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Zoic Studios Breaks New VFX Ground in Fox Series Drive

Las Vegas, Nevada - NAB - April 16, 2007

New Render Features in LightWave® v9.2 Help Make Demanding Car Race Sequences Photoreal

NewTek, Inc., innovator of award-winning 3D animation and video products, today revealed the extensive use of LightWave 3D® by the artists at Zoic Studios in the creation of the new Fox Series, Drive. The series as described by Fox is "an action-fueled drama following a diverse group of Americans driving for their lives (or the lives of their loved ones) in a sinister, cross-country road race." The show features locations all over the U.S. but the production is headquartered in Los Angeles, resulting in the extensive use of green-screen photography to transport the audience from location to location. Zoic Studios has developed an entirely new approach to the visual effects for Drive by introducing an omniscient camera that moves seamlessly from the open road in and around moving vehicles.

"LightWave has been a wonderful thing for Zoic because its inherent renderer is perfect for our heavy metal shots," commented Loni Peristere, creative director, Zoic Studios. "We're able to get incredibly photorealistic LightWave renders with the benefit of 9.2's new motion blur. We no longer have to worry about edge blurs that break up when we hit a vector. It's really all of the sudden pushed the renderer into heavy competition with Mental Ray and Renderman, so we don't have to do it at the high price point. We get photorealistc renders with raytracing, subdivision and all the bells and whistles, with motion blur."

The approximately 130 visual effects shots Zoic is tasked to produce for each episode requires extensive pre-visualization and planning. While the show features many largely digital scenes the challenge is that the effects must be entirely invisible to the viewer.

"Zoic Studios pioneered many of the innovative new visual effects techniques we see on television today," said Jay Roth, president, NewTek 3D division. "Clearly they are setting a new standard with their accomplishments on Drive. We're proud to have been with Zoic from the beginning and deeply rewarded that the new features we've recently added to the LightWave render engine allow them to achieve this level of realism."

Pricing and Availability

NewTek products are distributed in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands by New Magic Australia. LightWave V9 is available now for $1299 (Aust$) for a single user license. LightWave V9 upgrades for existing LightWave owners are $649 (Aust$). For more information or to purchase contact New Magic. To locate a New Magic / NewTek Authorized Reseller click here.

Newtek in Australia and New Zealand

NewTek products are distributed in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands by New Magic Australia.

About New Magic Australia Pty Ltd

About NewTek

With headquarters in San Antonio, Texas, NewTek is a leading provider of full-featured video editing, live production, presentation, animation and special effects tools including LightWave 3D®, winner of the 2003 Primetime Emmy® Engineering Award, 3D Arsenal™, TriCaster™ and VT[4]™. NewTek launched the desktop video revolution in 1990 with the release of the legendary Video Toaster®. The company's products are used worldwide on projects ranging from home video to feature film. Recent television and film projects using NewTek production tools include 300, The Guardian, Ant Bully, The DaVinci Code, Mr. & Mrs.Smith, Serenity, Sin City, Fantastic Four, Drive, The 4400, Stargate:SG1, Stargate: Atlantis, Battlestar: Galactica, Prison Break, LOST, CSI, Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight, Recent game titles include Shadow of the Colossus, Black, Ridge Racer 6, Burnout Revenge, Driver: Parallel Lines, Quake IV and Heroes of Might and Magic 6.