Discreet and NXN Software Announce Strategic Partnership

Press Release

Discreet and NXN Software Announce Strategic Partnership

 

New Technology and Business Partnership to Address Rising CG Production Costs and Expanding Complexity of Future Game Consoles in the Multi-Billion Dollar Gaming Market

San Francisco, Calif., July 22, 2003—Discreet, a division of Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK), and NXN Software, the leading supplier of asset management solutions for the digital entertainment and computer graphics industries, today announced a strategic technology and bundling partnership agreement that will promote tighter integration between their award-winning applications: Discreet® 3ds max® professional animation software and NXN® alienbrain® Studio. The agreement comes as a result of the need for production teams in a broad range of industries to manage the growing costs of design and animation development—while addressing expected complexities in designing state-of-the-art games for future game consoles.

Decreasing Costs through Integration
The costs associated with CG production are rising. According to a recent column in MSNBC on game development, a typical Sony PlayStation game in 1996 cost less than $1 million to make. Today, development costs for a Microsoft® Xbox® or Sony® PlayStation® 2 game can run anywhere from $5 million to $7 million per title. Some game titles, like Shiny’s Matrix, can cost upwards of $20 million. Many of those costs are related to the amount of code and graphics needed to satisfy increasing customer demands for graphical realism.

The current integration between NXN alienbrain Studio and Discreet’s 3ds max will address development inefficiencies by providing a secure production pipeline for art development. Artwork, such as scenes, textures, and animations are stored on the NXN alienbrain secure server and accessed and edited directly from a drop-down menu in the 3ds max GUI. While the artists work on a file, the file is locked from editing by other team members. Once the artists save their work, the latest version is automatically stored on the server along with every other version of that file.

”At NXN, it is our mission to enable creative teams to produce highly complex content more efficiently and cost-effectively,” said Gregor vom Scheidt, CEO of NXN Software. “The enhanced integration will not only improve file security, workflow, and team communication; it will give the artists more time to focus on what is really important—creating great artwork.”

Under the new agreement, Discreet and NXN Software will co-develop additional workflow and analysis tools that can be accessed directly from the 3ds max software interface. In particular, artists will be able to send files using the NXN alienbrain internal messaging system, assign a status to files and sign-off on completed files, locking them from further changes. A file analysis tool will be added later in the year.

The Scalable Pipeline
Recent months have seen the announcement of other integrations for a wide variety of graphics, programming, and middleware tools. For example, 3ds max and NXN alienbrain software products both integrate directly with Criterion’s RenderWare Studio; while NXN alienbrain Studio also integrates with programming applications such as Microsoft’s VisualStudio and Metrowerk’s CodeWarrior. The combination of these integrations forms a complete pipeline of development technologies capable of streamlining the complex requirements of an entire production team letting them beat their deadlines while delivering the most compelling entertainment possible on mobile platforms up to the next generation of game consoles.

“Discreet 3ds max software has the largest install base in the industry, and our customers create literally millions of 3D assets daily,” said Martin Vann, vice president of worldwide sales and marketing. “Relying on NXN alienbrain Studio, Discreet artists get a secure and proven asset management solution that ultimately allows them to stay focused on their creative work.”

Pricing and Availability
To promote the NXN/Discreet integration, the Discreet reseller network and NXN’s direct sales force will offer a bundle of the two technologies in North America. The Discreet and NXN bundle is expected to be available to artists in early September 2003. Contact a Discreet or NXN sales contact for more information.

About Discreet
Discreet empowers media professionals to realize the visual experience and transform their most evocative and ambitious visions into reality. Discreet's award-winning solutions are designed for digital media creation, management, and delivery—across all disciplines from film and television visual effects, color grading, and editing to animation, game development, web/interactive, and design visualization. Discreet is based in Montréal, Québec, and is a division of Autodesk, Inc, the world's leading design and digital media creation, management, and distribution company. Product and corporate information: www.discreet.com.

About NXN Software
NXN Software (http://www.nxn-software.com) is the leading supplier of asset management systems for the digital entertainment and computer graphics industries. NXN products provide designers, programmers, and project managers with a powerful framework to manage all assets throughout the development process. Companies using NXN Software include many of the world's most renowned entertainment studios, such as Sony, Electronic Arts, LucasArts, and Atari. NXN Software has offices in Los Angeles, Paris, London, Munich, and Tokyo.

Discreet is a division of Autodesk, Inc. Discreet and 3ds max are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. /Autodesk Canada Inc. in the USA and/or other countries. NXN and alienbrain are registered trademarks of NXN Software AG. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.
© 2003, Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.