Latest news

February 19th, 2013

Meet us at the Future Internet Assembly in Dublin, 8th to 10th May 2013

Meet us at the FIA Dublin 2013, 8th to 10th May and visit the talk of our CEO Folker Schamel about game networking architectures in the Mobile games in the Cloud session.

Contact us to arrange personal meetings at the FIA Dublin.

January 28th, 2013

Spinor announces next generation Shark 3D

Significant changes are coming in our next generation Shark 3D software.

Enhanced renderer, enhanced animation system, enhanced engine

The engine core got significant enhancements.

For instance, we increased the renderer power significantly by adding additional rendering features for better lighting control and optimizing the performance of commonly used scene and lighting settings for the latest GPU hardware.

This allows, for example, more realistic scenes with more advanced dynamic soft shadows with contact hardening shadows and sophisticated lighting models.

We also rewrote the animation system for more advanced animation layering and modularity.

Also many other features got major updates, like actor management and communication and various other features.

More powerful tool pipeline, more powerful customizations

We also significantly rewrote and enhanced the Shark 3D authoring editor, leading to the next generation of our tool pipeline.

Based on experiences from various customer projects, we improved the editing performance of complex live prefab and template significantly for larger demanding projects.

We also simplified the editor customization, especially focussing on combining custom editor features with standard editor features in a flexible way.

Freedom and flexibility

"Main driving forces for our next generation Shark 3D are the needs of demanding real-world projects which don't want to be boxed into the limitations of a closed system but expect a powerful and customizable production pipeline and an feature-rich and open engine architecture", said Folker Schamel, CEO of Spinor.

"Our mission is to continue our track record of providing a powerful and flexible engine for the wide variety of game genres, broadcasting and industry applications on different platforms."

September 10th, 2012

Shark 3D got a new face

We enhanced the look-and-feel. We streamlined the 3d scene handling. We further increased the adaptability of live nested parametrizable prefabs. And last but not least, in various situations of very complex projects, we significantly increased the editing performance and scaling behavior of the authoring editor.

January 16th, 2012

Meet us at GDC 2012

Spinor presents its Shark 3D authoring editor at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2012, Moscone Center, San Francisco, USA, March 7-9.

Contact us to arrange personal meetings.

December 21st, 2011

Flexibility by Shark 3D

The iPad game Aya and the Cubes of Light is a nice sample for the flexibility of Shark 3D. The game uses various non-standard 3d physics effect like changeable non-uniform gravity.

February 8th, 2011

Next generation Shark 3D authoring editor at GDC 2011

Spinor presents its next generation Shark 3D authoring editor at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2011 Expo, Moscone Center, San Francisco, USA, March 2-4.

We are located at booth 802.

Contact us to arrange personal meetings.

Create rich games and worlds with the greatest of ease

Experience our Shark 3D authoring editor in live action at the GDC 2011!

Easily modifying and experimenting with complex assets and game logic is more important than ever. Create complex worlds and game logic easily with the Shark 3D authoring editor. Reuse graphical assets, behavior, game logic, prefabs and templates, combine them into new prefabs and templates with ease to build up new user experiences. At each stage, you can see, play and modify the current result live.

Of course, the Shark 3D authoring editor provides the run-time features of Shark 3D run-time. 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, mobile and PC

In Shark 3D productivity meets performance on consoles, mobile devices and PC. Efficient, predictable memory management and code optimized for consoles and mobile platforms makes Shark 3D an optimal choice for creating high-quality video and mobile games.

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 real-time 3d software 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™.

"The iPhone, iPad and iPod touch are mobile devices of the future", said Folker Schamel, CEO of Spinor. "Shark 3D and its well-proven toolset makes it much easier for developers to create high-quality applications for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch in shorter time and with less risks."

The Shark 3D software is 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

Spinor presents the new Shark 3D game editor at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2010 Expo, Moscone Center, San Francisco, USA, March 11-13.

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 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

You can see Spinor's Shark 3D middleware solution for console and computer games live in action at the Microsoft Gamefest Expo, February 10th and 11th. Contact us to arrange meetings.

April 15th, 2009

See and meet us at Quo Vadis 2009

You missed us at the Nintendo Wii Summits and GDC 2009? The next possibility to meet us and see Shark 3D in live action is the Quo Vadis 2009 developer conference in Berlin, Germany. We will give a talk at this conference:

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

Spinor presents Shark 3D at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2009 Expo, Moscone Center, San Francisco, USA, March 25-27.

We are located at booth 5428 NH.

Contact us to arrange personal meetings.

August 19th, 2008

Shark 3D Now Available for the Wii Console

Shark 3D supports Wii platform and powers a famous game brand on the Wii console.

Spinor, a leading real-time 3d software developer, announced today that its Shark 3D software 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 real-time 3d solution, but flexible from the bottom up

Shark 3D combines a complete real-time 3d solution 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

You can see Spinor's Shark 3D middleware solution for console and computer games live in action at the Microsoft Gamefest Expo. Contact us to arrange meetings.

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 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 Shark 3D 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.

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.

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

The Shark 3D based game Dreamfall: The Longest Journey ranks (together with one other game) as the world's best Xbox™ title in 2006 across all genres at gamespy.com, a leading site for gamers.

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

Germany’s largest television corporation ProSiebenSat.1 uses Shark 3D for various broadcasts, including major evening news shows watched by several millions of viewers every day.

See the ProSiebenSat.1 case study for more information.

Today, three of the four biggest broadcasters in Germany are using Shark 3D for various broadcasting formats. See overview about Shark 3D in broadcasting for more information.

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

At IBC2006, taking place at the Amsterdam RAI, September 8 - 12, 2006, broadcasting solutions provider VR3 presents its new HDTV broadcasting solution based on Spinor's Shark 3D platform.

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

At the Eurographics 2006, Vienna, September 6 - 8, 2006, Spinor presents a talk discussing modern computer and video games rendering techniques and how they can be used - besides games - in other fields of computer graphics such as cinematic rendering.

July 17th, 2006

Talk about seamless game worlds at GCDC 2006

Seamless game worlds without loading screen is becoming the standard for games. Static game data is streamed and dynamic game state data is swapped out in the background. Visit Spinor's talk about streaming and swapping out game states in the background at the GCDC 2006, Leipzig, August 21 - 23, 2006.

July 17th, 2006

See us at Microsoft Gamefest 2006

Talk at Microsoft Gamefest

Combining middleware solutions from different technology areas can help game developers create the customized development and run-time 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

Dreamfall got the editor's choice award, at gamespy.com, one of the leading sites for gamers. So far in 2006, it is the only Xbox™ game and the only PC game getting full five stars at gamespy.com.

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
Wednesday, March 22nd 12:00 pm ATI booth #1220
Thursday, March 23rd 12:30 pm ATI booth #1220
Friday, March 24th 12:00 pm ATI booth #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 #1618
Wednesday, March 22nd 12:00 pm AI.implant booth #1618
Wednesday, March 22nd 1:30 pm AI.implant booth #1618
Thursday, March 23rd 11:30 am AI.implant booth #1618
Thursday, March 23rd 12:00 pm AI.implant booth #1618
Friday, March 24th 11:30 am AI.implant booth #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

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February 11th, 2006

Come and see us at February 2006' s Xfests

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 combination of Shark 3D and the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft live in action.

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

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 run-time 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 run-time. This includes for example manipulating the running game by external tools.

The run-time 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 run-time 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

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."
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

More information on Dreamfall and the E3 awards can be found at the official Dreamfall site.

Xbox is a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.