Village Gamer

Montreal – Audiokinetic Inc., the leading audio solution provider for the video game industry, released today the latest version of Wwise, its award-winning audio pipeline solution. Wwise 2009.3 introduces new features and enhancements, including access to two McDSP plug-ins. Audiokinetic also unveiled a new pricing structure that will allow customers to save up to 20% on purchase of the company’s product families.

Wwise 2009.3 includes the following new features and enhancements:
• McDSP effects: ML1 and FutzBox
• Peak meters on limiter effects
• Vorbis: major memory optimizations
• New & improved file packager
• Profiler data statistics

Audiokinetic and McDSP had announced a technological partnership a few months ago, and the ML1 and FutzBox plug-ins are the first results of this collaboration.

Audiokinetic also gave a sneak-peek of its roadmap for Wwise for 2010, and revealed that new features will include a convolution reverb. “We’re pursuing our goal to see Wwise become a comprehensive platform for sound design, while answering our customers’ needs,” said Simon Ashby, VP Product Strategy, Audiokinetic. “Our users asked for more high-quality effects and a convolution reverb, so we’re delivering these, and more.”

In parallel, Audiokinetic revealed a new pricing structure based on a “buy more – pay less” approach. The pricing structure allows game developers to qualify for discounts if they purchase several products developed by Audiokinetic.

• Purchase of 2 products grants a 5% discount;
• Purchase of the Power Pack – the combination of Wwise, Wwise Motion, SoundSeed Impact, SoundSeed Air, the 2 McDSP effects and the upcoming convolution reverb – grants a 20% discount.

“Our products are powerful yet affordable, and this new pricing structure offers a great value for money,” said Geneviève Laberge, VP Sales, Audiokinetic. “For example, purchasing the Power Pack for 1 title on 2 platforms now costs $33K – that’s an economy of $8,250 compared to the individual price of these 6 valuable products.”

Toronto – Wired Woman Toronto is in need of businesswomen who are interested in joining their mentorship programme as mentors. Wired Woman’s Mentorship programs run in both Toronto and Vancouver, and are for women entering or re-entering the work-force and targets women requiring career guidance. This career mentorship experience is enhanced with networking events and education workshops. Applications for prospective mentors and mentees are accepted all year long.

Montreal – At some time overnight, an (apparently Russian) hacker took over the official site for Splinter Cell, replacing at least the home page (I didn’t venture through bookmarks to test the other pages) with a black and grey static page and message in Russian, which roughly translates to:

Occasionally the security system will be switched off for planned work and data protection. During such work may be a breach in security from external threats. Thus, all off would be a random character in accordance with a random pattern of Delta-3-6-Oscar

The crest, which first appears on the hacked site and then in a text image makes use of the Romanov double-headed eagle, and the GPS co-ordinates in the lower right corner relate to Saint Petersburg in western Russia. The hacker left a message in the replaced source code, including his hacker handle in order to claim his conquest.

Hopefully the web teams at Ubisoft will be able to reclaim the Splinter Cell site soon and plug the holes which allowed outside access soon.

Still over at Ubisoft, the latest Dev Diary blog has been posted for Avatar the Game; today’s topic is Conquest, which is a real-time strategical mini game in which players must capture and hold territory for their chosen Faction, ultimately gaining control of Pandora.

Montreal – The National Film Board of Canada is proud to release the DVD box set Jacques Drouin: Complete Pinscreen Works as of December 2, 2009. Drouin’s name is inextricably linked to the legendary Alexeïeff-Parker pinscreen, with which he produced a unique and poetic body of work.

The box set will be launched at a tribute to Jacques Drouin at the Sommets du cinéma d’animation, at the Cinémathèque québécoise, on Saturday, December 5 at 5 p.m. The event will include a screening of the documentary portrait Jacques Drouin en relief, by Guillaume Fortin.

“Jacques Drouin is a major figure in NFB history,” said Julie Roy, producer of the box set. “For three decades, he was the only filmmaker in the world who was working with the pinscreen, the incredible “dream machine” invented around 1930 by the Russian-born French filmmaker Alexander Alexeïeff. With his high-quality oeuvre, constant experimentation and eminently personal vision, Drouin proved that the pinscreen could express the imagination of people other than its inventor.”

A box set in the prestigious Mémoire collection, Jacques Drouin: Complete Pinscreen Works brings together the six animated shorts Drouin made at the NFB, including his now classic Mindscape (1976), all digitally restored for the collection created to preserve significant film works for the collective memory. Bonus features include four student films, two trailers and several animated sequences with the director’s commentary, as well as Jacques Drouin in Relief. Made specially for the box set, this documentary portrait offers new insights into the work of an outstanding artist. Complementing the films is a bilingual booklet containing essays by animation experts, Drouin’s notes and other invaluable archival documents.

Since Alexeïeff’s death in 1982, the only pinscreen in use anywhere in the world is the one acquired by the NFB in 1972. It consists of 250,000 pins, each inserted in its own hole through a vinyl screen held in a rigid frame. It was with this ingenious device that Jacques Drouin made all of his films, from Trois exercices sur l’écran d’épingles d’Alexeïeff, in 1974, to Imprints, in 2004. Today, animator Michèle Lemieux (Stormy Night) is using it to make her animated short Le grand ailleurs et le petit ici, produced by Julie Roy and slated for release in 2011.

A National Film Board of Canada production, the box set Jacques Drouin: Complete Pinscreen Works goes on sale at the NFB’s online store on December 2, 2009. It can by purchased by phoning 1?800?287?7710 or visiting the website .