, and the latest from EA Sports. p. 10 Product Review: Dan Teven takes Virtools’ NeMo for a test drive in rapid News from the World of Game Development game development. p. 12 ance computation directly onto the Particle Studio comes with three New Products NURBS surface. plug-ins: Particle Studio, Particle Studio Shape runs on Windows 95/98/NT helper, and the Particle Studio Snap- by Jennifer Olsen and IRIX. It’s available as a stand-alone shot utility. It is priced at $595, with or as a component of the new Geo- discounts available to current Sand magic Studio, which also includes the Blaster users. Whip 3D Models into Shape polygon-reduction tool Decimator and a ■ Digimation Inc. new version of Geomagic Wrap. St. Rose, La. RAINDROP GEOMAGIC has introduced ■ Raindrop Geomagic Inc. (504) 468-7898 Shape, a new 3D modeling tool Research Triangle Park, N.C. http://www.digimation.com 9 designed to relieve artists and designers (800) 251-5551 or (919) 474-0122 of the ponderous methods associated http://www.geomagic.com with creating high-quality NURBS mod- DV Effects in Real Time els. Not all designers are great mathe- maticians, after all, and vice versa. Party with Particles DIGITAL ORIGIN has begun shipping With Shape, users can start with RotoDV, its new Macintosh-based digi- data from a physical object scanned DIGIMATION has released Particle Studio, tal video manipulation tool for roto- and modeled in Geomagic Wrap, or its new particle generation plug-in for scoping, special effects, animation, and import polygonal data from various 3D Studio Max and the successor to touch-ups. RotoDV offers real-time 3D file formats. Shape then generates Sand Blaster. playback at full resolution, depending NURBS patches based on an automati- It’s difficult to imagine a game today on RAM availability, enabling users to cally computed patch layout, lays a that wouldn’t incorporate some kind view their work quickly as they go. grid structure on each patch, and fits a of particle system in its architecture. With native QuickTime architecture, NURBS patch to each grid. Adjacent Particle systems are useful for handling RotoDV promises to make fast friends NURBS patches are guaranteed to be a variety of common effects such as with many other non-linear video edit- connected seamlessly, unless the user smoke, fireworks, fountains, stars, and ing tools you and your team might be specifies otherwise. Shape's tolerance did I mention explosions? using, including Adobe Premiere and function can then evaluate the Particle Studio works with an event- Digital Origin’s EditDV, and it plays well approximation of the NURBS surface driven paradigm, breaking the particle with compositing applications such as by comparing it to the original polygo- system up into time-based events. Most Adobe After Effects. nal data, and map a color-coded toler- particle systems work under a set of Users can customize RotoDV’s parameters created at brushes by setting and linking differ- the beginning of the ent parameters, enabling a wide vari- system. In order to ety of effects. Replicator brushes can control the system transfer certain images or entire frame over time, the user sequences from frame to frame or must either alter the layer to layer, even during playback. original parameters, The Media Stack offers unlimited paint or use other tools and video layers for endless combina- such as space warps.