IDV, Epic Bring Speedtree to Unreal Engine 3

Following news of similar additions to Epic's Unreal Engine, Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. (IDV) has announced that it has joined Epic Games' Integrated Partners Program to fully integrate SpeedTreeRT into Unreal Engine 3 and is now available for licensing directly from IDV. SpeedTreeRT, which, the company notes, won the 2005 Front Line Award for middleware, delivers highly realistic trees and plants, with adjustable wind effects, user-configurable and seamless LOD transitions, and an included library of more than 1,000 tree, plant and marine models representing 200 species. SpeedTreeRT includes SpeedTreeCAD, a Windows application used to create and edit animated trees in real-time. "IDV's technology relationship with Epic began several years ago and has put SpeedTree in the hands of a large community of outstanding game developers," said IDV President Michael Sechrest. "Formalizing the partnership is an obvious next step and lets our customers know how committed we are to working with Unreal Engine 3." Under the terms of Epic's Integrated Partners Program (IPP), which creates formal business relationships with selected companies that develop cross-platform technologies to integrate with Unreal Engine 3, IPP partner companies agree to provide a high level of technical support for UE3 licensees through Epic's established support channels, keep their implementations up-to-date with the latest UE3 versions, and work with Epic on potential promotional and co-marketing efforts. "SpeedTree is a very popular option for outdoor gaming across the range of genres and platforms," said Mark Rein, Vice President, Epic Games, Inc. "We're pleased that our customers can now license this technology and be confident that it has been fully integrated with Unreal Engine 3, and that there are dedicated support resources at IDV to help them maximize its impact within the UE3 environment." The partnership with IDV marks the latest in a line of third-party additions to the Unreal Engine 3 suite, with Quazal's Spark! "lobby in a box", Fonix Speech's VoiceIn Game Edition software, and Engenuity's AI.implant software all having been implemented in the past several weeks.