Welcome to the fifth issue of the Turtle newsletter!

Like the fingers on your hand (or the toes on your foot), the five Turtle newsletters we’ve sent out all serve one basic, earth-saving purpose: sharing whatever we find interesting or exciting or mind-boggling at any given moment. We’re keen to share what’s on our minds – whether that be gaming news, Falabella horse racing, black velvet paintings, glow in the dark personal wear, or whatever else is making blips on our collective screens. Naturally, we also include lots of information to help you get the most out of the incredibly cool tool Turtle.

So read and enjoy and let us know if you have any input for future issues.

Happy reading!

The glories of Turtle 4: Now in Production

Turtle 4 is now in full production. Turtle is a unique and wonderful tool for next-gen game developers and is already used by some of the biggest and coolest in the industry. Turtle is currently being used, for example for the upcoming new “Killzone” for PS3.

Turtle 4 takes Turtle’s advanced PTM (Polynomial Texture Map) functionality even further, evolving it into a generalized light baker, which can be controlled by LUA, allowing you to collect static, as well as dynamic diffuse light, and store this information in virtually any function. There are also a number of predefined output options for all non-programmers, making effects like Directional Occlusion Mapping, Radiosity Normal Maps, and Spherical Harmonics available to first time users.

Turtle 4 also supports baking to arbitrary point clouds to help you bake lighting, occlusion or whatever you want for custom points in your scenes. The ultimate tool for advanced relighting of dynamic objects in your environment.

To test drive a full version of the uber-cool Turtle 4 or to read more about the new, advanced baking functionality and other features, simply log on to:

http://www.illuminatelabs.com/turtle/trial

Beast

If you love Turtle and what it can do, but think it’s quite simply too easy to use and doesn’t pose any mental challenge, or if you think that GUIs are just wussy fluff that get in the way of the real power, or if you’re the kind of game developer that likes to spice up your pipeline with a little next-gen lighting... Well, then, Beast is just the thing for you.

You can now get your hands on a trial version of Beast (if you think you can handle it) by mailing us at sales@illuminatelabs.com. DO check the tech specifications first, however, because this is no easily tamed Beast!

http://www.illuminatelabs.com/support/beast-info

Happenings in the World of Turtle

TURTLE + NVIDIA = TRUE

In response to requests from NVIDIA, our developers have worked up demo and project files that can be run with NVIDIA’s next version of FX Composer (version 2). These files contain data generated with Turtle and show the possibilities available to game developers to utilize cutting edge effects (such as Polynomial Texture Maps and Spherical Harmonics) with today’s hardware in order to increase both the realism and quality of gaming graphics.

"Today's GPUs can render amazing images for developers who have the know-how and tools,” says Randy Fernando, Developer Tools Product Manager at NVIDIA. “Illuminate Labs' Turtle is a new tool that provides the raw material that today's high-end shading algorithms need, in a clean and approachable package that lives right inside Maya. The output of Turtle is both appropriate for application in game engines and perfect for artist exploration and experimentation in FX Composer 2. We're delighted to include a Turtle-based sample as part of our latest FX Composer release."

We couldn’t have put it any better ourselves. At present, FX Composer 2 is only available as a limited Beta version, but good things come to those who wait...

http://www.nvidia.com

DEVELOP IN BRIGHTON IN JULY

On July 25-26 you’ll find Illuminate Labs at the Develop conference in Brighton, England. We’ll be proudly showing both Turtle and Beast and will be more than happy to take any and all questions. We’ll even promise to answer the ones about Turtle and such. To set up a little one-on-one time with our developers, please contact sales@illuminatelabs.com

POINT CLOUD TUTORIAL

There is now a new tutorial on our website that will help you learn all about how to bake next-gen illumination to point clouds.

http://www.illuminatelabs.com/support/tutorial-folder/point-clouds

COOL DEMO SCENE FROM OUR NORDIC GAME PRESENTATION

After much pleading and popular demand, we are making available one of the demo scenes we showed during our seminar at the Nordic Game conference. You can watch this demo even if you don’t have Maya.
And thanks to all those who came and listened!

http://www.illuminatelabs.com/turtle/environment-spherical-harmonics

THE PEN IS SOMETIMES COOLER THAN THE SWORD

The latest issue of the online-magazine 3D Creative features one of our tutorials and an interview with our very own Head of Development, Mr. Magnus Pettersson. Check it out!

You’ll also not want to miss the June issue of 3D World where Turtle Developer Jens Olsson shares some rather smooth expert tips that can help you get the absolute most out of your Turtle product. Look for it now at a shop near you!

http://www.illuminatelabs.com/turtle/tutorial_3dcreative_may_2007.pdf
http://www.3dworldmag.com

Happenings in the bigger world outside of Turtle

Cool stuff, interesting stuff, educational stuff and other just plain stuff:
(Where our developers are surfing right now)

Knowledge is power: Turtle tutorials, tips and tricks

The Turtle website features a host of really cool tutorials that will help you get the most from your Turtle experience. In addition to being extremely hot looking, they’re also quite useful, explaining in easy terms how to squeeze every last drop from your Turtle. All the new functions in Turtle 4 are covered, including Advanced Baking, Point Cloud Baking, Advanced Global Illumination, Image Based Lighting, and Advanced Motion Blur.

Do and learn at: http://www.illuminatelabs.com/support/tutorial-folder

Spreading the Love

(or stopping it altogether)

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