COLLADA Open Standard for 3D Asset Interchange Gains Significant Industry Momentum; COLLADA Gains Fast Traction with New Members, Developer Support and First Book

Business Wire, August 2, 2006

BOSTON -- The Khronos(TM) Group is pleased to announce the rapid industry acceptance of COLLADA, open standard XML-based digital asset exchange schema for interactive 3D applications. Originally targeted for exchange of content in a game environment, COLLADA can be effectively applied in nearly any area of 3D content creation. The addition of shading effects and physics to COLLADA 1.4 in March 2006 has enabled thousands of game artists and developers to create and use hundreds of COLLADA-based tools to author and process their next-generation game assets. COLLADA 1.4 includes core features such as mesh geometry, skinning, morphing, animation and data validation as well as COLLADA FX for defining visual effects and COLLADA Physics for physics effects including rigid body dynamics, rag dolls, constraints and collision volumes. The COLLADA specification, documentation, and sample code is available on the Khronos.org website at http://www.khronos.org/collada.> "We have been pleasantly surprised to find how fast game developers picking up and working with COLLADA as soon as we made it available for download," said Mark Barnes, chairman of the COLLADA work group. "COLLADA has been available for just one year as an open standard, and every major software tool already supports COLLADA and it is being used in the development of literally thousands of games."

Widespread 3D Authoring Tools Support

COLLADA 1.4 is now supported by the industry's leading 3D authoring tools including 3ds Max, Blender, DAZ Studio, Feeling Viewer, FX Composer, Google Earth, Houdini, Maya, Sketchup, and XSI as well as Khronos' COLLADA Test Framework, COLLADA DOM/FX/RT/Refinery.

DAZ Productions Inc., is a new Khronos member and a leading developer of professional quality 3D models and software, has announced the immediate release of their COLLADA exporter. Users of DAZ Studio software can now export digital content into the COLLADA file format for use within any other COLLADA developer tool. Both DAZ Studio and the COLLADA exporter are available at no charge on the DAZ3D.com website.

"DAZ is moving with the momentum of the industry and has just joined Khronos to help evolve the COLLADA standard -- we are fortunate to be among such luminaries in the 3D world," said Dan Farr, president of DAZ Productions. "We're also very excited about the prospect of game developers now being able to more readily take advantage of our rich library of 3D content -- COLLADA is fulfilling its promise of enabling a thriving tools and content ecosystem that can benefit tools vendors and content developers alike."

Google Earth adds COLLADA Support

Google Earth offers a virtual globe of the planet which users can populate with maps, overlays, and 3D models. The new Google Earth v4 supports import of COLLADA through KML v2.1 to enable users to import COLLADA models such as buildings, monuments, and statues with full support for textures and increased performance through level of detailing for both place marks and high-resolution imagery.

Feeling Software announces COLLADA Viewer

The Feeling Viewer from Feeling Software now supports all the features available in the COLLADA 3D file format including advanced shading effects, complex animations (e.g. skinning and morphing) and physics. The underlying C engine is extensible and has been integrated in several third party applications. A free windows version download is available at http://www.feelingsoftware.com/content/view/40/66/lang/en/

Unreal Engine supports COLLADA

Unreal Engine 3 is a complete game development framework for next-generation consoles and gaming PC's, providing the vast array of core technologies, content creation tools, and support infrastructure required by top game developers. It is using COLLADA to transport content between all the DCC tools to the game engine tools. More information at http://www.unrealtechnology.com

First COLLADA Book

During SIGGRAPH 2006, AK Peters will be releasing the first book about COLLADA: "COLLADA: Sailing the Gulf of 3D Digital Content Creation." This book explains in detail how to use the COLLADA technology in a project utilizing 3D assets, and ultimately how to create an effective content creation pipeline for the most complex development. It was created as a guide to the COLLADA 1.4 specification with the goal of providing readers with all the information that will help them understand the concepts, learn how the technology is already implemented by various tools, and provide guidance for using COLLADA in their applications.

"This book makes available the results of a joint industry effort, spearheaded by Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc., to create a standard for digital asset exchange that enables Playstation(R) 3 to bring more realistic content to life and into the home like never before."

Ken Kutaragi, President and CEO Sony Computer Entertainment

COLLADA at SIGGRAPH 2006, Boston, July 31st to August 4th 2006

Any members of the press and industry are invited to visit the Khronos Booth #611 to see demonstrations by Khronos Group members and to attend any Khronos-sponsored events: