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Greetings, and welcome to this edition of our quarterly (4 times a
year at most) newsletters from wondertouch.
In this Issue:
1) What's New? New products, Vista
compatibility, more
2) See us at NAB in April
3)
Customer stories: how is particleIllusion being used?
4) What's coming
in the near future
Since the last newsletter in September, things have been moving along
at wondertouch, just not as quickly as we'd hoped in some cases.
We've got some new products ready for release, but work on others has
pushed out the schedule on even others -- a lot going on here! So
read on to see what's new with us.
Alan Lorence, president, wondertouch.
1) What's New
New Products: New Pro Emitter Libraries for particleIllusion
3.0
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Due to the popularity of the Pro Emitter Libraries that we
released a year ago, we've released an additional 3 libraries (90
emitters total) that we're sure you're going to love! Created
by Tom Granberg, these 3 libraries ("Graphics Elements 1", "Graphics
Elements 2", and "Extreme Graphics") are focused more on motion
graphics emitters than "effects" emitters, and they contain some of
the most original particle emitters you've seen to date.
Graphics Elements 1 contains "numbers and
counters" and "data gizmos".
Graphics Elements 2 contains "energy" emitters
like atoms and pulsars, "readouts and displays", and "texture"
emitters to be used as backgrounds.
Extreme Graphics contains a wide variety of
high-energy emitters: "nightmare", "Xrays and Scans", and "Letters
and Text".
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Buy all three of the new Pro Emitter
libraries NOW (before March 1) and save an extra
15%! Use the following coupon code when
ordering: new-pro-now. Coupon code is valid
for the "Libraries 7-9" and the "Complete 1-9" products only, and expires
March 1
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Free Downloads
Just a reminder: we release free updates to particleIllusion
periodically (we're soon to release 3.0.5 for OS X) so
make sure you're using the latest version. Check
our updates pages.
It surprises me how many of our customers don't know this (or
have forgotten) but we release a free emitter library every
month. This means that you're always getting new effects
and new ideas, so check
our emitter downloads page every month. |
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Windows Vista Compatibility
Some of you have made the upgrade to Windows Vista, or are
contemplating doing so, and are probably wondering if you'll have any
problems with particleIllusion. Here are the details on what works
and what doesn't.
The particleIllusion 3.0 demo is Vista-compatible as-is. The
purchased version of particleIllusion 3.0 does work with Vista (and also
the 64-bit version of XP) but only
after contacting us for an update.
particleIllusion SE, both the demo and purchased versions, are not
Vista-compatible at this time.
2) See us at NAB in April
 
If you've not had a chance to meet with us at
a tradeshow before, your next chance will be at NAB 2007 in Las Vegas, April 16-19.
We'll be part of the Plugin Pavilion, next to the Adobe booth in
the South Hall Lower Level. Stop by the booth, see a demo, ask questions,
and maybe learn some particleIllusion tricks!
If you've been thinking about attending NAB but haven't gotten your
pass yet, you can use the following VIP
Pass Code to receive a free VIP exhibits only
pass:
KB2216 Use it at: http://www.nabshow.com/VIP.
Register before April 12, and we'll see you at the show!
3) Customer Stories
Customer Spotlight: Sports Teams and
particleIllusion
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Here we spotlight the use of particleIllusion 3.0 by various US
pro sports teams.
Jeff Pickett, the founder of Pickett Productions in
St. Louis, says that the facility's work on behalf of the St. Louis Blues and St. Louis Cardinals requires
that they provide exciting and visually interesting graphics and
animation... "particleIllusion allows us to quickly create
proprietary effects that look visually exciting and are easy to
integrate into our animations without having to spend major amounts
of time on R&D. We consider particleIllusion a primary tool in
the company's production pipeline that we could not get along
without."
