Clermont-Ferrand, France - As developers continue to push the limit and create high-quality and visually stimulating online games, yet the need to quickly and efficiently reduce content size is increasing. Emerging 3D technology company Allegorithmic is addressing the demand to decrease downloadable client size with its new automatic texture compression tool, Substance Redux.
Substance Redux was created to reduce the size of already-produced textures, and even works within online games that have reached completion. As a pure compression tool, Substance Redux is incredibly easy to use, condensing bitmap textures within a few seconds without noticeable loss of in-game quality or performance. Small- to large-scale MMO textures can be quickly reduced by close to 50 percent, making this tool a state-of-the-art solution for online games at an advanced stage of development.
"Substance Redux, the first in an exciting new line of products from Allegorithmic, is an intuitive compression tool that users are able to easily integrate into existing pipelines and production realities," says Dr. Sebastien Deguy, president and founder of Allegorithmic. "Similar to a WinZip dedicated solely to online games, Substance Redux is a remarkably smart tool that will fundamentally change the way users reduce and compress textures."
Key features in Substance Redux include:
Detailed texture map analysis and optimal compression scheme
Use of custom automatic filters to improve quality
Ultra fast in-house DXT compression at runtime
Plugs-ins for Epic's Unreal Engine 3 and Emergent's Gamebryo engine
Substance Redux pricing varies based on the type of game and gaming platform and is available for evaluation in April 2010.