CAMBRIDGE, MA -- 11/03/09 --
GenArts
Inc., the premier provider of specialized visual effects software for
the film, television and video industries, announced today a definitive
agreement to acquire particleIllusion(TM) and all related
products and technologies from wondertouch LLC. The acquisition
includes particleIllusion SE, all Emitters and Pro Emitters,
particleIllusion for AE, and all additional intellectual property from
wondertouch LLC. As part of the acquisition, Alan Lorence, the former CEO
of wondertouch and creator of particleIllusion, will join GenArts as a
full-time developer.
wondertouch and particleIllusion will continue to operate as stand-alone
brands, separate from GenArts Sapphire(TM),
Monsters(TM) and Raptors(TM). Customers can continue to obtain
wondertouch products and support exactly as they have in the past by
visiting www.wondertouch.com. In addition, particleIllusion will be sold
through the same reseller channels as before and new emitters will continue
to be delivered on their customary regular basis.
Separately, GenArts has announced that the highly anticipated wondertouch
plug-ins for Adobe After Effects will be called particleIllusion for After
Effects, and will ship in December 2009. Please visit www.wondertouch.com
for more information about particleIllusion for After Effects.
"In 2008, we laid out a vision to accelerate GenArts' growth via
acquisition, innovation and strategic partnerships," said Katherine Hays, CEO
of GenArts. "We chose this path to align the company more fully with
our customers who are shifting their emphasis away from in-house visual
effects tools development, and toward a greater reliance on standardized
tools from trusted vendors. This acquisition is another key step toward
achieving that vision. The addition of particleIllusion not only provides
GenArts a well respected product today, but its core particles technology
offers an important foundation upon which we can further develop the types
of new and innovative products that our customers require from their
trusted vendor. We are extremely excited about this acquisition, and we
welcome Alan to the GenArts family."
Created by Lorence, particleIllusion is a sprite-based particle effects
application designed to provide the most comprehensive and efficient
particle effects creation workflow. Utilizing hardware-accelerated
rendering, it is now used worldwide by creative professionals working in
film post-production and pre-visualization, standard and HD video,
commercial broadcast, motion graphics, and game content creation. With
particleIllusion, visual effects artists have access to thousands of
presets that they can use to create innumerable effects such as smoke,
fire, explosions, watery ripples, sparkles, colorful artistic fantasies and
more.
"I am thrilled to join the world-class GenArts development team and return
to my passion of continuing to evolve particleIllusion," said Lorence. "I
look forward to the support and backing of such a creative organization as
we explore ways to advance the state of the art of visual effects, and
inspire film and video artists to bring their stories to life."
To hear directly from GenArts CEO Katherine Hays and wondertouch CEO Alan
Lorence about this acquisition, visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNL0a2Pa8x4.
About GenArts
GenArts, Inc. is the premier provider of specialized digital visual effects
for the film, broadcast and video industries. The GenArts Sapphire,
Monsters and Raptors portfolio equips digital artists with a collection of
state-of-the-art image processing and synthesis effects such as glows,
light rays, lens flares, lightning, film damage, fire and fluid effects.
The effects seamlessly integrate as software plug-ins into leading editing
and compositing systems from Adobe, Apple, Avid, Autodesk, Assimilate,
Eyeon, FilmLight, The Foundry, Quantel and SGO. The company was founded in
1996 in Cambridge, Mass. www.genarts.com.
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For Further Information Please Contact:
Nicole Panas
GenArts Inc.
T: 617-492-2888
E: Email Contact
Ashley Wilkinson
BOCA Communications
T: 415.738.7718 x4
E: Email Contact
