NEWS - Wednesday, November 29, 2006
2006 Front Line Awards Nominees
The editors of CMP Technology’s Game Developer magazine have announced the finalists for the 2006 Front Line Awards, the magazine’s ninth annual evaluation of the year’s best in game-making tools. Award categories include: programming, art, audio, hardware, game engine, middleware, and books. The awards winners will not be announced until the January 2007 issue of Game Developer hits newsstands on January 17, 2007. In addition to the winners in the above categories, a Front Line Awards Hall of Fame inductee will be announced, chosen for its outstanding contribution to the game development industry for five years or more. The products nominated were selected by readers of Game Developer magazine, as well as other game professionals. Winners will be chosen by a panel of professional game developers specializing in the fields relevant to each category. Finalists and award recipients are selected based on utlity, innovation, value, and ease of use. "Game Developer magazine, at its heart, is about the advancement of the state of the art of games and the Front Line Awards celebrate the otherwise unsung heroes of that demanding quest," said Simon Carless, Editorial Director of Game Developer. "In a year that has brought us into the next generation, it is these products that have made possible the incredible new gaming experiences we can now enjoy." The finalists for the 2006 Front Line Awards are: ENGINES Torque Game Builder 1.1.1, Garage Games Valve Source Engine, Valve Unreal Engine 3, Epic HeroEngine, Simutronics Corporation Gamebryo 2.2, Emergent BOOKS "Better Game Characters By Design," Katherine Isbister, Morgan Kaufmann "3D Game Textures: Create Professional Game Art Using Photoshop," Luke Ahearn, Focal Press "ShaderX4," Wolfgang Engel (ed.), Charles River Media "Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames," Chris Bateman, Charles River Media "Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds," by Jesper Juul, The MIT Press HARDWARE FireGL V7300, ATI GEForce 7950GX2, Nvidia PhysX, Ageia and BFG Technologies Alienware Mj12 8550i workstation, Alienware/Dell Xbox 360 XMA Audio Decompression Hardware, Microsoft MIDDLEWARE AI.implant, Engenuity Technologies Inc. SpeedTree 4.0, IDV Havok FX 4.0, Havok Euphoria, NaturalMotion Kynapse SDK 4, Kynogon SA PROGRAMMING XNA Game Studio Express, Microsoft Perforce SCM 2006.1, Perforce Software NVPerfKit2, Nvidia IBM Rational Purify Plus v7.0, IBM DevTrack 6.0, TechExcel ART Modo 202, Luxology Maya 8, Autodesk Corel Painter IX.5, Corel Softimage Face Robot, Softimage MotionBuilder 7.5, Autodesk AUDIO Wwise 2006.2.1, Audiokinetic Miles Sound System v7.q, RAD Game Tools CRI ADX, CRI Middleware Co. Ltd. Vivox Precision Studio and the Vivox Network managed service, Vivox ISACT, Creative LabsSource: http://www.ign.com/
