NDL Announces NetImmerse 4.0 Game Engine

NDL has rolled out NetImmerse 4.0, the latest version of its 3D game-development toolkit, with support for Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo Gamecube, adding a new tool for previewing keyframe animations, new rendering capabilities, and performance increases for the core product and free plug-ins. NetImmerse is a comprehensive set of software tools that can be used for a wide variety of game genres and platforms. NetImmerse includes the C++ run-time API, plug-ins that allow developers to import content from the leading modeling packages, and optimization tools that enable the developer to quickly combine high visual quality with the most efficient use of computing resources. NetImmerse 4.0 adds AnImmerse, a keyframe manager tool that empowers artists to quickly preview and prototype keyframe animations within 3ds max, Maya or Creator. Without programming, artists can set up transitions between different animation sequences, specify a character model to which to apply the animations, bind a key on a keyboard for each animation, and run an interactive rendered preview of the animated character, using the bound keystrokes to trigger animation sequences. As for new rendering features, NetImmerse 4.0 includes a DirectX 8.0-based renderer, texture compression, and bump mapping. It adds performance enhancements in almost every aspect of 4.0, including animation, particle, character skinning, and collision systems. Improvements have been made in the three NetImmerse plug-ins, MAXImmerse for 3ds max, MyImmerse for Maya, and MultImmerse for Multigen Creator, that allow the plug-ins to take advantage of new 4.0 features. The free plug-ins allows artists to get real-time feedback on game performance without leaving their 3D content-creation programs. NetImmerse 4.0 will be available this April.