Latest news
August 14th, 2010
Spinor Breaks New Ground for 3D in Web
New technology brings high-end 3d graphics into browser with a single click
Spinor, a leading game engine developer, announced today its new Shark 3D Web Player. "The Shark 3D Player once for all solves the problem of bringing high quality 3D graphics into the browser without needing an installer or plugin", said Folker Schamel, CEO of Spinor.In the past, the plugin barrier impeded the broad employment of 3d browser games. The new Shark 3D Web Player solves the problem, by running high quality 3d in the browser with just one click. On the vast majority of computers, the user can directly run a game based on the Shark 3D Web player without having to run an plugin or client installer.
The Shark 3D Web Player supports on-demand loading of assets and advanced asset streaming in the background. This makes it possible to play 3d web games of unlimited size without loading times.
July 22nd, 2010
Shark 3D for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch
Spinor announces Shark 3D for iPhone™, iPad™ and iPod touch™.
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The Shark 3D engine and tools are not only well proven for high-end AAA gaming and on high-end console platforms like the Xbox 360. We also have comprehensive experience in bringing the power of Shark 3D to platforms like the PS2 and Wii. These experiences allow us to max out the possibilites of the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
February 22nd, 2010
Latest Shark 3D game editor at GDC 2010
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We are located at booth 802.
Contact us to arrange personal meetings.
Productivity matters
Productivity at the highest stage matters. In the latest Shark 3D game editor you can create your game with ease.Naturally the new editor exposes the powerful run-time features of Shark 3D. For example, the Shark 3D renderer allows highly detailed scenes and offers you real-time full scene soft shadowing of realistic light sources, complex skeleton animation combined with physics, and many other features. See Shark 3D for some more information.
Powerful on consoles
In Shark 3D productivity meets performance on consoles. Efficient, predictable memory management and code optimized for multicore consoles makes Shark 3D an optimal choice for creating high-quality console games.
February 1st, 2010
See us at Microsoft Gamefest 2010, Seattle
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April 15th, 2009
See and meet us at Quo Vadis 2009
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| Title of our talk | Date & time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Streamlining your workflow with live editing |
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009, 10:00 am |
Loft B |
The talk will give you an overview about live editing and live-live editing with Shark 3D. This includes a live presentation of live editing a console game. Furthermore it describes the underlaying infrastructure for live editing in Shark 3D.
February 26th, 2009
Visit us at GDC 2009
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We are located at booth 5428 NH.
Contact us to arrange personal meetings.
August 19th, 2008
Shark 3D Now Available for the Wii Console
Established game engine supports Wii platform and powers a famous game brand on the Wii console.Spinor, a leading game engine developer, announced today that its game engine, Shark 3D, now supports the Wii™ console.
In addition, Shark 3D was used to develop "Moorhuhn Tales" for Wii, the latest game based on "Moorhuhn" (also known as "Crazy Chicken" and "Chicken Hunter"), one of the best known game brands in Europe.
Shark 3D for Wii - creating successful Wii games easier and with less risk
"The Wii is a great platform, both for consumers and for game developers", said Folker Schamel, CEO of Spinor. "The console and the games designed for it have made games far more accessible to audiences of all ages and interests. Shark 3D and its well-proven toolset for Wii enable game developers to tap into the console’s phenomenal success easier and with far less risk."
Moorhuhn on Wii powered by Shark 3D
"Moorhuhn Tales”, developed by phenomedia publishing gmbh, is nearly finished and is expected to release in the coming months. This game will be phenomedia's first game on the Wii console. The Shark 3D SDK includes the source code of all gameplay C++ components used in the game. Game studios will not only see how gameplay features were implemented; with Shark 3D for Wii, they will be able to use that code for their own Wii projects.
Shark 3D: A complete game engine, but flexible from the bottom up
Shark 3D combines a complete game engine with an extensive set of features that were built for flexibility from the bottom up. This not only makes it easier to create innovative, unique and high quality games of any genre; it also helps teams more efficiently and predictably to meet production milestones and budgets.
More efficient and predictable game production by live editing
One of Shark 3D’s core features is the tool pipeline, which supports live editing from the bottom up. Developers will be able to edit their NPCs (non-player characters), game items, other gameplay and level elements in the game editor, their textures in Photoshop, their animations and geometry in Max or Maya, their shaders, and their game scripts - and see all their changes running live on the Wii console.Furthermore, supported by Shark 3D's live-live™ editing, developers can easily modify and customize the tool pipeline for their particular needs. This makes game production for Wii more efficient and predictable, significantly reducing production times and risks.
