LightWave® Visual Effects Houses Bring Hyper-Reality to Box Office Smash "300"

NewTek video profile features artists discussing LightWave 3D® VFX work

San Antonio, Texas -- March 15, 2007 -- NewTek, Inc., manufacturer of industry-leading 3D animation and video products, today announced the release of a behind-the-scenes video featuring the creation of visual effects sequences for Warner Bros., "300", the visually stunning adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel. Creating over 200 visual effects shots, Pixel Magic and Screaming Death Monkey put the full feature set of LightWave 3D® to work creating everything from set extensions to living smoke, oceans, skies, helmets, shields, swords, arrows and armies.

"The majority of the work we did in 3D was LightWave, for us it encompassed everything from the ocean and armies to spears, arrows and shields that the guys held and threw," said Ray McIntyre Jr., Pixel Magic visual effects supervisor. "We love the LightWave renderer. It makes beautiful, motion-picture quality images and it's fast."

"We are very excited to present this insight into how Pixel Magic and Screaming Death Monkey achieved these amazing effects," said Jay Roth, president of the NewTek 3D division. "These exceptional artists took total advantage of all of the strengths that LightWave 3D has to offer from stunning rendering to fast efficient modeling to a creative, flexible pool of talented artists."

"I like LightWave because it’s easy to use and can make really pretty pictures," comments Jeremy Hunt, founder of Screaming Death Monkey. "Straight out of the box it can do a lot of really, really interesting stuff and it's fast. Rendering is fast, set up and manipulation is fast."

"We prefer LightWave over some of the other programs," said Tyler Foell, Pixel Magic in-house digital effects supervisor. "I think the advantage of using LightWave is that it’s more of a generalist’s tool, meaning one person can do so many things using LightWave, you can start with pre-vis and work all the way through, rather than having to specialize."

Pricing and Availability
The LightWave® v9 Training Bundle is available through April 30, 2007 at authorized NewTek resellers in North America for a suggested retail price of $895US. The LightWave v9 Training Bundle includes the LightWave v9 printed documentation set, along with 5 coupons worth hundreds of dollars in FREE training materials. Purchasers will receive the training materials by redeeming the coupons directly with the publishers. Registered owners of LightWave 3D® [8] or earlier are eligible to purchase an upgrade to LightWave v9 for $495US. For more information or to purchase, please visit http://www.newtek.com/ or call NewTek Sales at 1-800-368-5441, for international inquiries dial +1-210-370-8000. To locate a NewTek Authorized Reseller please visit www.NewTek.com/dealers.

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, 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. Website: http://www.newtek.com/

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