RTzen Introduces Ginza2 Hardware Shading Environment

RTzen Inc. has introduced its latest version of RT/shader Ginza, a popular hardware shading environment for artists who design advanced effects for multi-platform games. The new Ginza2 allows an even broader audience of developers to create immersive visual effects using Alias Maya 6.01/6.5. Available this spring from the company's official website, demonstrations of the new Maya plug-in may be seen during the Alias tutorial and in the ATI and Nvidia booths at the Game Developers Conference this week in San Francisco. “More and more Maya users are relying on hardware shaders to design mind-blowing, realistic 3D graphics effects,” said Geoff Foulds, industry manager, games for Alias. "RT/shader Ginza2 will make their job easier, reduce design time, and allow for even more creativity.” The new Maya plug-in utilizes OpenGL’s GLSL high-level shader language to preview shaders and their dynamic parameters directly in the Maya viewports via a live or file-based link to Ginza2. In addition to the Maya plug-in, other enhancements include an extensively expanded SDK that allows users to extend RT/shader: Ginza beyond the shipping feature set and new script commands for render-to-texture effects in run-time environments. “With Ginza2, we are not only offering advanced shader creation to more artists, we’re setting the standard again by allowing customers to take their render-to-texture effects directly into the runtime,” said Jeremy Hubbell, president and CEO of RTzen. “Ginza2 is the only product that contains plug-ins for both the front-end art tools and the back-end run-time environments.”