Shark 3D for Wii includes many run-time features
Run-time features of Shark 3D for Wii include skinning, a multi-layer animation system, a character walking animation system, a shader system, dynamic local lights, sounds, streaming sound from disk, collision detection, physics, triggers and sensors, scripting, level management, multiple viewports with separate culling for multiplayer games, pack files, optimized low-level memory management, and much more.Meshes, textures, and sounds can be optimized and compressed off-line specifically for the Wii console for optimal performance and minimal memory usage.
Moorhuhn ist eine registrierte Marke der phenomedia publishing gmbh
(c) phenomedia publishing gmbh 2008
July 17th, 2008
See us at Microsoft Gamefest 2008, Seattle
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Shark 3D - especially strong on consoles
The world-wide best game of the year (rating of gamespy.com) is a console game. And it is powered by Shark 3D.The whole architecture and workflow of Shark 3D are designed for developing advanced console games. Platform specific optimizations, advanced memory management, and network based live editing help you making better console games.
Btw, various introduction articles, easy-to-follow tutorials, a comprehensive reference and of course our support will help you bringing out the best in Shark 3D.
Come to life with live editing!
This is our slogan for our presentations at the Gamefest.Shark 3D raises the productivity and reduces production costs and risks significantly.
Edit your NPCs and game items in the game editor, edit your textures in Photoshop, edit your animations and geometry in Max or Maya, edit your lights and materials in the shader editor, edit your game scripts - and see and test all your changes live in your running game! This works not only on PC, but also for your game running on the Xbox 360 or on other consoles.
Worldwide first presentation of Live-live™ editing
For the first time, Spinor will present Live-live™ editing: You can not only live edit your game in the game editor. But you can also live edit the game editor itself.The game designer wants a new feature in the game editor? Then the tool programmer just changes the editor programming Live-live™, and they can test the new editor feature immediately without restarting the game editor.
Experience the power of Shark 3D
Of course, you can also see the power of the run-time features of Shark 3D in live action. For example, see the unique lighting and shadowing features of Shark 3D, based on the unique modular shader system of Shark 3D. You can easily implement advanced customized rendering techniques using the various Shark 3D shader modules, without having to fight low-level code.Also see advanced multi-threading and multi-core features of Shark 3D. Many of our developers invested many years in this technology. We did not just add some multi-threading features on top of an out-dated engine architecture. Instead, we re-implemented the engine core from scratch for advanced next generation console support.
February 8th, 2008
Visit us at GDC 2008
Spinor presents Shark 3D at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2008 Expo, San Francisco, February 20-22.Visit us at our booth 6105/13.
Contact us to arrange personal meetings.
August 18th, 2007
LARA-Games-Award powered by Shark 3D
Using the power of Shark 3D, a student team of the Mediadesign university developed within four months a playable strategy game including multiplayer support.Their work was rewarded by the special prize at the LARA-Games-Award 2007.
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July 6th, 2007
GameTools Project powered by Shark 3D finished successfully
As result of the GameTools Project, various new graphical algorithms have been developed and successfully implemented as modules for Shark 3D.These new techniques are in the fields of continuous multiresolution models, on-the-fly visibility culling, post-processing, and real-time global illumination techniques including reflections and caustics, indirect illumination and obscurance shadowing.
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The GameTools Project is an EU project that brings together leading European computer graphic experts from universities in Austria, France, Hungary and Spain with European industrial partners from the fields of computer game development and virtual reality to create next generation real-time 3D libraries for Geometry, Visibility and Global Illumination.
The project management had intensive conservations with respective potential partner companies. Spinor and its Shark 3D technology emerged as the top contender. The uniquely open and flexible architecture of the Shark 3D renderer made it a perfect match for such a sophisticated and forward-oriented project. As a result, the project management chose Spinor as the partner for the GameTools Project.
February 5th, 2007
Shark 3D based video game ranks as world's best of the year
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The game also ranks (together with one other game) as the world's best PC title of the year across all genres at gamespy.com.
As reported before, Dreamfall is also praised by the main stream media. For example, CNN notes "this game is a looker", and the Washington Post writes: "the worlds you visit are some of the best looking to grace a game."
Dreamfall is running on Xbox™, Xbox 360™ and PC. It is based on the generation v4 of Shark 3D. The game has also won several E3 awards.
Xbox and Xbox 360 are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
January 18nd, 2007
Germany’s largest television corporation uses Shark 3D
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See the ProSiebenSat.1 case study for more information.
