Montreal - October 2, 2006 - Engenuity Technologies Inc. ["Engenuity" or the "Company"] [TSX: EGY], a global leader in providing artificial intelligence tools and middleware for games, animation and simulation, today announced that they have joined Epic Games' Integrated Partners Program for Unreal® Engine 3. AI.implant has been fully integrated into Unreal Engine 3 and is now available for licensing directly from Engenuity.
Epic Games established the Integrated Partners Program (IPP) for the purposes of having a formal business relationship with selected companies making cross-platform technologies which integrate with, and are complementary to, Unreal® Engine 3. Under the IPP program Epic provides continuous Unreal Engine 3 source code access and full technical support to IPP members. Companies who join the IPP 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. The IPP program will make it easier for Unreal Engine 3 licensees to incorporate 3rd party middleware solutions from IPP vendors into their games.
"We're pleased to welcome Engenuity into the Integrated Partners Program," said Mark Rein, Vice President, Epic Games, Inc. "Our key aim is to provide Unreal Engine licensees with additional value-added tools that can help them deliver great content. Having Engenuity in the program means our licensees will have access to an Unreal Engine 3-integrated version of AI.implant with full engine-specific support directly from Engenuity."
AI.implant extends Unreal Engine's native AI capabilities with such innovative new features as Dynamic Path Refinement (DPR), allowing AI.implant characters to find believable paths through dynamic, physical worlds. Game designers can simply and graphically design decision trees and state machines directly within the Unreal Engine editor, with no need to compile or leave the editing environment. Additionally, AI.implant brings the ability to create large-scale crowds to Unreal Engine developers, as well as a unique navMesh system for smoother movement and a greater range of motion in AI characters.
"This is a significant milestone in the execution of our technology vision for game AI and a validation of our intensive 18 month iterative development process for the Unreal Engine 3," said Paul Kruszewski, chief technology officer at Engenuity Technologies. "We have always set out to provide our users with the best integration options. We delivered on this with our Maya® integration for our Film customers, and now we are delivering leading-edge integration for our games customers with the world's most popular AAA game platform."
AI.implant version 4.7 is available immediately. Please visit www.ai-implant.com for more details.
About Unreal Engine 3
The award-winning Unreal Engine is known for cutting-edge graphics and a best-of-breed toolset. Unreal Engine 3 is expected to maintain those features while adding massive world support, multi-processor support, next-generation console optimizations, and one of the most mature tool pipelines in the industry. Unreal Engine 3's new toolset is designed specifically to accelerate developers' productivity for ultra-complex, next-generation content.
At E3 2006 due to the enormous success of Bioshock, Mass Effect and Gears of War, Unreal Engine 3 games scooped overall 'Best in Show' Awards from Gamespy, Gamespot, Voodoo Extreme. These games and the others also scooped the top awards, and most runner up places in each of their individual genre categories given by these panels and also those given by IGN, 1Up and GameTrailers. Unreal Engine 3 also is the winner of the 'Best Game Engine' award in both the 2005 and 2006 Game Developer 'Frontline Awards'. Additional information on Unreal Engine can be obtained at www.unrealtechnology.com
About Epic Games
Epic Games Inc., based in Raleigh, NC and established in 1991, is a developer of cutting-edge computer and video games. The company is best known as the creator of hit PC 3D action games Unreal and Unreal Tournament, both award-winning blockbuster hits having each sold more than one million copies. Epic is also responsible for the Unreal Engine, which is the underlying technology for a wide range of games including, 2002 Console Game of the Year winner, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell ™ from Ubi Soft; PC Gamer's 2000 Game of the Year, Deus Ex from Ion Storm/Eidos; America's Army: Special Forces , from the United States Army, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (PC) from Electronic Arts. Additional information can be obtained through Epic's Web site at www.epicgames.com