University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering Alumnus Mitch Bunnell (1985 BS EE) recently signed a contract to incorporate his company’s Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) technology into video games developed by George Lucas’ LucasArts.
Bunnell founded Pixelux Entertainment in October of 2003 to address the problem of skyrocketing video game production costs while at the same time improving the player’s experience.
DMM provides a material physics simulation for objects in a game’s environment. Items such as tables, walls and trees are simulated to behave in accordance with their real-world make-up. They bend and break in the game as they would in real life.
This approach cuts game production costs by automating a large portion of the most expensive part of the video game production process, the art asset generation. DMM enables the game environment to respond to a player’s actions in real time, instead of having this interaction pre-animated by artists. As a result, thousands of hours of animator time (and the costs associated with that time) can be saved.
“In the old games you couldn’t interact with the environment, such as walls, tables and other inanimate objects,” said Bunnell. “You shoot them and nothing happens or you couldn’t put a hole in the wall or could maybe break one table because that was pre-animated by artists but another wouldn’t. With our technology everything in the video game acts like its real material. All wooden things break like wood and all glass breaks like glass; the entire environment is much more interactive.”
While developing the DMM technology Pixelux was contacted by LucasArts, the video game division of LucasFilm. “LucasArts had seen an early non-real-time animation that we had created and they were impressed,” said Bunnell. Pixelux had planned to have the technology ready for real-time use in two years; however, LucasArts wanted the production time shortened to four months. To enable Pixelux to accomplish this they were given money and office space in San Francisco by LucasArts.
Pixelux completed the DMM technology on time and presented a demo “with brick walls, concrete pillars, rebar-reinforced concrete pillars, glass windows, rubbery plants, and wood beams that would all bend and break realistically in real time,” said Bunnell. “When LucasArts saw the demo we received a standing ovation.”
Pixelux then signed a multi-year contract with LucasArts that granted the game developer the exclusive rights to DMM technology for one year for the entertainment market. It will be incorporated into their next ten games, including Indiana Jones and Star Wars, both to be released in 2007, Bunnell said.
“We expect that in a few years there won’t be action games without our technology. Once you play a game where your entire environment interacts with you and is realistic, it’s almost impossible to go back,” said Bunnell.
Pixelux plans to expand the interactive environment it creates each year. Currently the technology doesn’t include liquids or the ability to cut objects. “Pixelux will be adding new and exciting technology each year and the games will be able to do more amazing things,” said Bunnell.
Notably, Pixelux isn’t the first firm founded by Bunnell. He founded his first company, LynuxWorks, immediately after graduating from UH. LynuxWorks specialized in writing embedded operating systems. Its operating system, LynxOS, is still used in all HP laser printers, Xerox digital copiers, the Boeing 777 cabin management system, the Airbus 340 navigation system, and many more products, Bunnell said.
According to Bunnell, his experience at UH gave him the confidence to start LynuxWorks right out of college, as well as change fields and start Pixelux Entertainment. “I think the approach at UH concentrates on the application of technology in a real-world situation instead of just learning about subjects outside of their applications. This drove me to create technology and actually get it into products. I was taught not just to solve theoretical problems but actually to apply what I learned.”
Bunnell’s advice to future entrepreneurs and engineering graduates is to “do work you enjoy. If you’ve got an idea that is really revolutionary you should take the chance and start a company and do what you have to do to get it out in the market. Don’t just dream about what a great idea it is. Be businessmen as well as engineers”