Mark Granger, Industry Leading 3D Graphics and Rendering Programmer Tapped to Help Advance the Capabilities of NewTek's LightWave 3D®

Former Electric Image, Inc., co-founder and innovator of 3D rendering technology is the newest member of the LightWave® development team.

San Antonio, Texas – March 9, 2005 -- NewTek, Inc., manufacturer of industry-leading 3D animation and video products, announced today that Mark Granger has signed on with the LightWave® development team to improve and advance the capabilities of NewTek’s award-winning 3D product. Among Granger’s notable achievements is the
development of the Electric Image rendering engine, Camera, which is widely regarded one of the fastest and highest quality renderers on the market. The EI renderer is capable of rendering extremely complex scenes containing many millions of polygons in just a few minutes even when fully anti-aliased at film resolution.

As co-founder of Electric Image, Inc., and the technical visionary behind their leading professional 3D animation system, Granger was responsible for the development of a series of breakthrough technological advances including: invention of a very efficient rasterizing hidden surface algorithm; invention of the motion vector blur algorithm, a first of its kind in the industry capable of producing high quality motion blur streaks in minimal rendering time; invention of a volumetric light ray and smoke engine, another industry first; and the development of an efficient volumetric BSP tree ray tracing engine.

Additionally, Granger is responsible for the creation of the Mr. Font program, the first to successfully convert Type 1 Postscript fonts into high quality 3D meshes, and the Mr. Nitro plug-in which was used to blow up Los Angeles for the movie Terminator 2. Granger also developed software for direct conversion of rendered animations to the Abekas A60 format, which created a fast, reliable, inexpensive solution for animators to produce broadcast quality digital video from their desktop computer. Further, Granger has been awarded three patents by the US Patent and Trademark Office for his invention of other software technologies.

 “We have a strong, experienced and diverse LightWave 3D® development team; adding an engineer of the caliber of Mark Granger just brings the team to the next level,” said Andrew Cross, PhD, NewTek’s senior vice president of software engineering. “We are incredibly excited about the innovations we can achieve with this powerful team.”

“I have seen LightWave grow into a power house in the industry as I have observed the development of the software and the community,” said Granger. “I am enthusiastic about using my expertise in 3D graphics and rendering technology to help this team guide LightWave into a very bright future.”

Pricing and Availability
LightWave [8] is available now for Windows and Mac platforms for $1595US full-version and $495US upgrade. For a limited time a LightWave 3D® Electronic Full Competitive Upgrade is available for $495US, for registered owners of Maya™, Softimage™ XSI, 3ds max®, Electric Image™, Strata Studio Pro, Cinema 4D™, Truespace™, Hash Animation Master™, Autocad®, Pro/Engineer® and SolidWorks®. Proof of ownership required to qualify. Registered LightWave® owners will also be able to purchase an additional seat of LightWave® at the $495 price. This special offer is available through April 30, 2005, from any Authorized NewTek Reseller, from NewTek's web site at http://www.newtek.com/buynow or by calling 1-800-843-8934, overseas callers dial +1-210-370-8000. Find a local NewTek Authorized Reseller at 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 TriCaster™, VT[4] TM and LightWave 3D®, winner of the 2003 Primetime Emmy® Engineering Award. 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 software include The Aviator, Flight of the Phoenix, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Aliens of the Deep, "I, Robot", Spiderman 2, The Last Samurai, Battlestar: Galactica, Firefly, Smallville, Star Trek: Enterprise, Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight, Recent game titles include Doom III, Unreal Tournament, Serious Sam for XBox, Age of Mythology, Civilization III, Dead to Rights, Baldur's Gate II, EverQuest and Escape From Monkey Island. Website: http://www.newtek.com.

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