e frontier Adds Home Models to Blue Mars, Looks for More Content Partners

e frontier, a character animation middleware provider, will be bringing its Shade 10 and Shade Home Design software to Avatar Reality's Blue Mars. While we reported yesterday that Blue Mars would lean heavily on third-party, professional content, users will be able to use e frontier's software to create home models. They will, though, also have access to a library of content from e frontier, including "highly detailed 3D objects such as furniture, musical instruments, cars and buildings." "Our goal is to deliver a highly entertaining, imaginative and cost effective experience for our Blue Mars users," said Kazuyuki Hashimoto, president of Avatar Reality. "We will offer the enjoyment of being able to experiment with a living environment and socializing with friends and family in a chosen dream home. This experience alone sets Blue Mars a world apart from all the other [massively multiplayer virtual worlds] MMVWs."

The press release also notes that users will be able to use Blue Mars to design and furnish homes "before purchasing actual real-world homes and real-world furniture," making it seem as if the world will eventually have ties to branded content.  It's not clear if that will be built into Blue Mars from the beginning, but Avatar Reality does plan to monetize the world with advertising.

Regardless, it sounds as if users will be able to experiment with design when the world goes into beta at the end of 2008.

"With rich environments and innovative game playing experiences, we feel certain that Blue Mars is poised to be the most played and talked about MMVW game for years to come," said Kenichi Ando, president & CEO, e frontier Inc. "With over 200,000 users worldwide, e frontier's Shade has been used for projects in architectural and interior design, product design and prototyping, character design and rendering as well as animations. We can't wait to see how all our content plays out in Blue Mars."

The company also published a call for additional partners with a focus on 3D computer graphics studios, game developers, potential business partners looking to work with  Avatar Reality's production tools to add content to Blue Mars.

Comments

[Delores]

Like to use efrontier software...