MetaCreations Announces Carrara, Next-Generation 3D Software for Print, Video and the Web

Business Wire, August 31, 1999

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 31, 1999--

Complete 3D Modeling and Animation Solution from

the Creators of Ray Dream Studio and Infini-D

MetaCreations Corp. (NASDAQ:MCRE), the Creative Web company, Tuesday announced Carrara 1.0, a complete 3D modeling and animation solution for print, video and the Web.

Expected for release later this fall, Carrara evolves from nearly a decade of MetaCreations' 3D development experience with products such as Ray Dream and Infini-D. Carrara will provide a comprehensive, high-end feature set coupled with a blazingly fast rendering engine and revolutionary work-flow approach, SmartFlow(TM).

Carrara will enable the ultimate creative freedom for 3D artists and designers, as well as 2D creative professionals moving into the world of 3D.

Carrara will become a significant component in MetaCreations' family of 3D products that includes Bryce 4, Poser 4 and Canoma. The MetaCreations' product family contains all the tools necessary to create rich, professional-quality 3D objects, environments, human figures and animations.

Carrara will contain the most important features found in many high-end 3D packages, such as a hybrid Ray Tracer, advanced shader editors, multiple modelers, real-time Metaballs, particle systems, 3D light sources, lens flares, motion blur, key framing, physical effects, deformers and much more.

Carrara will introduce a revolutionary workflow called SmartFlow, that will significantly shorten the learning curve for new 3D developers while providing maximum productivity to the power user. SmartFlow provides an intuitive, progressive interface environment that will allow users to "walk" projects through a series of production steps, with each compartmentalized area featuring the tools required to complete any task necessary.

Storyboarding capability within Carrara will enable the fast and effective pre-visualization of animations. Physical effects will allow users to apply characteristics such as weight and bounce to modeled objects for incredibly real animation effects. Carrara will also support the industry standard MetaStream file format to allow the creation of high-quality, compact 3D objects for streaming over the Web.

"Carrara 1.0 is designed to be a complete 3D solution," said John Leddy, Senior Vice President of Product Development for MetaCreations. "Carrara will provide everything a 3D designer needs to create and animate in 3D, and our SmartFlow environment will ensure that everyone, from the least experienced to the most advanced user, attains maximum productivity."

Carrara simplifies and speeds 3D modeling with the following features:

-- Next-Generation User Interface via SmartFlow: Carrara introduces

a new way to interact with 3D. Based on a "room" concept, each

room features the interface items needed to complete a task such

as modeling, texturing, rendering and more. Beginners will

benefit from the simple user interface which enables a smooth

learning curve, while advanced users will be more productive

thanks to the workflow-based environment.

-- High-Speed Hybrid Renderers: Carrara includes several renderers

from a Draft Z-Buffer to a state-of-the-art high-speed Hybrid

Renderer. The Hybrid Renderer is based on the latest advances in

rendering technologies: First Hit Acceleration, Selective Ray

Tracing, Shaders and Soft Shadows Down Sampling, High Quality

Adaptive Antialiasing and Symmetric Multiprocessing support.

-- MetaStream Support: Users can create fully textured objects and

export them as MetaStream objects. Thanks to its unique streaming

and compression technology, MetaStream can display interactive

and real-time complex 3D contents in any Web page.

-- Direct 3D and Open GL Support: Allows direct manipulation,

texturing and modeling of 3D objects in real time using hardware

acceleration. Users can benefit from 3D hardware acceleration to

edit objects, lights and materials with a continuous real-time

feed back. Those without 3D hardware acceleration will also be

able to display highly complex scenes in real time using a

software acceleration based on MetaCreations' unique SreeD

rendering technology.

-- Importers and Exporters: 2D File Support: GIF, JPEG, TIFF, PICT

(Mac), PCX (Win), BMP (Win), Adobe(R) Photoshop(TM), Corel

PhotoPaint (Win), Targa TGA (Win), Adobe Illustrator, TrueType

Fonts, QuickTime, AVI, Sequenced Image Output (for all 2D file

types). 3D File Import and Export: DXF, OBJ, 3DS (Win), RDS

(import only), MetaStream(TM) (export only), VRML 2 (export

only).

-- Hundreds of 3D Clipart Objects: With the hundreds of high-quality

3D clipart objects included in Carrara, even the most

inexperienced user can be creative immediately. Advanced users

will save hours by customizing clipart objects to meet their

needs. All of the clipart objects can be fully modified using

Carrara modelers and shaders.

-- Hundreds of Shaders and Presets: For a quick and easy 3D scene

creation, Carrara comes with hundreds of shaders, camera presets,

light source presets, and special FX presets. Being creative can