RAD Game Tools

RAD Game Tools is privately-held company based in Kirkland, Washington that develops video and computer game software technologies which are licensed primarily by video game companies. RAD Game Tools products have appeared in over 8,400 games which had shipped in over 50 million end-user games in 2001.

Company history

They opened their doors in 1988 as a Windows programming and consulting company located in Salt Lake City, Utah. While consulting, they worked on many products, including Microsoft Golf, Under a Killing Moon, Norton Desktop, and Quattro Pro.

In late 1993, they began development of Smacker Video Technology, which was their first product that was not written for any particular company. Smacker was released in spring 1994 and, although it was designed for all video developers, it became most popular with game developers. In the several years since its release, Smacker has appeared in more than 2,600 video games. Throughout the mid-90s, over half of all PC and Mac games employed Smacker technology.

In 1994, they were named the 63rd Fastest Growing Company in America by Inc. Magazine (the "Inc. 500"), and the number 1 fastest growing company in Utah. In 1995, they were still the 18th fastest growing company in Utah.

In late 1995, they acquired a sound technology product called the Miles Sound System from Miles Design. Like Smacker, Miles had been used in a huge number of games (over 3,200) and had a very loyal, even "bordering-on-rabid", following. It remains one of the most sophisticated sound system today.

In mid 1998, they moved their headquarters from Salt Lake City, Utah to Kirkland, Washington and later that year, John Miles joined RAD Game Tools as a full time employee and followed them to Kirklan

In January 1999, they acquired the RSX 3D Audio technology from Intel Corporation and integrated it directly into the Miles Sound System.

Early 1999 also marked the release of their latest video codec, Bink video, which provides DVD quality compression at up to three times the playback speed. Bink has gone on to be licensed for over 2,200 games and is one of the most popular video codec for games.

In mid 1999, Casey Muratori joined RAD Game Tools after working at Gas Powered Games and definition 6 with Chris Hecker. He is currently working on their Granny 3D software.

Granny 3D is a 3D animation product and has since been licensed for over 400 games. It was released in late 1999.

In 2001, most of their technologies were available on contemporary video game consoles. Bink, Granny and soon the Miles Sound System were made available for the Xbox and the Nintendo GameCube.

In late 2001, Mike Sartain joined RAD Game Tools after working on the Xbox at Microsoft. In addition to his work in the ATG group at Microsoft, Mike worked on several Microsoft games as well.

In early 2002, Michael Abrash also joined RAD Game Tools after working on the Xbox at Microsoft. Michael is well known in the programmer community and is the author of many books on programming.

In mid 2002, Steve Theodore (first company artist) started at RAD after working at Valve on Half-Life and Team Fortress 2. Steve is also well-known in the game development community, having written many articles for Game Developer magazine.

In 2002, they introduced Granny 2.0 which combined the dynamic 3D animation system of its predecessor with a completely new and optimized run-time engine to deliver higher performance using a small memory footprint.

In late 2002, they released their software 3D renderer, Pixomatic. Pixomatic is a software renderer that provides MIP mapping, bi-linear filtering, alpha-blending, alpha-test, point sprites, multi-texture, 32-bit and palettized textures, DOT-3 bump mapping, fog, specular, stencil and z-buffering, indexed primitives, multiple streams, high-speed blitting, and more.

External link

• RAD Game Tools Official Website (http://www.radgametools.com/)