LOS ANGELES -- Building on over 10 years of experience developing the award-winning Electric Image animation system for top production facilities worldwide, Play Incorporated announced at Sigraph '99 a next-generation 3D system for Microsoft NT, Macintosh, Sun and SGI platforms, called Electric Image: Universe.

Universe adds unprecedented new modeling, rendering and animation capabilities to the original Electric Image system, and the company expects it to dramatically change production possibilities and the industry's perception of what can be achieved in real-time. Play's Universe introduces important new capabilities to the Electric Image system, such as hybrid surface/solid modeling, real-time 3D Video Tracing and Digital Backlot technology, as well as a sophisticated ray tracing engine, a deeper animation tool set and the ability to directly save Trinity effect file formats. Additionally, Universe has an improved interface designed to take advantage of natural workflow processes with tear-off tool palettes, custom layouts, context-sensitive menu systems and user created tool palettes.

"We took everything we've learned from Electric Image's ten years of trial-by-fire production at top facilities to create this next-generation 3D system," said Dwight Parscale, CEO of Play's 3D Group & Vice President of Play Sales. "Universe was designed with the artist in mind and we expect the system to dramatically expand production possibilities for motion picture, broadcast, game development and Web graphics."

Digital Backlots
Industrial Light and Magic used Electric Image: Universe's Digital Backlot technology in "Star Wars : The Phantom Menace" to create hundreds of on-screen effects shots. Universe delivered film resolution final imagery in record time for scenes such as the breathtaking royal palace at Naboo, the lightning-fast pod race and the elaborate Jedi temple on Coruscant. The combination of three key techniques enabled Universe to uniquely create these compelling visuals.

First, advanced 3D camera projection mapping combines digital matte paintings with the freedom of camera motion to easily produce elaborate and realistic environments. Universe's superior anti-aliasing and sampling algorithms ensure that digital elements match physical elements without the visual artifacts encountered in other 3D systems. Finally, Universe's ability to quickly render scenes with literally millions of polygons allows the realization of vast virtual landscapes.

Real-Time Video Tracing
A tight integration between Universe and the Trinity video production system allows the creation of real-time visuals never before possible at any price. Complete Universe 3D scenes and live video sources can be combined with Trinity's custom hardware architecture to create sophisticated effects complete with multiple video targeting, lighting, shadows, reflections, refractions and variable transparency. This breakthrough technology now allows the creation of photorealistic virtual sets, video transitions and overlay effects previously impossible to achieve in real-time.

Hybrid Surface/Solid Modeling
Universe includes a true hybrid surface/solid modeling system that allows both surface and solid techniques to be used in the creation of a single model. All models are resolution independent, allowing for incredible editing control as well as clean, precise edges and unions, with none of the artifacts associated with polygon-based modelers. Complex shapes can be created quickly with UberNURBS, multi-dimensional Booleans, blends, bevels, boundary surfaces, surface networks, NURBS, Bezier curves, polylines and primitives. Mathematical formulas can even be used to create surface descriptions, allowing for easy creation of otherwise difficult geometry.

Sophisticated Light Ray Tracing
A new highly optimized ray trace engine inside of Universe allows the creation of stunning reflections, refractions and soft-edged ray traced shadows. Ray tracing can be enabled on a model-by-model basis, and is fully integrated with the complete rendering engine to accurately generate sophisticated scenes in record time.

Deep Animation Toolset
Virtually every attribute in a Universe 3D scene is animatable. Animating is fast and interactive, using direct manipulation or editable flexible temporal, keyframe, frame and key-index project views. Powerful higher level animation provides for inverse kinematics, function curve editing, Bones, morphing, smart deformations, particle systems, vibration systems and importation of motion capture data. Master materials allow any attributes of a single model or light source to control any number of similar objects' attributes.

Multiple Platforms
Universe achieves true feature parity across all supported computer platforms, including Windows NT, Power Macintosh / iMac, Sun Solaris and SGI. All Universe native file formats are binary compatible across hardware lines. OpenGL hardware acceleration is supported on all platforms for fast shaded user interface feedback. Network rendering is supported cross-platform as well, allowing different computer platforms to participate in a single job.

Electric Image software is widely recognized in the broadcast and motion picture industries as having the most advanced 3D rendering technology. It is often used in the creation of blockbuster movies, such as "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace", Star Trek: First Contact," "The Mask" and "Terminator 2: Judgement Day." Besides its impact on Hollywood's top feature films, Electric Image software is also widely used for broadcast television graphics, such as NBC's "Dateline," FOX's "The X-Files," and TNT's "Babylon 5," and in the creation of videogame titles for the Nintendo 64, Sony PlayStation and Windows PCs.

Play Incorporated was founded in 1994 by computer and video industry pioneers with the goal of melding high-end video and graphics capabilities to personal computers for distribution over the Internet. Among its award-winning products are Snappy Video Snapshot, the all time best-selling computer video add-on, Trinity, which revolutionized TV production and graphics throughout the world and GlobeCaster, the world's first Internet TV station-in-a-box. For more information call 800.306.PLAY or visit www.play.com.