Sunday 14 December 2008

Cityscape, automatic 3D urban modelling application

A new kid on the block in urban modelling to rival the likes of CityEngine? PixelActive is pleased to announce the latest release of CityScape, their high speed, intelligent world editor. CityScape enables users to create complex urban-themed virtual landscapes 10x faster than traditional modeling tools, while maintaining a high level of quality.

The product is ideal for video game and virtual world developers who need to build large worlds that are optimized for real time engines. CityScape has been shipping to game developers for two years and the latest version adds support for multiple users, allowing several artists and designers to work on the same environment simultaneously. Other new features include support for astrometrics (accurate solar and lunar entities based on geography, time and date), larger worlds, and optimizations for faster performance. Current clients include Volition, Inc. (creators of the Red Faction® and Saints Row® franchises), Bunkspeed, Inc. (creators of visualization technology for design and marketing) and others.

CityScape was built from the ground up to solve the problem of creating cities quickly and efficiently. "For game developers, CityScape allows designers to get in their world sooner to test out design ideas and iterate, iterate, iterate," says Steve Rotenberg, CEO of PixelActive. "But serious game and simulation developers can also benefit from CityScape's support for importing GIS data, allowing geospecific modeling of real world locations."

Most studios currently use a general purpose 3D modeling package to create these cities, but the process is tedious and expensive due to the high labor involved. CityScape gives designers and artists the power to interactively create complex road networks, shape the landscape, place props and buildings, and place application-specific data, all in a single application that works with their entire asset pipeline.

CityScape integrates into most workflows seamlessly via COLLADA, an open standard for digital assets. More about the application (and a demo download!) at http://pixelactive3d.com/

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