BioWare Using SpeedTree

Everyone loves a fast tree. Trees are hard to model, annoying to make move realistically and ultimately just something that has to be there and will likely never be appreciated by anyone when good and screamed about by everyone when it looks bad.

As such, every game company on Earth uses SpeedTree now. This makes the news from BioWare somewhat less of a shock. The release mentions Dragon Age, but it isn't unreasonable to guess that the Austin MMO may also use it. Although, I suppose that assumes the game has trees. For all we know, it's an underwater massively-multi-player plankton simulation.

IDV Announces BioWare Will Use SpeedTree®RT Company-Wide

IDV'S SOFTWARE TO BE FEATURED IN DRAGON AGETM, OTHER PROJECTS

COLUMBIA, SC, Feb. 13, 2007 - Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. has announced that BioWare Corp., developer of numerous best-selling games, including Star Wars©: Knights of the Old Republic™, Neverwinter Nights™ and the Baldur's Gate™ series, has licensed use of IDV's award-winning SpeedTree®RT software company-wide.

"Within days of downloading the software, we had beautiful, shadowed, deciduous trees running in our upcoming title, Dragon Age," said Trent Oster, Eclipse Engine project director for BioWare. "Based on the visual quality and the ease of integration, we signed a multi-game, company-wide licensing deal for SpeedTree."

IDV officials said the relationship ensures that BioWare's future titles will meet the highest standards of outdoor beauty and efficiency. "The fans of BioWare's past efforts will continue to see outstanding products," said IDV President Michael Sechrest. "The broad adoption of SpeedTree means our technology gets to be a part of this ongoing excellence."