For the past three football seasons, particleIllusion has been in
use at the Chicago Bears
franchise in the Chicago Bears Broadcasting department where it is
used to create effects for the 'Bears Gameday Live' pre-game show,
the 'Bears Gamenight Live' broadcasts - a full half hour of game
coverage and analysis - and for scoreboard graphics.
Read
the rest of this article to see how other teams are using
particleIllusion 3 -- and keep your eyes on the scoreboard at the
next sporting event you attend! |
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Customer Spotlight: Elvis Deane
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Elvis Deane is founder of Astounding Adventures
and is one of the more active members of the particleIllusion
software community. He is also a preeminent animator and independent
filmmaker. Many wondertouch customers know Elvis from his role the
past three years as a Creative
Cow forum leader where he continues to offer online creative
support to users of the various particleIllusion versions. He also
holds the distinction of having created a title in the new video
training DVD series from Creative Cow called the Creative Cow Master
Series. This title, "The Apprentice Magician's Guide to
particleIllusion", is the most comprehensive set of video tutorials
created to teach novice users every aspect of particleIllusion
3.0.
particleIllusion users can also find Deane's free tutorials
on the Cow website which are geared towards explaining more
complicated issues in particleIllusion or aspects of the software
more specific to a problem -- things he says that artists don't
necessarily require in their every day work but that are fun to do.
Titles include "Relighting an Actor," "Orbing and Beaming Effects,"
and others.
His most current project, a short film called "Reste la M?e,"
relied heavily on particleIllusion to create transition effects for
backgrounds in a few key scenes. Read
the entire article and get more information about Elvis and his
particleIllusion experience. |
Let Us Hear From You!
We love to see how our customers are using particleIllusion. If you're
working on an interesting project, please
let us know. We'd be happy to spotlight your work! (We're especially
interested in presentation projects, event video, feature film, and
television show/commercial use of particleIllusion.)
4) What's Coming in the Near
Future?
particleIllusion 3.0.2 for Windows
First up on our
release schedule is particleIllusion 3.0.2 for Windows. (In the last newsletter this
was called "3.1.0", but we've re-thought the version number.) This free
update will fix several long-standing bugs, and will provide updated AVI support.
This will include support for DV AVIs and alpha channels in AVIs (when
using a codec that supports it). These features were planned for 3.0
but didn't make it into the original release. This should be released
in the next couple of months. We had hoped to have this ready for release by now,
but it took more time and effort than expected to get the next Mac
version ready (see next section).
Compatibility with Intel Macs
We are very close to releasing particleIllusion 3.0.5 for Mac OS
X. This will be a Universal version (so it will run full-speed on
Intel Macs) and will contain many bug fixes. In fact, part of the
reason this release took so long is during beta testing we found and fixed
many problems that have existed since 3.0 was released on OS
X. We've also been updating pIllusionRender (the standalone
renderer included with particleIllusion 3.0) so it will finally support
batch rendering -- something the Windows version has had all
along. Expect this free update to be ready sometime in March.
particleIllusion 3.5
The next major release of particleIllusion 3 will be version 3.5, and
is planned for later this year. This will be a paid upgrade, and
will include many new features -- although we are not releasing feature
details at this time. We haven't finalized the feature set yet, so if you
have any ideas for features that you wish particleIllusion 3 had, email
us and let us know your ideas. The things we've been working on
already are very cool -- this will be a lot of fun.
pIllusion AE -- the plug-in for Adobe After
Effects
For quite some time, our many After Effects customers have asked us to
develop a plug-in that will provide easy access to the powerful
particleIllusion 3.0 software engine from directly within the After
Effects environment. We have been working diligently to make this a
reality, and are happy to report that completion of the plug-in --
"pIllusion AE" -- is in sight! Suffice it to say that we met with several
development "surprises" that delayed our efforts to release the product,
but it will be released later this year. We'll continue to keep you
updated, but send
us an email to add you to our notification list for pIllusion AE.
Thank you for your patience as we make sure we "get it right"!
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