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August 31st, 2006
Spinor announces next generation streaming and multi-core support
Spinor announces next generation streaming and multi-core support for Shark 3D, based on a comprehensive high-performance multithreading architecture.
High-quality seamless big worlds without loading screen
Shark 3D makes possible seamless big worlds in highest quality. The player can explore the whole universe of a game without any stuttering or loading screen. World parts are streamed in the background before the player reaches them. Dynamic game state data can be swapped out in the background, if the player has left a world part.
More complex worlds by multi-core support
Multi-core platforms like Xbox 360 and multi-core PCs are the standard for gaming. Shark 3D takes advantage of these platforms with its thoroughly designed multithreading architecture. This brings the detailedness of game worlds to a new level with a full immersion of the player.
Underlying architecture presented at international developer conferences
The next generation streaming and multi-core architecture of Shark 3D was presented to the game development community in recent talks at the Microsoft Gamefest 2006 and the GCDC 2006.
Available in Shark 3D v5.1
These next generation streaming and multithreading features will be available from Shark 3D v5.1 on. Shark 3D v5.1 is currently in the alpha status.
July 20th, 2006
See Shark 3D at IBC2006
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See Shark 3D powering HDTV live in action at the VR3 stand 702, hall 7.
For free tickets to the show, please visit the website of VR3.
July 17th, 2006
Talk about rendering techniques at Eurographics 2006
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July 17th, 2006
Talk about seamless game worlds at GCDC 2006
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July 17th, 2006
See us at Microsoft Gamefest 2006
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Talk at Microsoft Gamefest
Combining middleware solutions from different technology areas can help game developers create the customized development and runtime setup that meets their individual needs. At the Microsoft Gamefest, Seattle, August 14 and 15, 2006, Spinor presents a talk about case studies of using other middleware together with Shark 3D.
Spinor at Microsoft Gamefest Expo
At the Microsoft Gamefest Expo you can see Spinor's Shark 3D middleware solution for console and computer games live in action.
June 16th, 2006
New award for Shark 3D based game
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Dreamfall is also praised by the main stream media. For example, CNN notes "this game is a looker", and the Washington Post writes: "the worlds you visit are some of the best looking to grace a game."
Dreamfall is running on Xbox™, Xbox 360™ and PC. It is based on the previous generation v4 of Shark 3D. The game has also won several E3 awards.
Xbox and Xbox 360 are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
March 12th, 2006
See Shark 3D, meet us at GDC 2006
Presentations at the ATI booth
As a software partner of ATI, Spinor presents Shark 3D at the ATI booth at the GDC 2006 Expo, San Jose, CA, March 22-24. See the future of the all-embracing realism in computer games in live action!
| Presentations powered by Shark 3D at the ATI booth | ||
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| Wednesday, March 22nd | 12:00 pm | ATI booth &@35;1220 |
| Thursday, March 23rd | 12:30 pm | ATI booth &@35;1220 |
| Friday, March 24th | 12:00 pm | ATI booth &@35;1220 |
Presentations at the AI.implant booth
A core feature of Shark 3D is its vigorous modularity and openness for third-party software. Spinor actively works together with other middleware vendors to provide comprehensive solutions for game developers. At the booth of our software partner Engenuity Technologies Inc, maker of AI.implant™, you can enjoy a customer case study of using Shark 3D together with AI.implant™.
| Presentations powered by Shark 3D at the AI.implant booth | ||
|---|---|---|
| Wednesday, March 22nd | 11:30 am | AI.implant booth &@35;1618 |
| Wednesday, March 22nd | 12:00 pm | AI.implant booth &@35;1618 |
| Wednesday, March 22nd | 1:30 pm | AI.implant booth &@35;1618 |
| Thursday, March 23rd | 11:30 am | AI.implant booth &@35;1618 |
| Thursday, March 23rd | 12:00 pm | AI.implant booth &@35;1618 |
| Friday, March 24th | 11:30 am | AI.implant booth &@35;1618 |
Times might still be subject to change. Please double-check at the respective booth on-site.
Personal meetings at the GDC
Please contact us to arrange personal meetings at the GDC.
Newsletter
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with news on Spinor and Shark 3D.
February 11th, 2006
Come and see us at February 2006' s Xfests
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Spinor exhibits on February 13th at Xfest in London and on February 28th at Xfest in Seattle.
Visit us at Xfest and you can see the powerful combination of Shark 3D and the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft live in action.
