----- Original Message -----
From:
adrian
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 10:05
PM
Subject: [Virtools] Short history of love
, $ and i3D.
As a member of "the swapmeet" and Dev 2.0 user I
think that many of you will find our own experience with Virtools, at least
usefull...
***********************************************************************************************************************************************
Let me first introduce myself. Im Adrian
Simonovich, CEO of SIA Sistemas.
SIA Sistemas is an Argentinian company that
employs 25 people and has 5 year experience developing i3D solutions,
including developments on the games, e-commerce and simulation markets.
Our customers are big multinational companies
like Coca Cola, Shell, Citibank, Carrefour, etc.
We developed our applications using nearly all
the comercial packages including Super***e, Sens*8, Wildtang*nt, Dire**X, etc.
etc.,etc. I know many of you from other users lists..
***********************************************************************************************************************************************
We first contacted Virtools on March 2000
interested for the quality of the demos .
We received a limited demo, and to be honest we
didn't liked very much the idea of programming on a graphical environment but
we started testing the product with many problems.
We assisted to Siggraph 2000 (New Orleans) and we
confirmed our previous idea when we meet N**o team..
A very disorganized group
of high motivated people.
Somebody made a demo in front of 50 or 100
people, I never saw a demo crashing so many times.... the demo machine was
rebooted time after time...
In the other hand the content of the demo was
amazing... procedural textures, physics behavior, animations & geometry
imported straight from 3D Max, collision detection , great rendering quality,
etc. etc.
The "promise" of N**o "NextGen" (that was
the name of Dev 2.0 at that time) was made at the event.... we couldn't resist
to it..
********************************************************************************************************************************************
We re-contacted with the Virtools people on
Hanoover at Cebit 2001 and we realized that Dev 2.0 was a reallity
!!
This time the product was working fine, the demos
were very impressive and this time we received a clear picture of Virtools
vision from Virgile Delporte.
Let me say that selling the product to SIA was
not a trivial task... it was more than a year from the initial contact
!!!
*********************************************************************************************************************************************
We bought a 3 seats package + physics + some
spacial drivers.
A huge investment for a small company located in
South America....
We were "warn" to receive training, but we
resolved that hiring "Einstein to learn how to add 2 integers was
nonsense".
After 2 weeks "playing" with Dev we received a
P.O. from Carrefour (supermarket) & Oreo (cookies from
Nabisco) to made a stand alone "Pacman style" game to be used at point
of sale..
2 weeks later our project was finish and our
customer happy. I realized that the project was 80% made by a 3D artist
!!!
This project payed back our whole investment on
Virtools technology.
***********************************************************************************************************************************************
I have to be honest and say that we were disappointed by
documentation so we decided to contract training.
Leila Ait Kaci from Virtools was sent to accomplish this difficult
mission....
We can say that the training was for "beginers" given that assistants
included programers, 3D artists, marketing people, etc.
but Leila managed so well to cover most of the aspects of the products
including the Physics package and the SDK.
I can say that we discover the product during the training !!
By nature documentation of a "graphic" product is not a trivial task,
documenting the kind of training we received from Leila is just
impossible.
Even if we could have the best documentation, I think that training
is the best investment I have done.
If your company has a team of 4 or more people, training will save
at least 2 months of "research by yourself"
so, it will be paid back before starting it and it will put you on the
right track.
***********************************************************************************************************************************************
We consider Dev not just a development tool, but also a "business" tool,
it allow us "redefine" the tasks of our team.
For first time our 3D artists are making the tasks that consume most
of the time in a project. Including basic scripting an all the collision
related work.
We signed a contract with a regional broadband operator and we are making
"prototypes" of games in days instead months !!
I just want to thank Leila for her patience and
talent in training our people. I don't know the other traineers at Virtools
(please don't be jealous!) but I really suggest to training
with Leila.
I want also thank to Virtools team for Dev 2.0, we are falling in love
with the product.....(and also earning some $)
Regards, Adrian Simonovich.
PD1: If you are new using Virtools, take training even if you
got experince developing i3D
PD2: Sorry for my english... I have to improve it...
| SIA
Sistemas Araoz 946 C1414DPT Capital Federal Buenos Aires Argentina tel/fax 054 11 4778-9000 mail@siasistemas.com.ar http://www.siasistemas.com.ar |
|
