Havok, the premier provider of interactive software and services to digital creators in the games and movies industries, today from the Montreal International Game Summit announced that the company will offer unprecedented access to its acclaimed Havok Behavior Tool for designers and animators of 3D video and PC game characters.

Starting tomorrow, professional game developers, educational institutions, and enthusiasts alike can download and use the Havok Behavior Tool from www.havok.com/tryhavok, to build and simulate game-ready interactive characters in a 3D game level.

The Havok Behavior Tool, along with the Havok Content Tools which are also available for download, are key components of Havok’s larger suite of cross-platform middleware products which include Havok Physics, Havok Animation, Havok Cloth, Havok Destruction, and Havok Behavior.

The Havok Behavior Tool dramatically accelerates the creative process of building interactive game characters by giving designers and artists unprecedented power and utility in a single tool that is built specifically for interactive game character design. Game developers can take advantage of built-in state-of-the-art physics and animation technologies within the Havok Behavior Tool to sense and react to objects, terrain, and other characters around them.

“This kind of creative access was previously limited to programming and proprietary in-house tool sets,” says Jeff Yates, VP Product Management of Havok.“With the Havok Behavior Tool, we wanted to enable an entirely new generation of interactive content creators who can bridge the gap between static 3D assets and game code. Making the Havok Behavior Tool broadly available is a vital first step in empowering this new age of interactive authoring talent.”

Using Havok’s downloadable tools, game designers and artists can see their 3D characters and animations which have been created in Autodesk’s 3ds Max, Maya, and XSI, come to life in a dynamic world that they can play in, and build upon to prototype new game concepts and character mechanics.

Once authored, behaviors and character content created within the Havok tools can be used directly within a game that has licensed Havok’s Physics, Animation, and Behavior middleware technology for commercial use.

An overview of the Havok Behavior Tool will be presented at the Montreal International Game Summit, Wednesday, November 19th at a session entitled“Accelerating Creativity: Building Environmentally Aware Character Behaviors with the Havok Behavior Tool.”

For more information on full commercial licensing of Havok products on a broad range of game platforms, please visit www.havok.com/buyhavok.

Link