Qube Launches Ignition Program For Q Engine

London-based middleware company Qube Software is launching a new process called the Q Ignition program, intended to speed the evaluation process for games designed on its modular Q Engine middleware. According to the company, the new process, six months in the works, can help developers get up to speed on the Q Engine and create a skeleton framework in four weeks. "In a matter of weeks we can have a full team rolling on a title and get them to a point where they’ve used Q components to create a bespoke engine and art pipelines," says Qube founder Servan Keondjian. Through Q Ignition, Qube says its engineers will work with a studio's dev team throughout the evaluation period to support them in putting together their game framework and art pipelines, while educating them on the Q Engine. Qube engineers and studio developers are to work closely together throughout the process to define parameters, configure the engine to their needs, and customize it according to their existing processes. First launched in February 2008 (and not to be confused with PipelineFX's render farm management software Qube), Q Engine is a modular cross-platform middleware designed to work with all last and current-generation consoles, PCs, handhelds and mobiles, and includes hardware features like custom shaders and platform-specific APIs. The core APIs and databases are designed to work on all the platforms Q supports. The company says the first titles using the middleware will launch in the first quarter of 2009, but UK-based Near's online world, Virtual London, launched in June 2008 and was reported to have used the Q platform.