Bill Gates keynote features LightWave® 64 animation

Seattle, WA, - April 25, 2005 — NewTek, Inc., creators of Emmy award-winning LightWave 3D® announced today the creation of the first 3D animation modeled, animated and rendered entirely in a native Windows 64-bit environment. Using Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and the beta version of LightWave® 64 on a 64-bit AMD Opteron™ with 32GB of RAM, Rob Powers, lead creature animator on James Cameron's "Aliens of the Deep" created an extremely rich and beautifully textured undersea environment with hundreds of complex sea creatures which was featured in the Bill Gates keynote address at Microsoft Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2005.

The final rendered animation was completed in one render pass on the 64-bit system. The animation includes extensive amounts of complex geometry along with: volumetric lighting with multiple layers of ray trace refraction and transparency in addition to particulate matter, enhanced details in texture maps on high resolution texture maps, area lights, and global illumination and individualized custom creature animations within a detailed background environment. Working in the 64-bit environment eliminated the need to break the scene into multiple layers as required by the bandwidth limitations of 32-bit hardware and software. The final rendered animations which showcase a comparison between 32-Bit and 64-Bit can be viewed here :

32-bit Animation Render (12.1Mb WMV) / 64-bit Animation Render (12.3Mb WMV)
WinHEC Keynote Address (LightWave portion begins at 25:30)
64-bit Animation Still Frames (2.63Mb TGAs): 50, 187, 259, 320

"64-bit technology removes so many barriers that I was able to go crazy pushing the limits of what I could do right in camera beyond anything I could ever imagine," said Rob Powers. "The sheer magnitude of options that open up with increased memory access and system speed provided with 64-bit technology allow an artist to produce complex visual effects beyond anything you would attempt with a 32-bit solution. Frankly, I have to entirely rethink how I approach production."

"When we were preparing the WinHEC keynote address, we wanted a dynamic and visually compelling presentation that would thoroughly illustrate the advantages of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition," said Jay Kenny, Windows product manager, Microsoft Corp. "NewTek's LightWave 64 was the ideal solution. NewTek and Hollywood visual effects artist Rob Powers delivered for us with the first 3-D animation ever created using 64-bit technology exclusively on Windows x64 Edition. The presentation was not only dynamic and illustrative of the power of 64-bit technology; it was stunning, which is why we've elected to showcase it."

LightWave's 64-bit version leverages the increased memory available with 64-bit systems plus the power of the new processors and faster RAM access to provide digital artists with a streamlined workflow that allows them greater flexibility and creative freedom. Content creators can complete their work in less time, or do more complex work than could previously have been done within a given time and budget. The ability to utilize much more RAM allows the artist to create more complex and realistic scenes as well as to produce images at higher resolutions for film, high-definition television, and print.

You can view Bill Gates’s key notes speech here : http://www.microsoft.com/events/executives/billgates.mspx

Pricing and Availability

LightWave [8] full package including an English printed documentation is available for a suggested retail price of 1295 €+VAT (UK RRP: £899 +VAT). Registered owners of LightWave 3D [7.5] or earlier are eligible to purchase a LightWave [8] Electronic Upgrade Pack for 295 €+VAT(UK RRP:£199+VAT). The English printed documentation is available as an option for 70 €+VAT (UK RRP: £44). For a limited time, a LightWave 3D® Electronic Full Competitive Upgrade is available for 495 €+VAT (UK RRP: £339), for registered owners of Maya™, Softimage™ XSI, 3ds max®, Electric Image™, Strata Studio Pro™, Cinema 4D™, Truespace™, Hash Animation Master™, Autocad®, Pro/Engineer® and SolidWorks®. Proof of ownership required to qualify. Registered LightWave® owners will also be able to purchase an additional seat of LightWave® at the 495 €+VAT (UK RRP: £339) price. This special offer is available through April 30, 2005, from any NewTek Europe Authorized Reseller or directly from NewTek Europe. For more information or to purchase, visit: http://www.newtek-europe.com or call NewTek Europe Sales at + 33(0)5 57 262 262. Authorized Reseller link to http://www.newtek-europe.com/uk/purchase/resellers.html

About NewTek and NewTek Europe.

Sited near Bordeaux in the southwest of France, NewTek Europe has been the European branch of NewTek, Inc. since 1999 for distribution, communication, and the technical support of NewTek products throughout Europe, Russia, Africa and the Middle East.

NewTek, Inc., based in San Antonio, Texas, is one of the main players in the animation and special effects markets with LightWave 3D®, winner of the "2003 Primetime Emmy® Engineering Award" as well as the producers of video editing solution Video Toaster™.

NewTek was the instigator of the desktop video revolution with the launch of the legendary Video Toaster™ in 1990. This product has been in continuous use since then for video aficionados as well as for professional applications in the world of film.

Among the latest productions NewTek tools have helped with, you'll find: "I, Robot", Spiderman 2, The Manchurian Candidate, The Exorcist: The Beginning, Garfield, Hellboy, Van Helsing, les Triplettes de Belleville, The Last Samurai, Torque, The Children of Dune, Battlestar: Galactica, Firefly, Taken, Smallville, Star Trek : Enterprise, Matrix Reloaded, Collateral Damage, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Secret Agent: Cody Banks, Daredevil, Spy Kids II, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (nominated for an Oscar®), Final Fantasy, Blackhawk Down.

Latest game work includes: Doom III, Burnout 3, Killzone, The Moment of Silence, Unreal Tournament, Serious Sam, Age of Mythology, Civilization III, Dead to Rights, Baldur's Gate II and EverQuest.

Information about LightWave 3D^®:
http://www.newtek-europe.com/uk/products/lightwave/index.html

LightWave 3D^® artists interviews:
http://www.newtek-europe.com/uk/community/lightwave/index.html

LightWave 3D^® Projects List:
http://www.newtek-europe.com/uk/products/lightwave/projects.html

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- LightWave and LightWave 3D are registered trademarks of NewTek.
- TriCaster, iVGA, VT[4], VT[4] Live, VT[4] Post, VT[3], VT[3] Live, VT[3] Post, VT[2], VT-Edit, Aura Video Paint, LightWave Express, VT-CG, VT-Vision VT-Scope, VT-DDR, Tool Shed, Tool Chest, SX-84, SX-8, RS-8, LScript, Digital Confusion, HyperVoxels, Endomorphs, Intelligentities, Motion Mixer, Morph Mixer, HardFX, SoftFX, ClothFX, MultiMeshes, Particle FX, P.A.V.L.O.V., Skelegons, SkyTracer, and Vmaps are trademarks of NewTek, Inc.
- All other products or brand names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

Press contact:

Audrey-Jane Belin
Marketing & Communication Department
mail to: aj@newtek-europe.com

Newtek Europe
Europarc
17 avenue Léonard de Vinci
F-33600 PESSAC
Tel:+33 (0)5 57 262 262
Fax:+33 (0)5 57 262 261
www.newtek-europe.com

FOR GENERAL INFORMATION
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