Unity Acquires Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. (IDV), Creators of SpeedTree® Environment Creation Suite
Unity (NYSE: U) announced the acquisition of Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. (IDV), the creator of SpeedTree®, enhancing the Unity ecosystem for real-time 3D content creation. This acquisition aims to streamline artist workflows and improve environment creation capabilities, addressing current challenges faced by creators. The integration of SpeedTree's software is expected to significantly benefit industries like gaming and visual effects, with applications in major titles and films. The deal closed on July 14, 2021, but financial terms remain undisclosed.
- Acquisition enhances Unity's ecosystem, improving artist workflows and environment creation.
- SpeedTree software is an industry-leading tool, used in popular games and films, which could boost Unity's appeal to developers.
- Future integration is set to improve SpeedTree's asset compatibility with Unity's new features.
- Integration challenges may arise, potentially affecting user experience during the transition.
- Financial terms of the acquisition are undisclosed, raising concerns about potential hidden costs.
Unity (NYSE: U), the world’s leading platform for creating and operating real-time 3D (RT3D) content, today announced the acquisition of Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. (IDV), creator of SpeedTree®, a suite of vegetation modeling and environment creation products for architecture, games, visual effects, and real-time simulations. As a long-time partner to Unity, this acquisition of IDV enables a deeper integration of SpeedTree into the Unity ecosystem, which will significantly enhance artists authoring workflows and environment creation capabilities, and solves a critical pain point for Unity creators across industries: the ability to bring rich environments to life quickly and efficiently.
“Creating natural, organic-looking environments is currently a costly and labor-intensive process. If you’re pursuing a high level of detail and realism, the process of manually creating one tree - not to mention a forest - can take upwards of four months,” said Ralph Hauwert, Senior Vice President, Research & Development, Unity. “With IDV’s SpeedTree suite of products part of the Unity product ecosystem, we can now offer creators native authoring workflows for creating real-time, rich, organic environments.”
SpeedTree software is currently the leading foliage solution for the games industry. Recent hits such as Horizon: Zero Dawn, Call of Duty: War Zone, The Witcher 3, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, Hitman III, and Ghost of Tsushima have all used SpeedTree to assist in their environment creation.
SpeedTree software is also a leading solution for visual effects, and has previously received a Scientific and Technical Academy Award® from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its contributions to modern cinema and an Engineering Emmy Award for its impact on the television industry. SpeedTree foliage solutions can be spotted in hundreds of major films, from indie projects to the highest-grossing films of 2020.
“We grew SpeedTree into an industry-standard tool by working directly with artists and developers across industries. This allowed SpeedTree to adapt to and anticipate the challenges faced by artists creating larger and higher fidelity worlds in real-time and VFX applications,” said Chris King, Co-Founder, Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. “We’re excited to join with Unity as we continue to work directly with creators at every level, expanding our existing solutions and developing new technologies as we move forward into the next phase of real-time interactive content.”
Today, SpeedTree and Unity customers can continue using both services as usual, including the existing SpeedTree and Unity integration. Like many of Unity’s products, including Vivox and Multiplay, SpeedTree’s tools and expansive library of ready-to-use content is engine agnostic, ensuring it continues to reach creators in any development environment. Unity will retain all ten SpeedTree employees.
Future benefits include a deeper integration within the Unity ecosystem and better workflows between the two companies. This process has begun with Unity’s upcoming 2021.2 release, which highlights better integration of SpeedTree-generated assets with Unity’s Scriptable Render Pipelines and Terrain system.
The transaction closed on July 14, 2021. Financial and legal terms of the deal will not be disclosed.
About Unity
Unity (NYSE: U) is the world’s leading platform for creating and operating real-time 3D (RT3D) content. Creators, ranging from game developers to artists, architects, automotive designers, filmmakers, and others, use Unity to make their imaginations come to life. Unity’s platform provides a comprehensive set of software solutions to create, run and monetize interactive, real-time 2D and 3D content for mobile phones, tablets, PCs, consoles, and augmented and virtual reality devices. The company’s 1,800+ person research and development team keeps Unity at the forefront of development by working alongside partners to ensure optimized support for the latest releases and platforms. Apps developed by Unity creators were downloaded more than five billion times per month in 2020. For more information, please visit www.unity.com.
About Interactive Data Visualization, Inc.
Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. (IDV), is the creator of SpeedTree® a suite of vegetation modeling and environment creation products for architecture, games, visual effects, and real-time simulations.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding Unity’s ability to increase Unity’s artist authoring workflow and environment creation capabilities, the impact of the transaction on Unity’s and Interactive Data Visualizations products and services capabilities, and customers. The words “will,” “allows,” “can,” “enable,” “objective” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, such as Unity’s ability to successfully integrate Interactive Data Visualization’s technology and business, including its SpeedTree® software; costs related to the acquisition; whether potential benefits of the transaction extend to Unity and Interactive Data Visualization customers; Unity’s and Interactive Data Visualization’s success developing new products or modifying existing products and the degree to which these gain market acceptance; and any unanticipated impact of accounting for the acquisition. If the risks materialize or assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. Further information on these and additional risks that could affect Unity’s results is included in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including our Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on May 12, 2021, and our future reports that we may file with the SEC from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. Unity assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.
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