In yet another example of IBM Corp’s studious neglect of all things pertaining to the personal computer, the company does not figure at all in the gigantic computer games market – but that is not a mistake Microsoft Corp is going to make. Already a significant player, its new policy is that all its games should be designed to run under Windows, giving users scalability, advanced graphics and audio, and the ability to run several different software packages at once, it says. According to figures from Link Resources Corp the personal computer entertainment market is set to grow to $2,200m in 1997 from $1,300m in 1993 and Microsoft has its eyes set on a large slice of this pie. Microsoft’s new games will use its PlayerNet interface, which enables several users to play from different sites via modems, local area networks and on-line services. Microsoft is planning to offer support for all major on-line services through PlayerNet but has not yet specified exactly which services it will support.

Good and bad

Microsoft has also unveiled its Motion Capture tools designed to create life-like figures. These include 7UP, used for side-scrolling arcade games; Merlin, a combination of two- and three-dimensional technologies that create realistic first person environments; four-dimensional rendering, which enables the animation of three-dimensional images in real time and Interactive Music, which audibly reacts to a player’s good and bad moves. And it has reduced the price and simplified the configurations of its SoftImage animation software in an effort to make its high-end media creation tools available to the interactive, film and video market. SoftImage 3D 3.0, the latest version of its three-dimensional animation software will now be sold in two configurations only. SoftImage 3D 3.0 will cost $8,000 and SoftImage 3D Extreme will cost $14,000 against the previous version 2.66, which shipped in a variety of configuration, from $16,000 to $40,000. SoftImage 3D Extreme with Eddie will be $20,000. SoftImage Extreme package includes advanced special effects for modelling and rendering. Special effects modules include Meta-Clay for density-based modelling of organic and sculptured objects; mental ray for photorealistic rendering to create optical and environmental effects, and Particles, a tool to simulate fountains and explosions. SoftImage Toonz 3.5 will now be sold as a single, complete base product, for $17,000. The software is based on cell animation technology that enables cartoonists to animate individual cells in a cartoon, one frame at a time as it automates the process of filling in cells needed to give cartoons movement. These cells can then be re-used in other scenes. SoftImage Toonz can be customised for scanning, ink and paint and rendering with the addition of a separate scanning capabilities costing $5,000, inkpaint package for $7,000 and rendering package for $7,000.

By Krishna Roy

SoftImage Eddie 3.2 which previously shipped in a variety of configurations with prices ranging between $7,500 to $10,000, will now cost $8,000. Sega Enterprises Ltd and Microsoft have agreed to joint development of a 32-bit home television games software tool. The development tool will be used to improve the functions of animation software produced by SoftImage and Sega is scheduled to ship the tool to third parties from March on. Microsoft claims it has improved image refinement capabilities, and new tools for motion tracking that stabilise shaky camera sequences. On the finished games front, Microsoft has now unveiled its first Windows-based games for personal computers – Microsoft Baseball and Microsoft Flight Simulator. With Microsoft Baseball users can play ball at one of 40 baseball stadia, all designed to be authentic replications of real pitches both past and present, including Yankee Stadium, Wrigley Field and Dodger Stadium. Players can either actively participate in the game or act as team managers. Players can also pit their wits against baseball greats like Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson. Mi

crosoft co-developed the baseball game with Stormfront Studios, a privately held developer of multi-media software for personal computers, which already produces baseball titles. The Baseball game is available on CD-ROM under Windows. Microsoft has also announced its latest version of its Flight Simulator game available on CD-ROM or disks under Windows or MS-DOS. Microsoft claims it is the most realistic flight simulation game currently available on a personal computer. The flight model has been improved to enable players to perform stalls, spins and more complicated aircraft manoeuvres. The new games are the first two to use Microsoft’s three-dimensional object library – a library of roughly 1,000 three-dimensional objects used to create virtual scenes, and designed to reduce the development time for games software creators. The games also pioneer Microsoft’s Wavemix, a digital audio mixer that enables separate audio tracks to be created and then mixed together, as in film soundtracks. Games developed with Wavemix enable players to hear multiple sound effects simultaneously, creating the feeling that they are totally immersed within the game. The games are scheduled to ship by the middle of the year. The Baseball game will cost $50 and the Flight Simulator game will cost $60 for the CD-ROM version and $50 for the floppy disk version. The baseball games requires a 80486 processor with 8Mb of RAM, a CD-ROM drive and Super VGA monitor with Windows version 3.1 or later and MS-DOS version 5.0 onwards. The new Flight Simulator release will run on an 80386 machine or above and requires a minimum of 4Mb of memory and 15Mb of hard disk space.

Argonaut

For the future, Microsoft is to work with McDonnell Douglas Corp, suppliers of military aircraft and simulation products for the US government, to develop an action-simulation games title. It also plans to join forces with Larry Holland, responsible for the creation of the XWind Star Wars game to develop what it describes as a historical strategy game. Microsoft is also to partner UK games developer Argonaut Software Ltd, which built its success on the FX special effects chip used by Nintendo Co Ltd in its StarFox game, to produce games software. The co-developed game will use the new BRender technology that was developed by Argonaut’s sister company Multi Media Technologies. BRender is touted as the fastest, smallest and most powerful three-dimensional rendering system currently available (CI No 2,480). It provides a standard interface to accelerator chips being fabricated by VGA graphics specialists Cirrus Logic Inc and 3D Labs Inc. It is intended that the BRender technology will provide a high-level application programming interface for three-dimensional programming.