TOOLS SPOTLIGHT This month: Fork Particle
FORK PARTICLE is a company that specialises in providing particle effects tools to developers. Founded in 2005 by Noor Khawaja, the
California-based firm’s technology has since been used in various regions around the world including North America, Asia, Europe and Australiain on games such as Civilization 5, LEGO Universe, Gun Slinger, Comic Jumper and Empire Earth III. Khawaja says Fork’s mission “is to set the standard for artist friendly modelling tools for real time particle effects and deliver high performance cutting edge particle systems technology.” The company’s middleware tools
simulate effects such as smoke, fire, rain, snow, explosions, and other visual effects. The toolkit provides four components, a particle effects authoring tool, a real-time simulation engine, in-game live updates and a data export automation module. Khawaja says this has been specifically designed for artists so that they can separate the design phase from integration into the game. The Particle Studio includes features such as super emitters, sword trails, hardware shaders and path following. The Runtime real time simulator engine allows for easy integration with in-house and commercial engines and optimised for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
Amiqus
Khawaja says the studio is careful about how it chooses to proceed in an ever-changing industry to make sure that it does not compromise the quality of their middleware. “Fork Particle is always looking ahead and takes challenges head-on,” he says. “We have held on to our core principles; we continue to enhance our tools and
We continue to enhance our
tools and technology so users are able to get the highest quality
effects. Noor Khawaja, Fork Particle
technology so our users are able to get the highest quality particle effects in their games. “Our development pipeline to support a new target platform is mature. We are working on four new platforms and maintaining integrations with Havok Vision, Sony Phyre, Gamebryo
01925 252588
www.amiqus.com
LightSpeed, Havok Physics, NVidia PhysX, and Perforce.“
He adds that the middleware provider has had its on eye on the casual game developer market for quite some time and “feels that it is a good time to begin our move forward”.
IndieCity He says plans are afoot to release Fork
Particle Casual this year, which will target the sector through both online and mobile platforms. Despite the emergence of casual
gaming, he says that new powerful hardware “works in our favour as it can
01926 880081
www.IndieCity.com
WeKnowYourWorld
Amiqus is a leading provider of specialist talent to the video games industry.
We recruit for some of the world’s premier studios and publishers across all industry disciplines.
Since we started in 2002 we now work with clients in 13 countries across the globe.
Let us show you how we know your world. Call: or visit:
01925 252588
amiqus.com 50 | NOVEMBER 2011
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60