Indigo2 IMPACT: Author Hard, Play Hard

Authoring Tools for the Games of Tomorrow

With the explosive success of multimedia PCs and the arrival of powerful, next-generation, 3D game platforms, the term "play" is taking on new meaning in video games. New levels of hardware performance enable video game developers to deliver an entirely new entertainment experience.

The next generation of winning titles will provide interactive, immersive 3D, as well as highly rendered 2D environments derived from 3D databases as baseline features. Games with basic 2D images and sprites for flip-book animation will appear primitive by comparison. Like Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong Country, and Primal Rage, tomorrows winning titles will be distinguished by rich content and compelling visuals. These visuals are enabled by advanced 3D modeling, texture mapping, on-the-fly geometry rendering, and special effects. To successfully compete in this rapidly evolving market, game developers must possess two core capabilities. First, they need fast, intuitive tools with the high-end power to deliver a continuous flow of creative, compelling game visuals. Second, they must have the technology to rapidly and easily merge artistic content with the developed game play in ways that significantly reduce cost and time-to-market.

Indigo2 IMPACT: Unleashing Visual Creativity

The Indigo2 IMPACT workstation from Silicon Graphics gives artists the freedom to produce compelling visuals. Its dedicated Geometry Engine processors and powerful imaging ASICs deliver the power artists need to rapidly generate highly sophisticated content. The rich, intuitive content-authoring tools from Silicon Graphics application developers let artists easily sketch concepts, convert them into 3D spline and polygonal models, and experiment with multiple iterations in real time. Other tools help artists paint on 3D objects, automatically polygonalize and intelligently simplify models, and immerse animated characters in true 3D environments to generate instantaneous previews of a title's look and feel.

Exceptional Image Quality

The advanced desktop authoring tools supported by Indigo2 IMPACT deliver the high-quality visuals required for today's winning titles. Most high-profile titles, including Killer Instinct and Donkey Kong Country, utilize outstanding visuals developed on Silicon Graphics systems. Nintendo will be using Indigo2 IMPACT as an important authoring platform for Nintendo Ultra 64 game development.

Streamlining Game Development

Indigo2 IMPACT not only enables the generation of high-quality visuals, but delivers an authoring environment so powerful that it's possible to seamlessly execute the entire development process for next-generation games - from early concept development through content creation, effects creation, and full prototyping of the final interactive experience on a single system.

Enhanced Productivity and Reduced Time-to-Market

The comprehensive development environment and rapid prototyping capabilities of Indigo2 IMPACT dramatically reduce the time-to-market for game developers. Not only is Indigo2 IMPACT powerful enough for the entire development process, it's flexible enough to prototype partially finished applications, preview partially finished work in real time, and emulate the real-time performance characteristics of numerous deployment systems.

Silicon Graphics: Leading the Way

Indigo2 IMPACT provides the ultimate in graphics and imaging power. Its specialized hardware accelerates a broad range of new generation applications from software developers such as Alias/Wavefront, SOFTIMAGE, MultiGen, Side Effects, and many more.

Silicon Graphics provides the power developers need to create the games of tomorrow.

Typed up by Ian Mapleson (mapleson@gamers.org)
Original Document Code: I2-Imp-Games-IB (6/95)
Last Change: 10/Jun/98