Digital Element Releases AnimaTek WorldBuilder 3.0

SAN JOSE, CA (March 22, 2001) – At ID8 Media Booth at Game Developers’ Conference today, Digital Element, a San Francisco-based software engineering firm specializing in 3D graphics technologies, announced that it plans to release AnimaTek WorldBuilder 3.0 in the first week of April 2001.

WorldBuilder, first published in 1995, is used by film and television animators, video game designers, Web developers, architects and landscape designers to create ultra-realistic, animated 3D landscapes and scenery. It has won numerous industry awards, including Animation Magazine’s Golden Pixie Award and the PC Format Gold Award.

"We are pleased to see the newest version of WorldBuilder 3.0 incorporate support for the 3ds max platform," said Jon Bell, Developer Relations Manager for Discreet. "WorldBuilder continues to offer 3ds max artists and developers in film, post production, game development and the Web an extended toolset to imagine, create and populate fully-realized environments."

Digital Element’s president, Don McClure, said, "We are very excited about this new version of WorldBuilder. Digital Element’s world-class software engineers have greatly improved what was already one of the best 3D landscape creation and animation packages available today to allow the thousands of animators, designers and developers who use it to create a wide array of scenes and port them to 3ds max 4, Lightwave and other 3D packages, more easily than ever before."

Features and benefits new to WorldBuilder in version 3.0 include:

• Intuitive, streamlined, easy-to-learn user interface
• Improved communication with 3ds max™ 4
• OpenGL support
• "The Variator" automatic variation wizard for sky, plants, and scripts
• Undo-redo feature
• Revised Area Editor
• Improved rendering
• Support for translucency and anti-aliasing
• Improved shadowing and "point light shadows"
• New shades and filters
• Plant and Grass Editor
• New file format support and unit conversion support

More information about Digital Element and WorldBuilder is available at www.digi-element.com.

ABOUT WorldBuilder

First published in 1995, WorldBuilder is a high-end comprehensive solution for modeling, animating and rendering ultra realistic, fully functional 3D landscapes for use in computer graphics, architecture, game development and movie production. Its proprietary features allow users to create incredibly complex scenes with breaking waves, volumetric light, wind-blown trees and grass- all on an ordinary desktop workstation. The product comes in Standard, as a stand-alone application, and Professional, as a plug-in for Discreet's 3ds max. WorldBuilder 3.0 is priced at $399 for the Standard version and $999 for the Professional version.

ABOUT DIGITAL ELEMENT

Founded in 1999 in San Francisco, CA, Digital Element is a software engineering firm specializing in 3D graphics technologies. In addition to its Technology-on-Demand program, which provides 3D programming services to a diverse array of organizations, Digital Element develops and sells software products and services to film and television animators, video game designers, Web developers, architects and landscape designers. For more information about Digital Element, please visit www.digi-element.com.

ABOUT DISCREET

Discreet, a division of Autodesk, Inc.(Nasdaq:ADSK), is a leader in digital content creation, management, and distribution tools. Discreet develops systems and software for visual effects, 3D animation, editing, and production used in the creation of digital moving pictures for feature films, video, HDTV, broadcast graphics, interactive games and the Web. Discreet products are used extensively in film and video post-production, games and multimedia, broadcast graphics, programming, and on-air event coverage. For more information, contact any Authorized Discreet Reseller, call Discreet at 800-869-3504, or visit www.discreet.com.

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