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Xbox and Xbox 360 are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
August 16th, 2005
Spinor unveils Shark 3D for Xbox 360, demonstrated new technology at Xfest 2005, London
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Spinor unveiled Shark 3D for the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft. They demonstrated this new technology in live action at Xfest 2005, London by showing two demos running on the Xbox 360. In an interactive scene using complex soft lighting calculated in real-time on the GPU, they demonstrated a quality level more characteristic of off-line rendering, giving an impression of how Shark 3D can help increase the level of realism for next generation console games.
Tracey Frankcom, middleware account manager for Xbox and Xbox 360 at Microsoft, notes:
"The lighting is looking really good. It's impressive to see how Shark 3D leverages the Xbox 360 hardware to achieve this in real-time in a mutable virtual world. We are looking forward to seeing this technology brought to upcoming Xbox 360 titles."
Running in high definition at 720p with full-screen 4x antialiasing, Shark 3D uses Xbox 360 specific optimizations and supports Xbox 360 specific features, such as procedural synthesis running in parallel on multiple cores. Spinor has committed to future work to continue its strategy of optimizing Shark 3D for Xbox 360 and developing new features for its technologies on the platform.
Said Spinor's CTO, Folker Schamel,
"We're excited to be bringing Shark 3D to the Xbox 360. Development on this platform is quite different from PC development, and Microsoft wants so see games exploiting the unique features and the power of the Xbox 360. Spinor's technologies are ideally placed to help make this as easy as possible for game developers."
Xbox and Xbox 360 are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
May 1st, 2005
Spinor announces next generation Shark 3D
While continuously improving its current Shark 3D v4, since end of 2003 Spinor in parallel developed its next generation Shark 3D v5. The alpha version of Shark 3D v5 is now available.Both the runtime engine and the tool system is consequently designed to push the envelope of next generation console and PC hardware. A truly component based architecture is the foundation. The component architecture makes it possible to quickly react on feature requests by the target market or the publisher. It makes it also possible for individual team members or subgroups to work in parallel on features and content without disturbing each other.
A modern development and tool architecture empowers the productivity of larger game teams. Both standard tools and proprietary tools are closely integrated with the runtime engine. This includes for example manipulating the running game by external tools.
The runtime component architecture makes it possible to support complex features into depth without restricting the variety. For example, the renderer supports complex advanced rendering features like real-time full scene soft shadowing, but without limiting the system to particular shadowing techniques. The runtime system and implementation is optimized to take full advantage of next-generation console and PC graphics pipelines, memory architectures, and multi-core systems.
May 24th, 2004
Shark 3D based title for Xbox™ and PC wins E3 awards
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Dreamfall, an action adventure for Xbox™ and PC, currently in development by Funcom, and based on Spinor's Shark 3D v4, has won three major awards at Los Angeles' E3.
Look what the reviewers said.
"What we've seen of Dreamfall seemed extremely impressive. ... The engine makes use of sophisticated lighting and dynamic shadow features, detailed skeletal and facial animations on characters, and bump maps and environment maps all over the game's different worlds."More information on Dreamfall and the E3 awards can be found at the official Dreamfall site.
GameSpot
"... Dreamfall's impressive graphics engine, which, as we saw at E3, is capable of rendering large and highly detailed environments with realistic bump-mapped textures and dynamic lighting."
GameSpot"The most salient feature of Dreamfall is the beautiful graphics engine ... a wonder to see, full of dynamic lighting, self-shadowing, bump-mapping, and all the other hyped features defining the cutting edge."
IGN"With the graphics engine that Funcom uses for Dreamfall, there is actually little need for any sort of necessary cut-scenes in the game. Even in this very early build of the game, the atmosphere was tremendous, and the effects were spectacular."
Warcry"Funcoms follow up to The Longest Journey features some cool logic-based puzzles and a great looking graphics engine."
GameZone"... even though the game has only been in development for eight months, the graphics were fantastic. Dynamic lighting and shadows played a key role in setting up the atmosphere for the demo, and the character models and environments featured some really cool bump-mapping techniques."
GameZone"While its still about a year and a half away, Dreamfall already has the potential to recapture the magic of its predecessor."
GameZone"... graphics engine touting some very impressive visual effects, texturing, and shadowing. The environments shown look breathtaking. Pebbled streets covered with snow, water shimmering lightly in a pond, even a simple candle flame waving back and forth ever so slightly are just a few examples of what to expect."
ToTheGame"The lighting and shadow effects used were especially impressive, rivaling those of any other game in any genre that we saw at E3."
Adventure Gamers
Xbox is a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
