Mar 10, 2010

 

San Francisco, CA (March 10, 2010) – Havok™, the premier provider of interactive software and services for digital media creators in the games and movie industries, today announced that the company was seeing rapid industry adoption of its newer products including Havok Cloth and Havok AI, by leading game publishers and studios alongside the industry standard Havok Physics. Havok will be showcasing its entire product lineup in GDC Booth #BS224 at this year’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco beginning March 10, 2010.

“Havok Cloth’s animation tool set has allowed our artists the ability to control and replicate more authentic looking movement into DJ Hero”, said Jamie Jackson, Creative Director at FreeStyleGames. “As a result, players are able to experience even more interactive and unique visuals.”

“Havok AI gave us an advanced New Mesh solution in a short cycle with absolutely great support”, said Chris Sherland, Lead Producer at LEGO Universe, NetDevil, Ltd. ”Rolling our own solution would have cost us more in time and resources, and increased risk for our project - I can’t really see a better choice for us than using Havok AI”.

“We are delighted by the success of the initial wave of titles innovating with our latest products and excited about the pipeline of ground breaking games currently in development using Havok Technology” said Havok’s Managing Director, David O’Meara. "Games like Just Cause 2, Uncharted 2 and Bioshock 2 continue to lead the field and push players’ expectations beyond physics as special effects and into physically based gameplay, while titles like DJ Hero and UFC 2009 Undisputed leverage Havok Cloth alongside established Havok technologies to set new standards for character performance in games.”

Havok Cloth is a runtime SDK and tool chain designed to minimize the time that game artists spend on animating the behavior of character garments and skin deformation, while enabling increased believability for cutting-edge games.

Announced at GDC just one year ago, Havok AI is a new platform-optimized SDK focused on efficient pathfinding and path following. Havok AI is built from the ground up to consider dynamically changing environments.

Havok’s award-winning, multi-product line-up was recently awarded back-to-back wins of the Game Developer Frontline Award for Best Middleware. Havok tools and technologies are currently featured in nearly 270 released titles with over 130 in development, including top-selling triple-A games such as Uncharted 2 and BioShock 2.

“We chose Havok due to the ease of integration into our existing BioShock 2 code across multiple platforms” said Alyssa Finley, Executive Producer 2K Marin. “The Havok team also provided terrific support as we implemented their technology to enable immersive and realistic game play.”

Havok is also pleased to share that the Intel-funded, binary-only versions of Havok Physics, Havok Animation and Havok’s Content Tools for the PC have exploded in popularity with over 30% of all downloads occurring in the last 3 months alone. Located at www.havok.com/tryhavok, this comprehensive SDK download enables grass roots developers to experiment and deploy “freemium” PC games for no charge using the same physics and animation game technology used by the pros.

About Havok™
Havok™, an Intel® company, was founded in Dublin, Ireland in 1998, and is the premier provider of interactive software and services for digital media creators in the games and movie industries. Havok works in partnership with the world’s best-known game developers, including Microsoft®, Nintendo®, and Sony®. Havok’s cross-platform, professionally supported technology is available for the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system, PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, PSP®, Wii™, and PC Games for Windows. Havok’s combination of superior technology and dedication to delivering for its customers has led to the company’s technologies being used in nearly 270 of the world’s best-known game titles, including Assassin’s Creed 2, Uncharted 2, Halo 3: ODST and Bioshock 2. Havok products have also been used to drive special effects in movies such as Watchmen, Quantum of Solace, Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix, and The Matrix. Havok has offices in Dublin, San Francisco, Calcutta, Munich, and Tokyo. For more information on Havok, visit www.havok.com.

U.S. media inquiries please contact:
Double Forte for Havok
Susan Kramer/Oonagh Morgan
415/848-8113; 415/848-8106
skramer@double-forte.com ; omorgan@double-forte.com

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