Unity has announced the purchase of Interactive Data Visualization. The company is best known for the SpeedTree package, with which developers can simulate plants and the environment. The size of the transaction is not disclosed.
According to the portal 80 Lvl with reference to a press release, the takeover was completed on July 14. However, both companies officially announced this only yesterday.
Unity noted that the deal will allow it to expand the capabilities of artists:
Today, creating a natural, organic—looking nature is an expensive and time-consuming process. If you are aiming for a high level of detail and realism, manually modeling a single tree (not to mention a forest) can take at least four months. Thanks to IDV's SpeedTree package, which is part of the Unity product ecosystem, we can now offer artists our own technologies to create a real-time environment.
Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Unity
SpeedTree will continue to work independently of the Unity engine for now, including the package will be available on the Unreal Engine. But over time, Unity plans to fully integrate it into its engine.
Interactive Data Visualization developed SpeedTree in 2002. The package has been used in a variety of both indie games and AAA titles. Among them are Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Witcher 3 Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, Hitman III and Ghost of Tsushima. Also, with the help of SpeedTree, they created nature in big-budget films like Avatar and the fifth part of Pirates of the Caribbean.