Press Release
- 2002
ATI and Massive render The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in real time in Linux
Massive and ATI join forces at SIGGRAPH 2002 to demonstrate real-time cinematic rendering
Tuesday, July 23, 2002
MARKHAM, Ontario - ATI Technologies Inc. (TSX:ATY, NASDAQ:ATYT)
and Massive today announced that they will be rendering Academy
Award® winner, "The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship
Of The Rings," in real time at SIGGRAPH. This demonstration
will be taking place in the ATI booth (#13097) and Massive
booth (#5112) using ATI's FireGL workstation graphics
technology.
To produce accurate modeling of light and materials, and
conquer complex technical challenges, Massive's team used
TruForm™ and SmartShader™ rendering and shading
technology features to create real-time cinematic lighting
effects that could only be accomplished in software, until
now.
"Implementing cinematic lighting effects in elaborate
film sequences, such as those seen in this demonstration,
showcases the power of ATI's FireGL workstation graphics
technology," said Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President
of Marketing & General Manager, Desktop Marketing, ATI
Technologies Inc. "We've taken a great leap forward to
address the needs of digital content creators. With the strength
of Massive software and the power of ATI's engine, visual
computing enters a new era of functionality and control."
"Seeing a computer generated film sequence rendered
in real time is a huge benefit for artists," stated Stephen
Regelous, Massive's Chief Technology Officer and President.
"Our technology demonstration showcases the huge leap
forward taken by the digital content creation community to
address the implementation of technically complex data of
thousands of realistic digital characters interacting with
each other and their environment in a completely procedural
simulation."
ATI's groundbreaking FireGL workstation graphics technology
is the first in the world to deliver a fully programmable
floating point architecture in both OpenGL® 2.0 and Microsoft®
DirectX® 9. The FireGL features eight parallel rendering
pipelines, the industry's first, providing twice the rendering
power of any competing product, giving digital content creators
the ability to preview finished scenes in real-time, saving
days of production time.
Copyright 2002 ATI Technologies Inc. All rights reserved.
ATI and ATI product and product feature names are trademarks
and/or registered trademarks of ATI Technologies Inc. All
other company and product names are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of their respective owners. Features, pricing,
availability and specifications are subject to change without
notice.
About Massive
Massive's software was created at the request of Director
Peter Jackson, to support the intensive visual effects on
the Academy Award-winning trilogy, The Lord of the Rings.
Jackson required a solution that would create and manage complex
crowds, while granting individual characters a set of behavioral
rules or tasks to follow for heightened realism. As developed
by founder and CTO Stephen Regelous, Massive answered this
challenge.
Massive's crowd control technology is now available to 3D
content creators around the world. Massive's software offers
digital artists an unprecedented level of power, flexibility
and control based technology for the creation of complex,
realistic crowd scenes. With Massive, digital artists can
easily provide artificial intelligence and behavior to thousands
of digital characters at one given time.
About ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies Inc. is a world leader in the design and
manufacture of innovative 3D graphics and digital media silicon
solutions. An industry pioneer since 1985, ATI delivers leading-edge
performance solutions for the full range of PC and Mac desktop
and notebook platforms, workstation, set-top box, game console
and handheld markets. With 2001 revenues in excess of US $1
billion, ATI has more than 1,900 employees in the Americas,
Europe and Asia. ATI common shares trade on NASDAQ (ATYT)
and the Toronto Stock Exchange (ATY).
Contact Information
For media or industry analyst support, visit our Web site
at http://www.ati.com .
Other ATI Contacts:
Tenille Cuthbertson, Counsellor, BenchMark Porter Novelli,
at (416) 422-7163 or tcuthbertson@bmporternovelli.com
For Information:
Patricia Mikula, Public Relations Manager, Desktop and Workstation
products, at (905) 882-2600, Ext. 8809 or pmikula@ati.com
For investor relations support, please contact:
Janet Craig, Director, Investor Relations, ATI Technologies
Inc., at (905) 882-2600, Ext. 2631 or jcraig@ati.com
