Las Vegas , Nevada -- NAB -- April 16, 2007 -- NewTek, Inc., innovator of award-winning 3D animation and video products, today revealed the extensive use of LightWave 3D® by the artists at Zoic Studios in the creation of the new Fox Series, Drive. The series as described by Fox is "an action-fueled drama following a diverse group of Americans driving for their lives (or the lives of their loved ones) in a sinister, cross-country road race." The show features locations all over the U.S. but the production is headquartered in Los Angeles, resulting in the extensive use of green-screen photography to transport the audience from location to location. Zoic Studios has developed an entirely new approach to the visual effects for Drive by introducing an omniscient camera that moves seamlessly from the open road in and around moving vehicles.

"LightWave has been a wonderful thing for Zoic because its inherent renderer is perfect for our heavy metal shots," commented Loni Peristere, creative director, Zoic Studios. "We're able to get incredibly photorealistic LightWave renders with the benefit of 9.2's new motion blur. We no longer have to worry about edge blurs that break up when we hit a vector. It's really all of the sudden pushed the renderer into heavy competition with Mental Ray and Renderman, so we don't have to do it at the high price point. We get photorealistc renders with raytracing, subdivision and all the bells and whistles, with motion blur."

The approximately 130 visual effects shots Zoic is tasked to produce for each episode requires extensive pre-visualization and planning. While the show features many largely digital scenes the challenge is that the effects must be entirely invisible to the viewer.

"Zoic Studios pioneered many of the innovative new visual effects techniques we see on television today," said Jay Roth, president, NewTek 3D division. "Clearly they are setting a new standard with their accomplishments on Drive. We're proud to have been with Zoic from the beginning and deeply rewarded that the new features we've recently added to the LightWave render engine allow them to achieve this level of realism."

LightWave HD bundle by 3D Storm is available until April 30th, 2007 at authorised NewTek resellers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and includes LightWave® v9, SpeedEDIT™ and LightWave 9 Defined for a suggested retail price of 795 €/£529 + VAT.

LightWave HD by 3D Storm is also available with the set of three printed LightWave® v9 manuals in English for a suggested retail price of 855 €/£569 + VAT. Registered owners of LightWave 3D® [8] or earlier are eligible to purchase an upgrade to LightWave® v9 (with printed documentation) along with SpeedEDIT™ and LightWave 9 Defined for 495 €/£329 + VAT.

For more information or to purchase, please visit http://www.newtek-europe.com or call NewTek Europe sales at +33 (0)557 262 262.
To locate a NewTek Europe Authorized Reseller please visit
http://www.newtek-europe.com/uk/purchase/resellers.html

NewTek's Lightwave is one of the most powerful, multi-platform, 3D modeling, animation, and digital effects programs available with one of the best professional native rendering on the market. The combination of the most complete professional toolset in the industry at the most affordable price makes NewTek's LightWave 3D® the best choice for any 3D job anywhere. Recent television and film projects using NewTek production tools include 300, The Guardian, Ant Bully, The DaVinci Code, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Serenity, Sin City, Fantastic Four, The 4400, Stargate: SG1, Stargate: Atlantis, Battlestar: Galactica, Prison Break, LOST, CSI, Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight, Recent game titles include Shadow of the Colossus, Black, Ridge Racer 6, Burnout Revenge, Driver: Parallel Lines, Quake IV and Heroes of Might and Magic 6.
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

San Antonio, Texas-based NewTek Inc., is a leading provider of full-featured video editing, live production, presentation and visual effects tools including LightWave 3D®, winner of the 2003 Primetime Emmy® Engineering Award, Video Toaster®, TriCaster™, TriCasterPRO™, SpeedEDIT™, and 3D Arsenal™ . Newtek Europe - 3D Storm, located near Bordeaux, France, is the NewTek distributor for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia.
www.newtek.com
www.newtek-europe.com / www.3dstorm.eu

For Press Contact or Review Units Only:

Audrey-Jane Belin
+33 (0)5 557 262 275
mail to: aj@newtek-europe.com

For General Information:

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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