VirtualCinema® is a fast, robust, multi-platform, multimedia authoring environment. The engine supports full-screen video, simultaneous video and audio playback, a wide variety of graphic effects, graphic animation, color cursors, and intelligent hot spots. VirtualCinema runs on Macintosh, Windows and Sony Playstation. A streaming client/server version is now available. At its core, VirtualCinema is a proprietary software playback engine that was originally designed for interactive movies, allowing the player to become the protagonist -- experiencing the movie through the eyes and the mind of the central character. Now the high-performance engine is integrated with a production methodology designed around it, a seamless interface design, and a layered narrative structure. Together, they create an intuitive and immersive user-controlled "storyworld" that embraces the dramatic and emotional language of film, married with the structure of a role-playing experience. VirtualCinema has three large-scale interactive products to its credit; the latest is The X-Files Game, produced for and distributed worldwide by Fox Interactive. In its eighth year of commercial use, VirtualCinema has demonstrated its flexibility as a development environment and its reliability as a delivery mechanism, offering easy installation, strong inter-operability and minimal need for technical support. VirtualCinema is ideal for: ï Game titles with either video, animation or 3-D ï Interactive movies or other forms of interactive stories ï Corporate applications ï Computer based training VirtualCinema is extremely well-developed, designed for ease of use by a variety of skill levels and styles of product. It can lend itself to a small presentation or a full-blown production. Its long-term potential is as a standard for creating interactive games and other forms of interactive drama. A powerful development platform for games, interactive movies and non-entertainment applications, VirtualCinema is flexible enough to meet the needs of each individual product or service desired by its customers. For a detailed explanation of the VirtualCinema methodologies and design philosophy, please download the VirtualCinema Bible on the Downloads section of this site. VirtualCinema® Technology HyClass HyperBole’s VirtualCinema core C++ class library ï 300,000 lines of fully commented code base; standard ANSI C++ ï 32-bit technology designed to support advanced multimedia ï Robust, portable and fast ï Cross-platform support for Windows and Windows NT, Mac OS version 7 and up ï Optimized and tuned for each target processor, using native technology where appropriate ï All higher-level VirtualCinema applications use this code library VCAuthor VirtualCinema authoring environment ï High-level visual tool used for creating intricate and immersive VirtualCinema titles ï Large-scale media entry and manipulation; movie/audio/graphics previewing ï Movie and graphics layout for creating navigable environments ï Visual hotspot definition over graphics and video ï Ability to define variables, actions, triggers and hooks to custom C++ functions ï Data written to a fast, lightweight, object-oriented database specifically designed for storing VirtualCinema data ï Runs on Windows and Macintosh. VCEngine VirtualCinema playback engine ï Reads a VirtualCinema database at runtime to "play" the title ï Full-motion video, 600x240 (letterbox), up to 30 fps in 24-bit color ï Full-screen video, 30 fps in 24-bit color ï Video loops, video memory preloading, on-the-fly video editing ï Supports all standard video codecs; QuickTime, AVI, MPEG and DV file formats ï Video hot spot tracking with rollover cursors ï Real-time video color adjustment, playback rate shifting, and graphics effects ï 1-, 8-, 16-, 24- and 32-bit color graphics; BMP, PICT, GIF and JPEG file formats ï Animated sprites/cursors ï Transparency via chroma-key; translucency/masking via 8-bit alpha channel ï Full integration of graphics over moving video ï Wide variety of transition effects; plug-in architecture for adding new effects ï CD quality (44KHz, 16-bit) audio; supports all standard audio codecs; WAVE, AIFF and AU file formats ï Real-time mixing of multiple audio tracks ï Real-time audio effects, including volume and panning ï General MIDI playback; custom instruments samples supported ï Asynchronous playback of all media types: video, audio, animation, MIDI ï Ties database "über" variables to various real-time video, audio and graphic effects ï Optimized for CD-ROM and DVD-ROM playback. Streaming CLIENT/SERVER version now available.